Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Have Conservatives Lost Whatever Empathy They Have?
For those who don’t know, Oliver Anthony has written a fairly standard country lament called “Rich Men North of Richmond,” sung with a truly beautiful voice. And, whatever else, I find it to be an earworm that just won’t leave my brain once it burrows in. It’s catchy. And the reaction to it — from one writer at National Review — has me more upset than it should. The piece is here.
It’s the fairly standard “You can’t blame everyone for your problems; America is a land of opportunity; at some point, if you’re in a bad situation, you have to look at yourself for who’s to blame.”
I agree with that as far as it goes. Certainly I can say, especially given the advantages I have been given in life, the only reason I’m not making more money or have more friends is my fault. Period.
And yet.
I can’t help but feel that the writer embodies a noxious spirit. His tone is smug and condescending. He seems to feel he has it all figured out: The problems you face, he says, are things that can be overcome, and, honestly, if you’re still facing them, it’s your fault.
I suppose if one were a journalist, you could say that. Your jobs were always “essential” during COVID. I wonder if such a writer has felt the sting of some government functionary shutting down a business he’s busted his butt to create? I doubt it, though. Again: His job was always “essential.”
Likewise, many small businesses feel an ever-encroaching pinch of regulations that strip away the profits, the joy of working for yourself. These regulations always seem to come from some government functionary none of us chose and who none of us can appeal to. Could such a person who writes such a piece have felt that? I highly doubt it.
As for “lots of jobs out there?” I’m reminded of a time when South Dakota (a state I love) was banging the drum loud and hard about having so many jobs that they can’t fill, with the inference being you could just come to South Dakota and find work.
So I looked. And, yes, if I were a hydraulics engineer with 20 years experience, I could find a job, or a commercial truck driver, or an electrician … but exactly zilch that fit the skills I have. And I was in debt, so getting training was a daunting option, given that I was 32 at the time. It’s a big leap to just move and hope the training will eventually pay off.
Kevin D. Williamson has written beautifully about people caught in poor, desperate places who are exhorted to just move … when the people exhorting them don’t realize the practical and economic reasons that keep people where they are (church, state benefits, family, etc.). It was the same for me.
And, lastly, life’s just not simple. It’s not all up to you. Some things can’t be solved through grit and hard work.
My Mom died after suffering from Alzheimer’s in 2020. She didn’t choose to have the disease. It wasn’t something she caught because of some lack of will. It just happened.
And it was the most awful thing I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, and it happened to my Mom. And we spent a lot of money and a lot of time to keep her at home. It took years off my Dad’s life.
But the moments when she was lucid were the most wonderful moments a person could have. I cry thinking how beautiful they were, and I’d sit for hours and hours on a hard wooden chair by her bed, hoping to have maybe just one more of those moments. Dad, too. So we endured the pain.
And why did we have to? Because some rich man north of Richmond thought it was best to shut old folks in a home and never let their families see them because of COVID. Let ‘em rot, was the attitude of those little unelected piss-ants.
And maybe when that happens to Mark Antonio Wright, Jr., he’ll gain the perspective his smug little self is lacking at this current point. As a brother in Christ, though, I hope it doesn’t happen to him.
But if conservatism is going to be only the party of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps, pilgrim, and if you aren’t successful, it’s entirely your fault,” it can do so without me.
Published in General
You got it right. The conservatism espoused by the GOPe, those who have chosen to renounce Trump as the Party leader and oppose his renomination, has no empathy for the working class.
I agree about the lack of empathy, but I don’t like the song as much.
The problem, in my view, isn’t “rich men.” It’s a particular ideology, Liberalism, including both its so-called Progressive and Libertarian elements. It is an ideology of selfishness that, in its Left-wing form, promotes perversion and conflict between sexes and races, and in its Right-wing form, opposes any effort to use government power to regulate virtue or promote the prosperity of ordinary Americans.
You might view them as two different ideologies, and I understand that viewpoint. I find that they share the same underlying premise, Liberalism. Taken to its logical endpoint, Liberalism is anarchism, but hardly anyone goes that far. The Left- and Right-Liberals stop in different places.
I don’t think that our fundamental problem is a class war. I think that it is a religious conflict, between Christianity and Liberalism.
That’s a great point. I had taken it more as speaking out against those “connected” people or the bureaucrats who we didn’t elect who seem to be making the rules to their advantage at the expense of others. But I do like your interpretation and thoughts.
If all parties espoused that idea, would it then be OK? I think ideas should be judged independent of who supports them or opposes them.
I cannot read and Williamson anymore. I’m sure he has an interesting take that I predict I won’t agree.
I heard this song and it’s pretty good and very well performed.
I have the cynical opinion that if you rely on protest folksongs, you’re losing.
The sad fact is we are more subjects than citizens, and the R party insiders don’t see that or don’t care. Mostly the latter.
I think for a great many ills, the person themselves bears some responsibility.
However, I also think there exist issues beyond our control – like government and illness and other things.
