What a great achievement you are describing, this exciting growth across many towns in america is made possible by Our Towns
" All politics is local," is how Tip O'Neill described the American phenomenon of street corners and local issues. " Self-interest rightly understood, " is the deep phrase by deToqueville; reading the book helps us see the foreign visitor's insight.
and of course, Carl Sandburg was one of the greatest observers of the energy of the common man in America :
carl sandburg :
"The republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream."
"Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders."
"I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?"
"Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you. "
You've touched on one of my pet peeves: how little attention national media pays to what's happening in large swathes of the country (and when they do, they get a lot wrong). I have my frustrations with Ohio, especially our state government which has increasingly gone the extremist route of other states under trifecta Republican rule. Life in my city and community, though, is not among them. There are a lot of things that work well, including local governments, much of the time.
I saw the same thing on a back roads camping trip this summer: 61 days, 16 states and over 8200 miles. I saw the dying towns and the despair as well, yet over all I saw a lot of small towns that worked well. And there's nothing like connecting with people in real life to realize that we have so much more in common with each other than the noxious politics that divide us, especially on social media.
Thanks so much. This is very much the contradictory reality we are trying to convey. If people think there is *no* hope, they (we) understandably hunker down. If they realize it's an ongoing, open-ended struggle to determine the future of the country, they are more likely to engage.
I relate so well to Eliot's line in that poem; I spent a large portion of my adult life yearning to return to the region of my youth and now that I am safely tucked into my retirement home 5 miles from the house I grew up in, I could not be more content. That house is in Ottawa County, Michigan; the last time Ottawa County voted for a Democrat for president was 1864, when just over half the county voted for McLellan, whom Abraham Lincoln soundly defeated. In 2020 I drove through miles of local farm land to visit a friend and signs for tfg were as common as fence posts. The trees in this county have red roots going down 20 feet or more.
And yet I and many of my friends are strong supporters of our current president and his agenda. I have occasional mini-debates on Facebook with conservative friends; the last one was addressing their outrage at paying off college debts. Then I see them, shake hands, and talk about all sorts of stuff. Overall, politics represents only one small facet of my relationships with friends & neighbors. I seldom ask about political affiliations, mostly because I don't care. I share the road, the grocery store and my neighborhood with folks who are very likely supporters of politicians I loathe. There is this old guy down the road near a busy street corner who often sits in his front yard, waving at passersby. A couple of weeks ago I saw a sign for a Republican in front of his house. I still wave when I see him, as enthusiastically as I ever did.
My mother adored Fox "News" and Rush Limbaugh. We would have long debates about politics where we would scold one another about our respective affiliations, and end up laughing. Alzheimer's had wiped out her political views by the time I moved in to become her primary caregiver in 2009. She passed in December 2012 - when I was in an airplane over the Atlantic, flying home from Cairo.
It's easier to tolerate those who support the Evil One - who of course wants to end America as we know it - if I remember that if Mom were alive & lucid today that could easily be her. It makes me less likely to swell up with righteous indignation when I see one of those wretched blue & red stickers.
And I don't think I'm all that different from the vast majority of Americans. Some of us get a little crazy, and of course the news media love to point their cameras at the crazies to attract more viewers/readers, but for the most part we're all just trying to get by and help our neighbors in the process. So I'm not a bit surprised to see overwhelming evidence of that stuff in places all over this country. In fact, I wouldn't mind hearing more stories like this.
Thanks so much for this. The details you list here all ring true to me.
One of Deb's and my ambitions is simply to *tell* more of this side of the current story. It doesn't resolve any of the genuinely pressing national problems. But it does put them in a different context, as you say.
Only one of Deb's and my parents is still around — Deb's mom, who will soon (fates willing) be 101 years old, and is in wonderful shape. But the power of Fox news among older Americans is profound. (My own parents went through a different transition. They had been raised as Republicans. My mother died earlier but my dad survived just long enough to be aware that Obama was likely to win in 2008, which he was glad to know. We were living in Beijing at the time, and I was shuttling back and forth to see him.)
