You’ve probably read by now that a lot of middle aged and middle class Americans are not feeling good about their lives.
According to a study by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, two Princeton economists, the latter being a 2015 Nobel Prize winner in economic science, white middle aged Americans are dying at an accelerated rate that is far above any other category, and has been increasing for the past 15 years.
The increase is because of suicide, drug addiction, and liver disease related to alcoholism, and is happening mostly among men and women with no more than a high school diploma.
But here is the shocker. This rise in the death rate is happening more in America’s Bible Belt than anywhere else.
I realize it would be easy to make too much of that, but the fact that Bible believing Christians are killing themselves at a higher rate than any other sociological group is certainly noteworthy.
After all, the Bible Belt is the land of America’s politically and religiously conservatives, the very people who insist they are true patriotic Americans whose beliefs and values the whole country needs if it wants to survive liberalism’s assault.
So what’s going on?
Actually, nobody knows for sure, but the consensus is that a lot of Bible Belt middle aged Americans are disillusioned because of the loss of the American dream.
They were told that if they worked hard, played by the rules, went to church, and kept out of trouble they would reap a good reward. Tragically things haven’t turned out that way.
And a lot of them blame liberals for a lot of reasons, none more prominent than public assistance programs paid for by taxes they have to pay.
These people are mad because they think public assistance has created a “nanny state” where too many people expect the government to take care of them. That’s why they hate the federal government.
And that’s why they get angry when they are standing in line at the grocery store and see somebody using food stamps.
Even more infuriating, the economy they refuse to believe is rigged against them as Senator Elizabeth Warren has been telling them has no decent paying job to replace the one they had before the recession, and so now that their unemployment compensation has run out they are forced to use food stamps themselves, and they hate it.
So what does the future hold for them, and for all of us? I think that is a question whose answer is very much up for grabs. Is there any reason to have hope for them and for our country?
My answer is Yes.
I say that because I think we are in a transition period wherein we are moving from the myths we have told ourselves about ourselves to a new reality that will force us to make adjustments similar to the ones our European neighbors had to make when the age of colonialism came to an end.
I’m talking about myths like we are the greatest nation on earth without equal, or that we can rule the world by military might, that we are the world’s best democracy, that everyone wants to be like us, that capitalism works for everybody, that having guns makes us safer instead of more violent, or that we are a people whose highest values are freedom and justice.
The hope I see is that this transition period is one that is forcing us to grow up as a people, to see how we have contributed to the problems we have.
I happen to believe we were once a great nation, but I also believe we got full of ourselves and lost our way.
There is no reason we cannot find our way back, but it will happen only if we tell ourselves the truth about ourselves. Obviously some among us are finding this transition difficult to maneuver, but most of us will make it through.
That is because the greatest truth of all is that truth is our best friend in all circumstances.
But that’s what I think. What about you?
linnposts.com 
I think AMEN is a proper response to this blog. I also think we are in a lengthy and painful transition from primarily a manufacturing based economy to a knowledge based economy. I think we may recover some of our manufacturing capability, but we will never go back to where we were several decades back. It takes time and work to ramp up our knowledge based economy, but I think we are on that track. In the meantime, one of our big needs is good paying jobs with a future for growth. Part time service oriented jobs are not going to cut it long term.
I generally agree with you, Wally. However, our county’s crumbling, collapsing infrastructure presents a great opportunity for skilled workers and hard good manufacturers. There’s a couple of decades of high priced rebuilding in front of us. We can’t ignore it much longer.
Wally, this is a very helpful response with its focus on a knowledge based economy. Thanks.
Great post, Jan! I often get into conversation about the “American Dream” and how it’s a fantasy. Conservative folks seem to be quite disillusioned about this illusive dream they have been chasing.
Rollie, confronting that kind of fantasy is part of the truth telling that needs to be done.
I think quite a few savvy young people are awakening to the deceptions of the American Dream and are countering with new technologies like Kryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which allows peer to peer financial transactions without banks or securities trading without brokerages. Such innovations eliminates many of the institutions who control and manipulate money and thus society and the world on a macroeconomic scale. The actions of such entrepreneurs acknowledge the brokenness of “the system” and are creating alternatives on their own; a future of their making. The problem is that such major changes come with wide reaching pain for those dependent on them when traditional systems crumble. (Major banks are clamoring to be part of these new enterprises – and are being locked out.)
