I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and I got out as soon as I could because I found it so wretched. But much to my dismay, the last few years have seen the rest of the United States become more like the place I fled.
It’s been said about Omaha that it’s “too Southern” to be a Northern city, but “too far north” to be a Southern city. That is, the culture and the politics of Omaha are too conservative for a Northern city, but geographically it’s just not in the South.
I personally found it to be narrow-minded and bigoted, with the threat of violence being a constant undertone. As someone who was struggling to understand and come to terms with my gender nonconformity and gay sexuality, the atmosphere was hostile. (For more on this saga, see my book, “Confessions of a Queer Catholic Nebraska Boy.”)
I haven’t lived there for three solid decades, and I’m willing to believe things have changed—during 2016’s post-election anti-Trump protests, I saw rainbow flags being carried in the photos of Central High’s student walk-out, which would’ve been unthinkable when I was that age in the ’80s—but nonetheless the shadows I sought to escape there have seemingly spread across the country.
I’m not just talking about specific cultural afflictions like racism, sexism, homophobia, and the rest, or particular political stances in favor of “Capitalism” and militarism and against “Socialism” and peace, but about the spirit with which they are held, which is, in a word: belligerence.
(I put “Capitalism” and “Socialism” in quotation marks because neither concept is actually understood by the the vast majority of people who throw around the terms.)
This belligerence is what I most associate with the culture I was subjected to in Nebraska, and it’s what I see ever more dominating politics and discourse in the US. I know this belligerence is not unique to Nebraska, and I’m sure readers from many other places are all too familiar. It’s stubborn, conceited, clench-fisted, red-faced and shrill. It’s a knee-jerk resistance to any idea that might mean even the slightest change to the status quo. It’s the tone of ever more politicians and media personalities, and dominates social media and comment sections everywhere.
This belligerence is the mode and mood of the right wing.
By “right wing” I do not mean “Republican.” The US is, and always has been, a right wing project on a level deeper than its major political parties. Capitalism is a right-wing ideology. So is the settler-colonialism that conquered the land. So is the slavery that built much of its wealth. So is imperialism (both military and economic), religious fundamentalism, the police state and censorship.
The forces of the right wing that are gaining ascendancy in the US now are something in particular. They are not merely the economic conservatism of a small business owner, or the propriety-seeking impulses of a churchgoer, or the one-dimensional patriotism of a blue collar worker, or the old school values of a farmer. And they are most adamantly not the pro-peace non-interventionism of certain principled Libertarians! (Shout out to antiwar.com)
No, the current right wing wave is out-and-out fascism, motivated by Christian nationalism, and fueled with big, big money.
This wave often couches its rhetoric as just plain ole’ “common sense.” This is part of Trump’s appeal—that he is “just telling it like it is.” Of course, in the US, “common sense” is by default right-wing, given the nation’s history, economic system, and prejudices. Our cultural DNA is white supremacist, patriarchal, repressive and violent. So that which sounds “normal” is right wing.
To make a call for equality, freedom, justice or peace is bucking the system. That’s why such struggles have been so difficult, and why the victories are usually incomplete and too often rolled back.
We are in the middle of another roll-back now. It is a continuing reaction to the liberation movements and social shake-ups of the ’60s and ’70s, and to the growing openness of the ’90s and 2000s. Reagan got it rolling at the national level, and what was then called “creeping fascism” by the owner of an Omaha bookstore where I hung out in high school has now become “leaping fascism.”
The program is led by Christian nationalists, both publicly and behind-the-scenes, and it’s no exaggeration to say they want to reverse everything considered progress that has occurred since FDR, or even before.
Because the rhetoric of the rising fascist right wing sounds like common sense it is able to hook people who are not themselves Christian nationalists. These “useful idiots,” to use an old phrase, then contribute to the greater cause by mimicking their little piece of it, whether that’s “all lives matter,” “what is a woman?” or baseless claims of election theft.
So the businessman, the churchgoer, the blue collar worker and the farmer get pulled in. It’s not their fault. They’re not stupid. Like everyone else, they are shaped by the media they consume, which is delivered through a sophisticated system designed in part by psychologists to be addictive.
This system is totally controlled by big money, and so many movements that appear “organic” are in truth manufactured, like climate change denial, anti-maskism, opposition to “critical race theory” and “parents’ rights.” Think tanks coin phrases that get injected into the media and are soon on individual people’s lips, repeated as if they were things always held to be true.
It’s a big machine we’re up against.
The Democrats have always been a ruling class party, taking care of ruling class interests, and they have played a role in making this mess. US history has seen repeated cycles of right wing upsurges and push back movements. It’s always been the people who have successfully forced change on the system, but the parties play a role with who they put forward as leaders.
In 2016, voters were hungry for an outsider, and during the primaries, this energy went into two camps: Bernie’s and Trump’s. But the Democratic party machinery forced out Bernie in favor of Hillary. When Trump “won” (only due to the perversity of the electoral college, let us always remember), the forces of reaction were fed, and fed well. That gave them just the boost they needed, and they’ve been sprinting ever since.
Had Bernie entered the Oval Office instead, we would not have gotten a workers paradise, but the appetite for change could have been sated with positive programs: health care, housing, labor rights, loan forgiveness, and more of the things that most people want regardless of party affiliation. Unfortunately, US militarism abroad would have changed very little, if at all—Bernie’s never been truly anti-war—but on the homefront, the desire for change could have been redirected away from fascism.
I’m not a patriot, and I want to live in a world with no nations or borders, but I can see that, for what the United States is at this point in its history, it arguably needs a “Great Man” (who could certainly be a woman). But the Ds have none to offer. They can not help us in this precarious moment. Everyday people can feel this need for a strong leader, and this too is part of Trump’s appeal, though he is far from the anti-establishment figure that he act like. Look at the corporate insiders who filled his administration last time. It will be more of the same and worse if he gets another term.
The Christian nationalists have momentum behind them now, and I’m afraid it will get much worse before it gets better. (If we even have the time left to play out that cycle.) Not that we shouldn’t try! We should push back as hard as we can. As journalist Chris Hedges, who has so thoroughly documented the rise of Christian nationalists puts it: “I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.”
I’m in on that fight. I’m grateful that leaving Nebraska gave me a temporary reprieve, but now it’s time to face what I tried to escape. I am glad I am not alone.