This is the most encouraging thing I've read in a long time! It's wonderful reading about people making lives better for others as well as themselves. And it would be fun to explore it.
I've been wanting to drive coast to coast and back. Three cross country trips by age 8 were formative experiences for me--great adventures seeing the whole country go by--the Great Plains, the mountains, and the deserts. I've been looking for a theme for such a trip, beyond simply revisiting places I first saw as a small child. This sort of thing is definitely a possibility.
Lonely Planet is a website that has great, accurate information about any kind of travel
I recommend the wonderful book, Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. The 2 lane blue highways on the printed road map show the traveller the regular america off the superhighway.
I read and loved Blue Highways probably when it first came out, but somehow it never occurred to me to look for the blue highways on the road maps.
Yet, now that I'm looking for them on your suggestion, the back roads aren't blue on my recent AAA maps, nor in my Rand McNally road atlas, for the whole country. What maps have the back roads in blue?
Yes, I was working at the Atlantic when Bill Whitworth, our sainted editor, chose Blue Highways as a cover story. It does stand up — both the book, and Bill W's article choice during that two-decade era.
We did that this summer, starting in Ohio and wending our way west into Colorado, where we went to a bluegrass festival, then on to Washington via Utah and Idaho. We took the northern route back to SW Ohio. Got a lot of experience traveling back roads (we avoided interstates) and finding interesting camping sites you could grab on the fly.
We've decided a couple of future trips will be traveling the Mississippi River from its source to the delta, and finding interesting US routes that we could follow (we were on US 2 from Washington State to St Ignace, Michigan).
We did that the entire trip (until the end, when after 8 weeks, I was eager to get home). It was a life changing experience. I can't imagine ever taking a long trip like this again on interstates. The back highways are so much more interesting, and you get to see a lot more of the country.
I drive regularly between my home and Niskayuna NY (outside Albany). Now, unless I'm in a huge hurry--which almost never happens--I take the backroads--generally Rt. 2 from Cambridge, to Williamstown, practically at the Mass/NY border, and then two tiny roads up to NY 7, a back road, which I into Albany. Gorgeous country, interesting houses and other buildings, and often old classic cars sitting near the road. And at the top of the Berkshires on 2, about 8 wind turbines.
I desperately needed some sort of data that would support my hope that Something Must Be Working for the Good of the Citizenry Somewhere. The key for all of us is to remember that pockets of people committed to making the lives of their neighbors better can happen even beneath an umbrella of otherwise bad things. It is all too easy to dismiss those good things when they are not part of larger perfect things.
Aug 30, 2022·edited Aug 30, 2022Liked by James Fallows
visit small town america or in big cities, visit the neighborhood nonprofit organizations
United Way, Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, Our Towns, Second Harvest, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, and Boys and Girls Clubs are just a few organizations working to better humanity. Literally millions of people around the world are working every day to make the world better, an idealism expressed by the 1960's peace and environmental movement.
The media cannot sell stories that are good, it is not interesting enough and doesn't sell enough ads. Critical thinking shows us how to analyze the media, and see what we are fed.
I am writing because I hear this sentiment all the time, during nonprofit work. We have seen dark times before in our world. Jonathan Schell who wrote Fate of the Earth speaks of the feeling of being frozen or overwhelmed by big problems, but he recommended getting involved in activism to get into a positive frame of mind.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
" Be the change you want to see in the world." Gandhi
(perhaps the Fallows' would let all us ride in their suitcase on their next trip :) so we can see the positive change in the world that they see and that they are initiating all the time)
Ohio has one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the country, making it a misogynist's paradise. No thanks. You can keep your idyllic little red state.
The GOP legislature in Ohio is on an extremist bender. The US Senate is not a reflection of overall US opinion, and the Ohio legislature is a much more skewed example.
