Dems don't understand this

            Liberal Democrats can’t understand why everybody in rural and small town America doesn’t vote Dem.  Let me explain.

            When the Spanish conquered Latin America, they had a system called Haciendas, or plantations.  A friend of the King  or a hero got a large land grant in the new territory which of course included the Indians.  To get the Indians to agree to serfdom, the Spanish landowners used the carrot and stick method. Cattle and sheep provided a bountiful diet to the natives who had subsisted on things they could trap, fish and shoot with arrows, mainly birds and rabbits and fish.  If good beef didn’t convince the Indians, they were ruthlessly rounded up by the landowner’s army and forced into servitude. Never did it seem to cross the minds of the conquistadors that the reason the Indians wouldn’t comply was that they saw their way of life being abolished wickedly.  That’s because the Spanish were a proud people in 1500, having run the Muslims out of Spain. Triumphalism made them cock-sure they were right.  After all, they had Christianity, armies and a central government to organize things.    

            Lib Dems offer free stuff from the government.  The South and rural parts of America are the poorest and thus, progressives reason, should be gladly accepting the goodies.  But only 38% of non-college educated whites will even consider voting for a Democrat.  Why?  This puzzle has dumbfounded libs for years and was especially expressed in Frank’s book “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”  Why do the urban poor love Dems and rural poor hate them? And if the free stuff won’t work to make Democrats out of rural people, Obama has turned up the heat on small town banks and businesses making it very difficult for them to loan money and comply with mandates.  Still the folks vote R.

            The answer is the same one the Seminoles and Sioux had.  Their saw  their way of life being abolished.  People choose to live in small towns and on the farm because their love of community, closeness and the land trumps free stuff from a far-off government.  If you live in rural America everybody seems to own their own business or farm and they want freedom instead of free stuff.  In recent years the disconnect between Washington and small town America has widened and it is said that people don’t trust either party.  Now they are ready to vote for Trump. 

            I think this is only half true.  People feel left out of the American dream by a socialist President who conspires against rural America (they don’t vote for him) and by the capitulating Republicans in Congress.  But of the two, they continue to vote more and more Republican. (1200 statewide offices gained and 25 states have become solid gov+legislature Republican since 2010.)  That’s because the promise of free stuff leaves out faith and family entirely.  They are distressed that the Liberty America was founded upon is dying and we are headed to become France or Greece. 
            But the Lib Dems don't understand why these folks choose it this way.  Lib Dems are cock-sure they are right.  If you try to present another point of view, they dismiss you as a "kook". 

            So I took our foster daughter who was Mex out to the tallgrass prairie.  We parked atop a hill of waist-high bluestem with June flowers blooming and the wind blowing in our faces.  To one side were the buffalo of the preserve and to another was a herd of long horns on a private ranch.  I told her, the Spanish could have had it all and it is a tragedy they failed.  She nodded because if you are Mex, you have a love-hate relationship with the conquistadors.  Part of your ancestry is conquered Indians who were oppressively treated.  But part is Spanish who had Christianity and modernity.  The Spanish, I said, had horses, cattle culture, branding, saddles, spurs, chaps, ranches, and only they understood how you could make a fortune on grassland by raising cattle.  Mexican vaqueros invented the lariat and suddenly you could raise cattle and catch them without hurting them with a lance. And before them stretched 1.5 million square miles of prairie from Mexico City to Alberta to Illinois.  But the Spanish had a know-it-all central government that didn’t send enough ships to Mexico to even harvest the hides of the cattle.  Too many cattle roamed free and became longhorns and the horses, mustangs.  Horses were picked up by plains Indians, who suddenly could hunt buffalo, spare the time to train in warfare and became a formidable force against Spanish expansion.  Haciendas were run remotely and the serfs were not inspired.  It was a medieval system.  Only Christianity was endearing. 

            But then came the free Anglos who were inspired by their own homesteads and learned how to cowboy from the vaqueros.  Their system wasn’t central government and a king but free men running their own affairs.  If you can work, you have their respect and they invite you to join their family of community—sometimes reluctantly, but still they invite.  Strong family, hard work, get an education, love your land.  Dad, she said standing up tall, This is the life I want!