Militant Ignorance

 I read these two pieces back-to-back. The first was about "militant ignorance." Regular ignorance is what it sounds like. I'm pretty ignorant about chemistry. I never took high school chemistry and I just don't know that much about it. I admit it, because...whatever. Militant ignorance takes a fierce, vocal, combative pride in that ignorance. Not knowing chemistry becomes a source of pride. Only nerds know chemistry, and they are probably gay or something.

I think it's pretty clear how this relates to our current political moment.

The second piece was a profile of J.D. Vance. Vance wrote Hillbilly Elegy about his escape from a genuinely rough upbringing to reach Yale Law and the prestige that goes with it. He has since pivoted to what he and other call National Conservatism. This is basically an attempt to take what was genuinely interesting about Trump's 2016 presidential run - his disdain for existing GOP orthodoxy on Iraq and economic redistribution - and turn it into an electoral and political movement.

The problem, as the piece alludes to but never lands on, is that Trumpism was never about opposing the Iraq war, but about mocking Jeb Bush for being a geek whose brother sent other people's sons overseas to die. Trump didn't oppose Iraq from a principled position but one entirely borne of expediency. What Trump gave his supporters was someone who would be an asshole on their behalf. The policy heresies ultimately meant nothing. He did slap some tariffs on things, but that has only exacerbated the inflation we have right now. Meanwhile, he cut taxes on the rich and tried to kill Obamacare.

Vance is trying to articulate a culturally conservative movement that embraces left wing economics, but he's doing so in the midst of a political movement that is entirely about militant ignorance and really doesn't care about policy. Vance can mouth the slogans of Trumpism - the entire piece is about the question "What happened to J.D. Vance?" - but the ignorant fury of Trumpism, lashing out at any target, is hard to replicate.

Vance was criticized in his hometown for his depiction of Appalachian life. He has clearly learned not to anger those he targeted in his book. Rather than be an interesting voice for a conservative intellectual movement, he has become another online troll, placating the grievances that cannot be divorced from social changes beyond the ability of a White plurality to control with stale expressions of contempt for other Americans.

As a "Coastal Elite" do I hate the "Heartland"? No. I've lost my patience with anti-vax bullshit, but I don't want my countrymen to suffer from joblessness and opioid addiction. But I also know that neither of these plagues originated in Washington or liberal college campuses. They originated from corporate boardrooms of US Steel and Purdue Pharma. I support efforts to bring back meaningful jobs to areas of the country that have lost them. 

In the face of militant ignorance, though, it's hard to get very far.