Ohio is weird. They always re-elect Sherrod Brown who is an old time, extremely pro-labor, very liberal Democrat and now Demcratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan is ahead over MAGA opportunist JS Vance.
Governor DeWine is a strange mix, too. He had a very intelligent, effective rapid response to Ohio’s early covid outbreak because he immediately consulted with the top medical centers in Ohio and followed their advice. (Gavin Newsome responded similarly to Califonia’s early outbreak.) This was at the same time that Cuomo was telling DeBlasio that he would not allow DeBlasio to implement strong covid restrictions. As a result of DeWine’s quick response Ohio’s cities avoided having the kind of horrific outbreak New York experienced.
DeWine has also introduced a $500 million plan to invest in the Appalachian region along the Ohio River where I grew up. That kind of government spending is not a typical thing for today’s Republicans to do.
Unfortunately DeWine is also a conservative Roman Catholic who doesn’t understand that his strong belief that abortion is murder is faith-based and violates the religious teachings of many other Christian and non-Christian teachings. For example Jewish law says that protection of the life and well-being of the mother should be the priority.
A “thoroughly red state” doesn’t repeatedly elect a Democratic senator. Nor would it give more support to the Democrat running for Rob Portman’s old seat than the Republican candidate. North Carolina is similar — we have a Democratic governor and the race to replace Republican Senator Richard Burr is a dead heat between the right wing Ted Budd and Cheri Beasley, an African American woman who was our Supreme Court Chief Justice and has twice won statewide election to our Supreme Court. I have lived in both states in both, unlike thoroughly red Texas, where I have also lived, Democrats regularly get elected to statewide offices.
No, especially when you consider that voting trends show that Ohio breaks 54% Republican and 46% Democrat. There are many instances where more people vote for Democrats in Ohio but Republicans still win because of how Republicans gerrymandered the state after the 2010 census.
I think suburban white voters, especially the women, who are the reason Democrats can get elected in both Ohio and North Carolina. Here in NC there has been a definite move away from rightwingers in that group of voters in the last two elections. My suburban area went for Biden which was a shock since it has never gone for a Democrat in the almost thirty years I have lived here. The area in northern Ohio where I lived before moving here is also showing the same kind of shift among suburban voters.
H. sapiens: full of contradictory realities. Embrace the dialectic! Well, embrace its reality--the better, hopefully, to do be able to do something about it. (I don't get how anyone could fail to prioritize the woman's life and well-being.
These extremists were voted into office by Ohioans. Are we to believe there is no GOP majority in Ohio? Seriously? How did they get into power if they weren't voted in?
I'm not going to make excuses for these right wing crazies. I'm sorry to see that you do. Ohio voted for Trump. Most Republicans believe the 2020 election was "stolen."
We completely agree about the Alito ruling, the "trigger laws," the horrible burdens placed upon women younger and older, the need for a political and policy response.
My point in raising China is the "simultaneous contradictory realities" point. I hate many things about China. And I love many things about it. I hate many things about national and state-level politics in the US right now, including in Ohio. Simultaneously I recognize that some people there, without recognition, are doing positive things.
I hope so. We'll see what happens in November. I lived in Egypt for over 5 years, and it was hard o stomach the people's enthusiasm for democracy and then to see them cheer when Sisi became president.
What a great achievement you are describing, this exciting growth across many towns in america is made possible by Our Towns
" All politics is local," is how Tip O'Neill described the American phenomenon of street corners and local issues. " Self-interest rightly understood, " is the deep phrase by deToqueville; reading the book helps us see the foreign visitor's insight.
and of course, Carl Sandburg was one of the greatest observers of the energy of the common man in America :
carl sandburg :
"The republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream."
"Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders."
"I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?"
"Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you. "
- Smoke and Steel
Thank you!!
everyone should read the Our Towns postings too - congratulations on such amazing, positive programs for all, at a time when our country needs it!