I don’t think the Rs have ever been compassionate where poverty is concerned. That isn’t to say I want the left’s version of it. However, the right has a bad habit of ignoring the thumbs government already has on the scales while crying that we don’t want thumbs on the scales.
I didn’t read the NR piece and probably won’t but from the OP I’d guess the NR author was one of those dweebs who was born on third base and believes he hit a triple. Like many I knew as a kid, I was born in the dugout. I give myself credit for working hard and not giving up, but I also know that I got one big break that made the difference. I suspect there were some who did the same hard work and never got that one break they needed.
Correct. But at this point I consider myself a conservative. If, however, that means that I have to believe all problems can be solved by grit alone, I can’t go aling with that
Well said. A much more cogent comment than my entire post!
Milton Friedman was very compassionate to poor folks. So was Trump. George W. Bush was sadly into big government under the guise of compassionate conservatism. Can you please explicate your criticism.
This really tells us what the Uni-Party is and the Right-wing form describes concisely the position of the elected Republicans, federal and state, who oppose Trump. And the the Deep State bureaucracy performs well supporting both wings.
Matt Taibbi seems to have it right:
The ability of the State to use its power to regulate virtue can be intrusive and destructive, depending on what sort of people happen to hold the levers of power at the moment. One day it’s all cool to ban this or that, and then a year later you have guys who define “virtue” in narrow ways that results in bizarre affronts to individual rights, like disenfranchising divorced women. If the Right should stand for anything, it’s the diminution of the state, not its expansion and empowerment.
In the olden time the state promoted virtue, by giving lip-service to vague, anodyne, generally-agreed-upon concepts that may or may not have been followed to the letter by an unruly and free population, but were seen as important tenets of social cohesion. There was a great deal of hypocrisy in the game, since the political class was human and hence prone to the usual fallibilities. The narrative, however, provided a baseline for understanding the expectations and obligations of the citizenry.
I think Prohibition injected a poison into this muscle. It was an attempt to regulate virtue, and it unleashed a boisterous response that normalized resistance to the virtue-regulators, and made law-breaking a middle-class pastime. Again, this was the natural reaction of a free people: amusement, contempt, and disobedience.
Do you mean that it’s too late – and maybe never WAS actually a good idea – for there to be any social opprobrium for – for example – teenage single mothers?
Yes, culture generally works, even if one has no corresponding conscience to go with it. But culture is not something that can be created in a day. That’s one thing that’s so stupid about trying to change the American culture by force.
I think you explicated it for me. Where’s Friedman now? And look what has been happening to Trump… he obviously is not a member of the party policy and thought. He’s part of the voters… so my critique isn’t aimed at voters, but at policy makers (which isn’t congress or the president, but the think tanks and lobbyists).
And Bush was aligned with the think tanks and lobbyists.
Good statement of the Libertarian-Liberal position.
I completely disagree about what the Right should stand for. I think that it should stand for the promotion of virtue. It used to. There were both social and legal sanctions against a variety of misbehavior, particularly but not exclusively relating to sexual morality.
Your hypothesis about Prohibition is an interesting one. I’ll have to think about it. If it was Prohibition that pushed people toward Liberalism, I would have expected it to break out before the 1960s. Though sometimes social changes have delayed effects, so I can’t be sure about it.
My own hypothesis, these days, is that our WWII propaganda undermined respect for authority, by characterizing ourselves as the “free” people fighting against “authoritarian” or “totalitarian” states. This continued in the Cold War. This rhetoric undermines all government authority, in its logic, though most people don’t take it that far.
I also note your Liberal Feminism, in your view of voting for women. The Founders sure didn’t view this as some God-given right, not for women and not really for anyone. There were restrictions on the franchise, though the rhetoric of rights eventually undermined them.
I know you consider yourself religious and Christian but I have trouble understanding how you might reach your conclusions about why we were created with brainpower capable of reason, agency, and choice leading to all kinds of visible progress over time but our collective behavior should be ruled by peers in an authoritarian manner.
No, it wasn’t beautiful. It was ugly, nasty, and insulting.
Same.
The celebrated EJ Hill had an excellent post that touched on this a few years back:
https://ricochet.com/587641/dear-conservative-life-coach/
Which was a great contrast to this:
https://ricochet.com/587390/dont-ask-government-for-love-tucker/
To which I responded
It’s time for conservatives to toss out Conservatism, Inc. the way Buckley bounced the Birchers.
Up front, I think there’s a good amount of space between libertarian and tyranny. It isn’t just a switch that is either on or off.
Conservatives do not believe in no government. If it did, it would be libertarian. Having a competent government capable of exercising it’s duties and enforcing the laws of its people is not necessarily tyrannical unless you are an anarchist.
So the question isn’t government or no government. The question is what role should it possess. We all agree that a government should protect its citizenry from threats both foreign and domestic. But just because I agree that is a proper role for government, it does not then follow I would be in favor of a police state.
Since the laws are about enforcing morality, then it stands to reason that moral values can be enshrined in law. The question is simply whose morals are going to be enforced?
