Third World America

by Arianna Huffington

  The rising tide of anger is part of a disturbing trend. According to Rage on the Right, a report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of so-called Patriot groups has skyrocketed in the past few years.139 In 2008, there were 149 active Patriot groups; in 2009, there were 512. The number of like-minded militia groups, meanwhile, rose from 42 in 2008 to 127 in 2009. And “nativist extremist groups,” which advocate vigilante action against undocumented workers, went from 173 in 2008 to 309 in 2009.

  While it’s important that we take the threats and the rage seriously, it’s just as important that we don’t ignore the legitimate anger being directed at Washington and the political establishment of both parties. Thanks to the botched bank bailout, anti-government rhetoric has pervaded the public conversation. “Discontent with the present and apprehension about the future have become the background noise of our politics,” wrote Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times, “yet both sides of the congressional aisle seem deaf to the din.”140

  “There are times—they mark the danger point for a political system—when politicians can no longer communicate, when they stop understanding the language of the people they are supposed to be representing,” wrote historian Ian Kersaw.141 Maybe that explains the lackadaisical, going-through-the-motions response of the political establishment to the rising chorus of middle-class anger.

  In times of economic upheaval, when people are losing their jobs, losing their homes, and feeling powerless to do anything about it, people have always looked for scapegoats. We’ve seen this over and over again throughout American history.

  For example, in the 1880s, as the post–Civil War Gilded Age came to an end, a severe economic crisis began that culminated in the depression of 1893.142 But the search for scapegoats among the American people began early. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended immigration from China, after Chinese immigrants had just helped build the transcontinental railroad.143 Attacks on the Chinese by white mobs took place all over the country.

  One newspaperman captured the mood of the times: “Why permit an army of leprous, prosperity-sucking, progress-blasting Asiatics befoul our thoroughfares, degrade the city, repel immigration, drive out our people, break up our homes, take employment from our countrymen, corrupt the morals of our youth, establish opium joints, buy or steal the babe of poverty or slave, and taint with their brothels the lives of our young men?”144

  An ancestor of Glenn Beck’s, perhaps?

  Then, as now, the agitation resulted in the formation of a loose political party—the Populists.145 Here is how historian Richard Hofstadter described their agenda: “The utopia of the Populists was in the past, not the future,” he wrote. “The Populists looked backward with longing to the lost agrarian Eden.” Sound familiar? The myth of a golden age in America that existed before all our current problems existed has fueled many a political campaign.

  Hofstadter also pointed to the Populists’ rigid us-versus-them view of the world. It was the masses against the elites. Or, as Sarah Palin would put it, real Americans versus everybody else.

  Conspiracy theories were rampant in the nineteenth century as well.146 In the wake of the depression of 1893, the Populists saw postwar American history as a “sustained conspiracy of the international money power,” an obsession that also played into a virulent anti-Semitism.

  History shows that such unconscionable credulity becomes much more ominous in times of economic hardship. It becomes even more heightened when our politicians, leaders, and members of the media pander to it, rather than addressing the underlying causes. While the shameful internment of Japanese citizens during World War II is well known, many Americans remain unaware that during the Great Depression, the United States, under President Hoover, actually deported large numbers of American citizens of Mexican ancestry.147

  As for anti-Semitism during the Great Depression, it wasn’t just angry rhetoric—it was acted upon. In 1935, for example, many shops owned by Jews in Harlem were destroyed by a mob of African Americans, for whom the shopkeepers were simply the most available scapegoats.148 And, of course, the flames of bigotry were fanned by the wildly popular, xenophobic, and openly anti-Semitic Father Charles Coughlin, whose radio show was, at one time, listened to by one in three Americans.149

  In 1969, Pete Hamill published “The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class” in New York magazine.150 It reads like it could have been published yesterday. “The working-class white man sees injustice and politicking everywhere in this town now,” Hamill wrote, “with himself in the role of victim.” He noted “an increasing lack of personal control over what happens to them.” The result was a “growing talk of revolt.” Hamill concluded, “If the stereotyped black man is becoming the working-class white man’s enemy, the eventual enemy might be the democratic process itself.”

  By April 2010, over half the nation—and 92 percent of Tea Partiers—believed that President Obama was moving the country toward socialism.151 Combine our anxiety over the meltdown with today’s downward economic mobility, and you get scapegoating run amok. A Harris Poll in March 2010 showed that, among Republicans, 57 percent believe Obama is a Muslim, 38 percent believe he “is doing many of the things that Hitler did,” and 24 percent believe that the president “may be the Anti-Christ.”152

  Even if the poll’s methodology was flawed and the numbers are a fraction of these, this is crazy. But then again, according to psychologist Michael Bader, paranoia is a natural response to the suffering brought on by economic hard times.153 “Paranoid people are trying their best to make sense of and mitigate feelings of helplessness and worthlessness,” Bader writes. “People can’t tolerate feeling helpless and self-hating for very long. It’s too painful … too demoralizing, too frightening. They have to find an antidote. They have to make sense of it all in a way that restores their sense of meaning … their self-esteem, and their belief in the possibility of redemption.” To do so, they often create “a narrative—a set of beliefs about the way the world is and is supposed to be—[that] helps make sense of chaos.” This often involves projecting blame onto others and creating an enemy to go after.