Carl Sandburg respected the energy and intelligence of the American people, the iceman or banana peddler will know if we ask them:
“I have ransacked the encyclopedias
And slid my fingers among topics and titles
Looking for you.
...I shall ask the next banana peddler the who and the why of it.
Or—the iceman with his iron tongs gripping a clear cube in summer sunlight—maybe he will know.” Smoke and Steel
You've touched on one of my pet peeves: how little attention national media pays to what's happening in large swathes of the country (and when they do, they get a lot wrong). I have my frustrations with Ohio, especially our state government which has increasingly gone the extremist route of other states under trifecta Republican rule. Life in my city and community, though, is not among them. There are a lot of things that work well, including local governments, much of the time.
I saw the same thing on a back roads camping trip this summer: 61 days, 16 states and over 8200 miles. I saw the dying towns and the despair as well, yet over all I saw a lot of small towns that worked well. And there's nothing like connecting with people in real life to realize that we have so much more in common with each other than the noxious politics that divide us, especially on social media.
Thanks so much. This is very much the contradictory reality we are trying to convey. If people think there is *no* hope, they (we) understandably hunker down. If they realize it's an ongoing, open-ended struggle to determine the future of the country, they are more likely to engage.
I relate so well to Eliot's line in that poem; I spent a large portion of my adult life yearning to return to the region of my youth and now that I am safely tucked into my retirement home 5 miles from the house I grew up in, I could not be more content. That house is in Ottawa County, Michigan; the last time Ottawa County voted for a Democrat for president was 1864, when just over half the county voted for McLellan, whom Abraham Lincoln soundly defeated. In 2020 I drove through miles of local farm land to visit a friend and signs for tfg were as common as fence posts. The trees in this county have red roots going down 20 feet or more.
And yet I and many of my friends are strong supporters of our current president and his agenda. I have occasional mini-debates on Facebook with conservative friends; the last one was addressing their outrage at paying off college debts. Then I see them, shake hands, and talk about all sorts of stuff. Overall, politics represents only one small facet of my relationships with friends & neighbors. I seldom ask about political affiliations, mostly because I don't care. I share the road, the grocery store and my neighborhood with folks who are very likely supporters of politicians I loathe. There is this old guy down the road near a busy street corner who often sits in his front yard, waving at passersby. A couple of weeks ago I saw a sign for a Republican in front of his house. I still wave when I see him, as enthusiastically as I ever did.
My mother adored Fox "News" and Rush Limbaugh. We would have long debates about politics where we would scold one another about our respective affiliations, and end up laughing. Alzheimer's had wiped out her political views by the time I moved in to become her primary caregiver in 2009. She passed in December 2012 - when I was in an airplane over the Atlantic, flying home from Cairo.
It's easier to tolerate those who support the Evil One - who of course wants to end America as we know it - if I remember that if Mom were alive & lucid today that could easily be her. It makes me less likely to swell up with righteous indignation when I see one of those wretched blue & red stickers.
And I don't think I'm all that different from the vast majority of Americans. Some of us get a little crazy, and of course the news media love to point their cameras at the crazies to attract more viewers/readers, but for the most part we're all just trying to get by and help our neighbors in the process. So I'm not a bit surprised to see overwhelming evidence of that stuff in places all over this country. In fact, I wouldn't mind hearing more stories like this.
Thanks so much for this. The details you list here all ring true to me.
One of Deb's and my ambitions is simply to *tell* more of this side of the current story. It doesn't resolve any of the genuinely pressing national problems. But it does put them in a different context, as you say.
Only one of Deb's and my parents is still around — Deb's mom, who will soon (fates willing) be 101 years old, and is in wonderful shape. But the power of Fox news among older Americans is profound. (My own parents went through a different transition. They had been raised as Republicans. My mother died earlier but my dad survived just long enough to be aware that Obama was likely to win in 2008, which he was glad to know. We were living in Beijing at the time, and I was shuttling back and forth to see him.)
Thanks for sharing all of this.
This is a terrific post! It tickles me.