And as a Christian, it is recognized that humans are not naturally moral. Hence, laws exist where large numbers of humans interact in cooperation.
He certainly can be exactly that and I don’t doubt there were pieces in his writing where he WAS exactly that. I meant it in this vein: Even Kevin D. Williamson — of ALL people! — has written with greater compassion than Mr. Wright. Williamson at least has acknowledged that there are times when “just move” and “just get a new job” and “just snap out of it” aren’t possible. And I regret that I can’t find the exact piece.. Either way, I’ve always appreciated your comments and thoughts.
As a post script to the whole hullaballoo on this NR piece, what I find most interesting is that NR – and the writer’s — defense entirely centers on “He’s from Oklahoma and a Marine.” But, then, it does seem to me that most are making this about Wright being some effete elitist, not centering on his lack of compassion. I have no idea if he’s an elitist or effete.
And I think there’s a knee-jerk response from those on the right that when the singer sings “Rich Man” they think he’s making an attack on capitalists. Perhaps he his. However, I aim the words of his song at Anthony Fauci. A rich man, unelected, who inflicted so much pain and misery to this country. And you know what? Tomorrow, he’ll still be a rich man. Some of us pay for our mistakes. Some don’t.
And I still can’t help but wonder if the writer grasps that he *has* been living a very charmed life if he thinks all it takes is hard work to improve your lot in life. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it can’t.
He invokes the name of Christ in imploring the audience to consider how fortunate they are. I’d suggest the same for him.
Why do people here even pay attention to the National Review?
This reminds me of Catholic families who even after hearing that the local priest diddled the alter boys at their parish, still are fond of saying “But he was such a nice, nice man.”
Get over it. Move on.
There are tweets and vids from James Woods, Jimmy Dore, and the reporters from “Rise” which of course is connected to “The Hill,” as well as “The Hill.”
There is “The Daily Wire”, “Epoch Times”, “The Blaze”, and on the internet only: The Conservative Tree House.
As counterpoint to Washington DC’s “WaPo” there is “The Washington Examiner.”
If I had all day I could list four hundred more.
I think it is a bit glib to take the words of his song to mean that he believes that working hard will improve one’s lot in life. I think he is pointing to that as an idea that was a traditional American concept – one that the vulture capitalists who have become Globalists have demolished over the past 50 years
I only notice it when others point me to it. Half the time the articles are behind a paywall that I can’t read anyway.
But it’s always good to keep a close watch on the enemy.
Yeah, apologies: I believe the NR writer is leading a charmed life.
As for the author of the song, I don’t know his motivations or his story. I was listening to the song and thinking, again, of the Fauci’s of this world who pass rules for other people, don’t live by them themselves and get rich. (John Kerry, Jennifer Granholm, et al, would also fit that.)
I guess I haven’t yet (and I stress yet) felt the sting from VC ruining my way of life. Or tearing apart what I see as being America, land of the free.
But I can point to a couple years worth of Covidian nonsense and say “These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just wanna have total control / Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do” … man, that sure rings true.
Well, what was the view of the founders? That limiting the right to vote only to property owners may disenfranchise all the rest? Or that extending it to all might allow the the majority (important word) without property to overrule the minority?
Wasn’t it eventually left up to the states? Which created its own set of problems, some of which are still being worked through.
But I’m interested, Jerry. Let’s take a hypothetical case:
Suppose I’m a woman. (I am, but this is hypothetical, K?) Suppose I’m married. Suppose I own property, have a better job, and make more money, than my spouse. Suppose–for the sake of argument–that as a couple we’re perfectly fine with all that.
Also, suppose–like most of my sex, if you believe the polls–I’m a left-wing loon.
Now, when tax time comes around suppose my husband and I file a joint tax return in which–in the course of things–my salary and assets count for more in the way of taxes than do his. So–in those terms at least–I’m a more productive citizen, and I’m sending more to the treasury than is he.
Now it comes time to vote.
Would you disenfranchise me on the basis of my sex and your fear that I might not vote the way you like, even though I am–demonstrably–a property-owning, productive and useful citizen in terms of revenue to the government, even more so than is my male spouse?
If so, please explain your reasoning in this case or–equally–in the case of a single woman with a job who is a net taxpayer and contributor to the treasury. Why should either of us be denied the right to vote?
Or–would you simply have set up a society regulated in such a way that neither of us could own property or hold a job that threatens you so?
What do you do with, and where do you put, the economically productive woman?
I would keep with the old being that property owners vote regardless of sex. I don’t know why you are being so antagonistic. Many of the women here think the universal franchise was a bad idea.
I was responding to Jerry, whose views on the subject here are oft-stated and well-known.
I don’t see anything in his immediately adjacent comment which modifies them in any way. Surely, if his point was that property owners, regardless of sex, should be allowed to vote, he could have said so, rather than equating any opinion that differs from his own with “Liberal Feminism?”
I don’t know why you are being so defensive. The fact that “many of the women here think that the universal franchise was a bad idea” is no basis for telling me that I should shut up, or that my opinion is somehow out of bounds.
You’re free to speak your mind. So am I.