  As we head into the 2010 midterm elections, and get more and more reports of extremist behavior and more news bites of the rhetoric of rage, let’s keep in mind that the explanations people give to pollsters and reporters are often a reflection of our growing economic anxiety. While we need the media to stop pouring gasoline on the bonfires of discontent burning across America, we also need to recognize the underlying reasons for this anger and discontent. Americans are afraid that we, as a nation, are losing our way, and to many of us, the nightmare of a Third World America is becoming frighteningly real.

  JOHNNY PARKER

  It’s funny how life throws you for a loop. One day, my wife and I—who have a beautiful three-year-old daughter—have a nice home, drive two newish cars, and don’t have to choose between paying the bills and buying food. We were financially stable.

  I worked full-time in a mental rehabilitation center. It wasn’t the best pay, but it was more than enough for us. We lived simple lives—no extravagant vacations, no splurging at holidays or birthdays. We never had the money to build up savings, but we always had enough.

  In April 2007 all that changed. I worked hard at my job, I’d never gotten in trouble, never been late. I got praise from my supervisors. I was working double and triple shifts and taking on new responsibilities, so I asked for a pay raise.

  A month later I got called into a meeting with the program director and the director of nursing. I was told I’d done nothing wrong, but they would have to let me go. They would not tell me why, but just said I should file for unemployment.

  So I did. The checks were enough to cover the rent, but not utilities and food. We rented out our office and our daughter’s playroom. But one day the renters both suddenly left without notice. We applied for food stamps and welfare. My unemployment was too much for us to get welfare but we did get food stamps: eighty-two
dollars a month. My car got repossessed but we were able keep my wife’s car. June came and we didn’t have enough for rent. We were served eviction papers. At the end of July we put all our stuff in storage but had nowhere to go.

  Our county worker was able to get us a voucher to stay in a motel for a week while we looked for a place to live. That weekend, I went to a gas station to get something to drink. I asked the lady there for a job. She told me to come back tomorrow. I started working the cash register—two graveyard shifts a week and the other five days the swing shift. Thursday we found a one-bedroom in downtown Modesto. It was very small in a pretty bad area—the stove and heater didn’t work—but it was a roof over our heads.

  In February our car broke down. I called the gas station owner to tell them that I would not be able to make it in time for my shift. When I got home, there was a message—he had hired his brother-in-law to take my place. I went back on unemployment.

  Money is still tight. Our food stamps aren’t quite enough to buy food for the month. So in order to make sure there’s enough for our daughter, my wife and I usually don’t eat during the day. I’ve lost almost forty pounds.

  I recently found out that I will receive my very last unemployment check at the end of this month. I applied for welfare when my unemployment was temporarily stopped, and it was not enough to cover the rent on even our small apartment.

  I spend around thirty hours a week looking for work. But there just is not work available. I have offered to work off the clock and overtime. But no offers.

  I used to consider myself middle class. I have some education and I have a wide variety of skills and experience, but almost every company I talk to says the same thing: Until the economy gets better, they are not hiring.

  3

  AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL DILAPIDATED

  Even before there was a Constitution, our founding fathers were already thinking about building America’s infrastructure.

  George Washington knew that without a national system of transportation, especially canals that would connect the East Coast to the Ohio and Mississippi river systems, we could never truly come together as a “more perfect union.”1

  Thomas Jefferson put Washington’s vision into effect, creating a concrete national plan for roads and canals—a far-sighted plan that served as the touchstone for the next hundred years of development and led to America’s transcontinental railroad, championed by Abraham Lincoln.

  Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent massive federal dollars, even in the midst of the Great Depression, to bring electricity to rural America. Dwight Eisenhower pushed through the interstate highway system.

  Building things—amazing things, grand things, forward-looking things, useful things—has always been an integral part of who we are as a country. We created highways, waterways, railroads, and bridges to link us together and forge a strong nation.

  We created an infrastructure—including electrical grids, dams, sewers, water pipes, schools, waste-treatment facilities, airports—second to none. It was the skeleton that held our country up, the veins and arteries that kept our economy pumping, our prosperity flowing, and our quality of life high. But those once-glorious systems are falling apart at an alarming rate—a casualty of lack of funding, old age, and neglect.

  In 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released its comprehensive infrastructure report card. It’s not a pretty read. The nation’s overall infrastructure grade was an appalling D.2 The report noted a downward trend since 2005: transit and aviation fell from a D+ to a D, while roads dropped from a D to a nearly failing D–.3 Dams, hazardous waste, and schools maintained their lowly D grade, while drinking water and wastewater remained mired at D–.