This is the most encouraging thing I've read in a long time! It's wonderful reading about people making lives better for others as well as themselves. And it would be fun to explore it.
I've been wanting to drive coast to coast and back. Three cross country trips by age 8 were formative experiences for me--great adventures seeing the whole country go by--the Great Plains, the mountains, and the deserts. I've been looking for a theme for such a trip, beyond simply revisiting places I first saw as a small child. This sort of thing is definitely a possibility.
have a great time on your trip!
Lonely Planet is a website that has great, accurate information about any kind of travel
I recommend the wonderful book, Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. The 2 lane blue highways on the printed road map show the traveller the regular america off the superhighway.
Thank you for this information!
I read and loved Blue Highways probably when it first came out, but somehow it never occurred to me to look for the blue highways on the road maps.
Yet, now that I'm looking for them on your suggestion, the back roads aren't blue on my recent AAA maps, nor in my Rand McNally road atlas, for the whole country. What maps have the back roads in blue?
I will have to check out Lonely Planet.
Yes, I was working at the Atlantic when Bill Whitworth, our sainted editor, chose Blue Highways as a cover story. It does stand up — both the book, and Bill W's article choice during that two-decade era.
Jesus, he writes well. It's years since I read the book. I guess I'm going to have to reread it. (I googled it in The Atlantic)
We did that this summer, starting in Ohio and wending our way west into Colorado, where we went to a bluegrass festival, then on to Washington via Utah and Idaho. We took the northern route back to SW Ohio. Got a lot of experience traveling back roads (we avoided interstates) and finding interesting camping sites you could grab on the fly.
We've decided a couple of future trips will be traveling the Mississippi River from its source to the delta, and finding interesting US routes that we could follow (we were on US 2 from Washington State to St Ignace, Michigan).
I plan to take mostly backroads.
We did that the entire trip (until the end, when after 8 weeks, I was eager to get home). It was a life changing experience. I can't imagine ever taking a long trip like this again on interstates. The back highways are so much more interesting, and you get to see a lot more of the country.
I drive regularly between my home and Niskayuna NY (outside Albany). Now, unless I'm in a huge hurry--which almost never happens--I take the backroads--generally Rt. 2 from Cambridge, to Williamstown, practically at the Mass/NY border, and then two tiny roads up to NY 7, a back road, which I into Albany. Gorgeous country, interesting houses and other buildings, and often old classic cars sitting near the road. And at the top of the Berkshires on 2, about 8 wind turbines.
Thank you! Yes, actually seeing these places is a privilege, and also enlightening.
I desperately needed some sort of data that would support my hope that Something Must Be Working for the Good of the Citizenry Somewhere. The key for all of us is to remember that pockets of people committed to making the lives of their neighbors better can happen even beneath an umbrella of otherwise bad things. It is all too easy to dismiss those good things when they are not part of larger perfect things.
visit small town america or in big cities, visit the neighborhood nonprofit organizations
United Way, Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, Our Towns, Second Harvest, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, and Boys and Girls Clubs are just a few organizations working to better humanity. Literally millions of people around the world are working every day to make the world better, an idealism expressed by the 1960's peace and environmental movement.
The media cannot sell stories that are good, it is not interesting enough and doesn't sell enough ads. Critical thinking shows us how to analyze the media, and see what we are fed.
I am writing because I hear this sentiment all the time, during nonprofit work. We have seen dark times before in our world. Jonathan Schell who wrote Fate of the Earth speaks of the feeling of being frozen or overwhelmed by big problems, but he recommended getting involved in activism to get into a positive frame of mind.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
" Be the change you want to see in the world." Gandhi
(perhaps the Fallows' would let all us ride in their suitcase on their next trip :) so we can see the positive change in the world that they see and that they are initiating all the time)
Thank you. As I say about China, contradictory realities are true.
Ohio has one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the country, making it a misogynist's paradise. No thanks. You can keep your idyllic little red state.