Broadly, as this piece points out, those with HS educations, the “C” students, the apprentice minded learners, those from low income support and more have fewer choices toward self sufficiency due to less opportunity in recently “off-shored” jobs of a manual or semi skilled nature. (I put myself through college on factory jobs!) People such as these are real human lives, productive lives, lives whose progeny might be brilliant future contributors.
As our society becomes increasingly stratified everyone needs to learn what is happening and fight back rather than quit. (We lost all the equity in our house thanks to the Banksters, that’s why we started over in WI. Painful, but we’re still trying.)
Slowly the awakening is happening. Hopefully there will be limited chaos as it unfolds.
Not sure about the “limited chaos,” Bob. There is already a lot of chaos for individuals and families. It’s just not felt because on the surface the economy seems to be doing well. Most people are treading water at best. Those losing ground had good jobs they lost and nothing now. That is where the despondency comes from that is fueling the death rate increase. When a “Dream” is fundamentally materialistic, it is easy for it to go down the drain. There is not much left after that unless and until you change the content of “the dream.” That is where churches could help, but they are as materialistic as our culture is. That leaves individuals to fend for themselves. Not the way it should be, but it is what it is.
Rollie,
I have been hearing about the needs and opportunities in our infrastructure for quite some time now. But, nothing of any significance ever seems to happen. I am tired of listening to politicians talk about it, and as far as I can tell, do nothing about it.
Wally, I think it’ll take 1 or 2 catastrophic failures before the focus shifts. And then it’ll be because the electorate demands it of the pols. Anecdotally, water supply pipes are starting to fail locally in several different areas of the country, especially the eastern region. But it’s a local story, not national. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the U.S. needs to spend $3.6-Trillion by 2020 to fix our infrastructure. Congress would rather spend that kind of money on wars and the military. Very short sighted and very sad.
Jan, we know full well about fending for ourselves and it’s why we have down sized our lifestyle and are forgoing a great deal materially, except for food and friends. We know we are different in our volunteering to do so, but we’ve had to in order to not give in to the powers that be who would have us, everyone, for example, work till they’re 70! We empathize with many from a position of “closeness”! Yes, I too wish a more enlightened teaching emanated from pulpits but, as you say, it is what it is.
Rollie
You are spot on!
Nice post Jan. It’s easy to feel hopeless with the times but while listening to speeches by MLK Jr. yesterday I was reminded that in our history there have been other bad times that we survived and arguably become better as a people and a nation. Every bad era has challenges the previous ones did not. With MLK as an example, it seems we can’t give up hope in a better world but we can’t give up the struggle either.
I think you named the MLK legacy, Wilbur. It is hope. I am still amazed that he believed segregation would actually end in the south, but he did, and that was his life’s calling and work. Thanks for the comment.
” ” “Time is like a river. You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Franklin Graham was speaking at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida in January, 2015, when he said America will not come back. He wrote:
The American dream ended on November 6th, 2012 in Ohio. The second term of Barack Obama has been the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest republic in the history of mankind. A coalition of blacks, Latinos, feminists, gays, government workers, union members, environmental extremists, the media, Hollywood, uninformed young people, the “forever needy,” the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other fellow travelers” have ended Norman Rockwell’s America.
You will never again out-vote these people. It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away. It will take zealots, not moderates and shy, not reach-across-the-aisle RINOs to right this ship and restore our beloved country to its former status.
People like me are completely politically irrelevant, and I will probably never again be able to legally comment on or concern myself with the aforementioned coalition which has surrendered our culture, our heritage and our traditions without a shot being fired. The cocker spaniel is off the front porch, the pit bull is in the back yard. The American Constitution has been replaced with Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and the likes of Chicago shyster David Axelrod along with international socialist George Soros have been pulling the strings on their beige puppet have brought us Act 2 of the New World Order. The curtain will come down but the damage has been done, the story has been told.
Those who come after us will once again have to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring back the Republic that this generation has timidly frittered away due to white guilt and political correctness…” ” ”
Not my words–copied this for posting. This is a follow-up viewpoint.
“It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away.”
Which rights, pray tell, do you suppose the author of this screed is referring to? I seem to enjoy all the same rights I had before the 2012 election!
This quoted post is paranoid nonsense.
Amen, Rollie.
While I am happy to post the Graham statement, Franklin Graham himself has absolutely no credibility with me or most Christians who understand that no one has a corner on truth and no one embodies righteousness. I listen to nothing he says. I find him to be both ignorant. i.e., without knowledge, and obnoxious.
Great post! Now let’s get to work!
I’m working with you, Luke.