  “It’s the kind of report card you would have expected on the eve of the collapse of the Roman Empire,” Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told a reporter from Scientific American.4

  Or from a Third World nation.

  But despite the desperate state of affairs, America remains in denial. According to the ASCE, we would need to invest $2.2 trillion over the next five years just to bring our existing infrastructure up to a passable level (let alone a level appropriate for the twenty-first century).5 But we’ve only budgeted $975 billion for that period.6

  America is like a middle-aged man, still clinging to a perception of himself at age twenty-three, refusing to take in the wrinkles and the bald spot showing up in the mirror. And the bad knee. And the clogged arteries that could make his heart stop beating at any moment. We still see ourselves as a youthful nation, when it simply isn’t true anymore. But unless we snap out of it and grow up enough to look reality in its sagging face, we are in for a world of trouble.

  The fact is, America’s antiquated infrastructure is desperately in need of an extreme makeover.

  THE FLINTSTONES VERSUS THE JETSONS

  Our infrastructure problems are so extensive, you don’t have to look far to encounter them. Flip on a light switch, and you are tapping into a seriously overtaxed electrical grid. Go to the sink, and your tap water may be coming to you through pipes built during the Civil War. Take a drive, and pass over pothole-filled roads and cross-if-you-dare bridges. The evidence of decay is all around us.

  But while the present state of disrepair is disturbing, looking down the crumbling, congested, traffic-clogged road at what lies ahead for us is chilling. America’s population is expected to reach 438 million by 2050—a 48 percent increase since 2005.7 But instead of preparing for this growth and the attendant demands it will make on our run-down systems, America is nickel-and-diming its way into the future.

  We invest just 2.4 percent of gross domestic product in infrastructure, compared with 5 percent in Europe and 9 percent in China—a surefire way to ensure that we will not be leading the twenty-first century.8 While we try to hold the American jalopy together with duct tape, chewing gum, some wire, and a prayer, China is busy building the most up-to-date, bells-and-whistles infrastructure money can buy, dramatically increasing that country’s mobility.9

  For example, from 2006 through 2009, China spent $186 billion on its railways alone—which World Bank officials have described as “the biggest expansion of railway capacity undertaken by any country since the nineteenth century.”10, 11 And by 2020 China plans to construct 26,000 additional miles of track.12 It’s making a similar commitment to other modes of transportation. In 2009 China built over 230,000 miles of roads and announced plans to build ninety-seven airports by 2020.13, 14

  In a column headlined “Time to Reboot America,” New York Times columnist and author Tom Friedman recounted flying from Hong Kong’s “ultramodern airport” (following a ride on a high-speed train with top-of-the-line wireless connectivity) to New York’s JFK airport and compared it to “going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones.”15 The experience left him wondering: “If we’re so smart, why are other people living so much better than us?”

  And it’s not just Asia. Armando Carbonell, chairman of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, says that while “the European Union is working across national boundaries to integrate the continent,” in America “there’s been at least a fifty-year gap in national planning for comprehensive infrastructure across water systems, energy systems and transportation.”16

  This is about a lot more than just fixing potholes or getting from place to place faster. It’s about keeping America competitive and keeping its people healthy and productive.

  Felix Rohatyn, author of Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now, serves up the bracing bottom line: “The aging of our nation’s infrastructure has lessened our productivity, undermined our ability to compete in the global economy, shaken our perceptions about our own safety and health, and damaged the quality of American life.”17

  Then there is Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, who in 2008 teamed up with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York City mayor
Michael Bloomberg to form Building America’s Future (BAF), a bipartisan coalition looking, in Rendell’s words, to “deliver a message to Washington that if America is going to have a future, an economically viable future, a quality-of-life future, a future that involves public safety, we have to begin the business of repairing infrastructure.”18, 19 In a February 2010 speech at an economic conference, Rendell warned, “If we don’t do something quickly, by the time 2030 rolls around, America will be a second-rate economic power.”20 Telling the businessmen in the room that “nothing significant will change until the businessmen step up,” he urged: “We need entrepreneurs to step up and say, ‘Guys, we’re having the living daylights beaten out of us. If we don’t do something quickly, we’re sunk—we’re a cooked goose.’ ”

  The Flintstones, a cooked goose, a collapsing empire, a Third World nation. Pick your metaphor. They all translate into the same takeaway: The stakes for America couldn’t be higher.

  MISSED OPPORTUNITY: THE STIMULUS BECOMES A FISCAL PIÑATA

  By the beginning of 2009, in the wake of the economic meltdown and the election of Barack Obama, it looked like investing money in a massive infrastructure-spending plan would be that rarest of things these days in American politics: a win-win initiative with bipartisan support.

  With the economy in desperate need of a boost, building roads, updating our electrical grid, and repairing bridges, dams, and levees could create millions of high-paying jobs—jobs that would have to be located in America and couldn’t be outsourced. According to Department of Transportation estimates, 47,500 jobs would be created for every $1 billion the government spends on highway improvements alone.21