The GOP legislature in Ohio is on an extremist bender. The US Senate is not a reflection of overall US opinion, and the Ohio legislature is a much more skewed example.
Ohio is weird. They always re-elect Sherrod Brown who is an old time, extremely pro-labor, very liberal Democrat and now Demcratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan is ahead over MAGA opportunist JS Vance.
Governor DeWine is a strange mix, too. He had a very intelligent, effective rapid response to Ohio’s early covid outbreak because he immediately consulted with the top medical centers in Ohio and followed their advice. (Gavin Newsome responded similarly to Califonia’s early outbreak.) This was at the same time that Cuomo was telling DeBlasio that he would not allow DeBlasio to implement strong covid restrictions. As a result of DeWine’s quick response Ohio’s cities avoided having the kind of horrific outbreak New York experienced.
DeWine has also introduced a $500 million plan to invest in the Appalachian region along the Ohio River where I grew up. That kind of government spending is not a typical thing for today’s Republicans to do.
Unfortunately DeWine is also a conservative Roman Catholic who doesn’t understand that his strong belief that abortion is murder is faith-based and violates the religious teachings of many other Christian and non-Christian teachings. For example Jewish law says that protection of the life and well-being of the mother should be the priority.
That does not explain why Ohio is a thoroughly red state that backed Trump in the primary in both 2016 and 2020.
A “thoroughly red state” doesn’t repeatedly elect a Democratic senator. Nor would it give more support to the Democrat running for Rob Portman’s old seat than the Republican candidate. North Carolina is similar — we have a Democratic governor and the race to replace Republican Senator Richard Burr is a dead heat between the right wing Ted Budd and Cheri Beasley, an African American woman who was our Supreme Court Chief Justice and has twice won statewide election to our Supreme Court. I have lived in both states in both, unlike thoroughly red Texas, where I have also lived, Democrats regularly get elected to statewide offices.
No, especially when you consider that voting trends show that Ohio breaks 54% Republican and 46% Democrat. There are many instances where more people vote for Democrats in Ohio but Republicans still win because of how Republicans gerrymandered the state after the 2010 census.
New constitutional amendments in 2015 and 2018 were supposed to fix that but it turns out the carrots built into the new redistricting commission aren't working. Jane Meyer did an excellent writeup of this recently in The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/state-legislatures-are-torching-democracy
All that matters is how it ends. Women have lost in Ohio.
A link to an article behind a paywall is useless to me.
I think suburban white voters, especially the women, who are the reason Democrats can get elected in both Ohio and North Carolina. Here in NC there has been a definite move away from rightwingers in that group of voters in the last two elections. My suburban area went for Biden which was a shock since it has never gone for a Democrat in the almost thirty years I have lived here. The area in northern Ohio where I lived before moving here is also showing the same kind of shift among suburban voters.
H. sapiens: full of contradictory realities. Embrace the dialectic! Well, embrace its reality--the better, hopefully, to do be able to do something about it. (I don't get how anyone could fail to prioritize the woman's life and well-being.
These extremists were voted into office by Ohioans. Are we to believe there is no GOP majority in Ohio? Seriously? How did they get into power if they weren't voted in?
I'm not going to make excuses for these right wing crazies. I'm sorry to see that you do. Ohio voted for Trump. Most Republicans believe the 2020 election was "stolen."
We completely agree about the Alito ruling, the "trigger laws," the horrible burdens placed upon women younger and older, the need for a political and policy response.
My point in raising China is the "simultaneous contradictory realities" point. I hate many things about China. And I love many things about it. I hate many things about national and state-level politics in the US right now, including in Ohio. Simultaneously I recognize that some people there, without recognition, are doing positive things.
Embrace the dialectic! (Pls excuse me if I'm repeating myself.)
I hope so. We'll see what happens in November. I lived in Egypt for over 5 years, and it was hard o stomach the people's enthusiasm for democracy and then to see them cheer when Sisi became president.