And yet Rainbow Pie is not a bitter book. If anything, it is more reflective than his first book. Unwell, thinking both of his own mortality and of the increasingly dysfunctional politics of the country, he retreated into nostalgia, looking to explore the America of his youth, the personalities and beliefs of a vanished world. Perhaps he knew that he hadn’t long to live. His memoir was, in some way, a grand farewell note.
In late 2010, Bageant was diagnosed with colon cancer. Despite receiving treatment at the local Veterans Administration hospital in Winchester, he understood that his prospects were bleak. Unsentimental, he wanted no funeral; he even tried to argue his family out of having obituaries published. When news of his death was announced, his website was inundated with messages of condolence from his fans across the globe, and from friends and acquaintances in the region that he was never able to leave.
Bageant was raised in America’s cheap seats, watching the drama of postwar prosperity from afar. Despite his copious writerly talents, as he got older he returned to those cheap seats. It was, he believed, where America’s most interesting characters sat. From those seats, Bageant sketched an American tragedy, a bleak postscript to Norman Rockwell’s version of a wholesome mid-century America. Tom Cave, a childhood friend, never quite agreed with Bageant’s political credo, or with his analysis that working Americans were being subjected to one snow job after another, but the more he read of Bageant’s work the more he came to realize that his friend represented something good, something valuable. “I’ve always been more or less conservative,” he says in a soft voice, fighting back tears. “I love the flag, love America and all that stuff. Joe did, too. That’s why he tried to change things.”
Excuse me … uncomfortable truths? Bageant does nothing but parrot the timeless progressive truism that conservatives are too dumb to see the world “as it really is” and always vote against their common interests. It’s typical left wing condescension for the lumpen. Nothing particularly thought provoking or original about that.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Tue 27 Sep 2011 at 10:30 AM
Nothing new here, just achingly mechanical interpretations of American complexities.
It would have been interesting if the 'Thomas Frank' question had been reversed - 'What's the Matter with Malibu/Martha's Vineyard/North Chicago?' Residents of these pleasant precincts, by the dogmatically left-wing interpretation of politics, also 'vote against their economic interests'. But the question seldom is asked in the MSM politico-journalistic echo chamber. I suppose the answer is that denizens are more . . . evolved . . . and they . . . think about the big picture and, well, really care about important cultural issues and saving the planet and so forth.
Uh-oh, wait a second. Where does this framing device take us regarding social 'class' in America? Fortuately, CJR and others will never ask the question that prompts the implicit, class-bigoted answer.
If CJR is really interested in being counter-intuitive, and exploring 'unpleasant truths' and so on, they could examine the literature that suggests that (1) affluent people are more socially 'liberal' than others, leading to (2) the paradox that economic liberalism is undercut by the social liberalism, since when you get down to it, economic outcomes depend more on 'culture' than on this or that monetary or fiscal policy. Don't want to mess with your worldview too much, there, CJR.
#2 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Tue 27 Sep 2011 at 04:58 PM
CJR seems to attract a disproportionate share of trolls, doesn't it?
It's easy to understand why folks like Mike and Mark want to discourage you from reading Joe Bageant's work. Sure, Joe enjoys ranting, but he actually knows the folks drinking at the Royal Lunch until they need a cab ride home in his home town, Winchester, Va. He can explain how the local power structure of realtors, developers, retailers, bankers and lawyers run things, supported by the right-wing Byrd family's local paper and the right-wing Lewis family's talk radio station. He watched how his father died penniless, and he watches Dottie singing Patsy Cline even when she can't afford to fill her prescriptions.
Mike and Mark don't want you to know about Dottie and her friends, because they really don't want progressives to make common cause with the white underclass. It wouldn't be in their interests.
#3 Posted by BillNRoc, CJR on Thu 29 Sep 2011 at 12:51 PM
To BIllNRoc, first off, I'd post under my own name before calling anyone a 'troll' - a 'troll' seems to be defined as 'someone who is besting a left-winger in an argument'. (Not unlike racist, sexist, homophobe, etc.)
Second, good luck on the dream of uniting the political cultures of Winchester, Virginia with those of Berkeley and Cambridge under one banner. Culture matters. If it didn't, then Manhattan, which has a mean value of about a million dollars for the average address. Maybe Barbara Ehrenreich will look into that in her next book, but I doubt it.
#4 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sat 1 Oct 2011 at 05:47 PM
SO?
Why .. of course. The 30,000,000 illegals who have invaded the USA are deluded. They ought to return home and tell "The Economist" that the USA is a lousy place.
For every Mike Moore -- there 100,000 illegals that would be happy to live in his $5,000,000 Manhattan co-op. Yes, American capitalism is terrible.
LOL, ROTF.
#5 Posted by R.P., CJR on Tue 4 Oct 2011 at 08:22 PM
Read his blog and essays here: http://www.joebageant.com
#6 Posted by Ed Westfield Jr., CJR on Wed 5 Oct 2011 at 02:50 PM
I'm in the deep south, and Joe's people are my people, and I sometimes work at benefits for terminally sick kids without health insurance. Almost without exception their parents are voting against their own self-interests, voting for people who think their situation is their own fault for not trying hard enough. My people fuel the lotteries in their hope that some day they too might be millionaires, and they won't want to give any of it up when they get there – even though 65% of current millionaires say they wouldn't mind giving up more.
I miss the old right wing. It was no stranger to Christianity, and it didn't have to try so hard to justify itself.
#7 Posted by stephen broussard, CJR on Fri 7 Oct 2011 at 10:22 AM