Joe Bageant, a Polizeros hero, is perhaps best known for his book “Deer Hunting With Jesus,” which was about his return, as a leftie journalist in his 50’s, to the redneck Virginia town he grew up in.
He emailed me after I reviewed it saying I was one of the few who got what he meant. It wasn’t just about all the colorful people in his town (who he never condescends to because they are his people). Rather it was about how the rural white underclass used to be bedrock Democrats until they were abandoned by the Democratic Party starting a few decades ago. Republicans, who weren’t nearly so stupid, courted them with the predictable result that they now mostly vote Republican. None of this had to happen.
From the book, talking about misplaced urban liberal fear and loathing of the white underclass.
With Michael Savage and Ann Coulter openly calling for liberals to be put in concentration camps, with the CIA now licensed to secretly detain American citizens indefinitely, and with the current administration effectively legalizing torture, the proper question to ask an NRA member may be, “What kind of assault rifle do you think I can get for three hundred bucks, and how many rounds of ammo does it take to stop a two-hundred-pound born-again Homeland Security zombie from putting me in a camp?” Which would you prefer, 40 million gun-owning Americans on your side or theirs?
As one of the few who could “translate” between the two major divergent cultural groups in this great nation, Bageant will be missed. “Deer Hunting With Jesus” should be required reading for anyone who wonders where the heck the Tea Party came from – and even some who think they know.