Posted on 11/05/2004 7:58:15 AM PST by dead
WHY did Bush win? My first experience of the American hinterland was more than 30 years ago, on a long, lazy car drive: down from Germanic Cincinnati in Ohio; across the Blue Ridge Mountains in West Virginia, where the radio stations play wall-to-wall country music; southwards through the Carolinas, where the red earth sticks to the magnolia blossoms; then northwards again along the bleak Atlantic coast where the Wright Brothers first took to the air.
It was a revelation: no New York skyscrapers, no urban sophistication, and my then American girlfriend had to slip a ring on her left hand lest the prim North Carolinan landlady in the gorgeous colonial B&B take Presbyterian offence at our unwed status. This is the America that has given George Walker Bush his huge popular majority in the teeth of world opinion and despite the ire of America’s coastal elites.
Here in Scotland, where the mainstream view is anti-Bush, the instant reaction will be to dismiss this other America as redneck, racist, bigoted, gun-loving and ignorant. But hold a mirror to thyself: the part of America that doggedly voted Republican on Tuesday is its ethnic Scottish-Ulster heartland. These are the descendants of the lowland yeoman folk who colonised Virginia in the 17th century, then crossed the Appalachian Mountains to open up the frontier in the 18th, joined by the refugees from the Govan slums in the 19th.
They brought with them a Celtic tribalism, a small-farmer self-reliance and a rationalist Presbyterian morality based on the Good Book. They also brought their own home-spun music, with its sentimental narratives and view of this world as a trial to be endured. From the bluegrass fiddle music of the Appalachian crofts to the Burns-like honky-tonk ballads of the itinerant oil workers in the Texas dustbowl, country music has evolved to dominate contemporary musical tastes. But beyond the saccharin-sweet commercialism of country rock, it is music that still defines the mental and moral landscape of a community that was prepared to defy the world last Tuesday. Never in a million years were America’s Scots-Irish going to vote for John Kerry, whatever the eastern pollsters thought.
That is not to say that many Americans were not legitimately critical of George Bush - for failing to capture Osama bin Laden, for overestimating Saddam Hussein, for letting Iraq slide into anarchy and for having a dangerously ad-hoc approach to economic policy. Mr Bush is a man for the grand gesture - much needed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the dot-com crash - but his interest in the subsequent follow-up has frequently proved a tad inadequate.
Yet when the political chips are really down, the American Scots-Irish prefer two things when choosing a leader: moral certainty in taking decisions (which is different from sexual morals) and a populist ability to speak in something approaching the vernacular. That’s why they ditched George Bush, senior, for folksy Bill Clinton, until they saw through Clinton’s synthetic political outrage. And that’s why they stuck with Bush, junior, reformed drunkard and someone literally not afraid to overthrow tyrants.
I mention all this not to justify George Bush but to suggest a way for Europe to understand a resurgent American nationalism that conforms pretty much to what the Scots-Irish made it. Contrary to European myth, it is not an especially imperialist nationalism, but when provoked it sees things with a terrible, biblical simplicity.
The Scots settlers who first colonised America, and then illegally slipped across the Appalachians to live among the Indian tribes, were not out to found a new empire. Having been chased out of Scotland and Ulster for economic and religious reasons, then having clashed with the conservative English merchant elites who ran the eastern colonies, the Scots just wanted to be left to their own devices. To this day, their predilection for owning guns is less to do with the desire to blast away at dumb animals, as pique at the idea that someone should tell them what to do. That’s why it is not a good idea to try to frighten them by crashing airliners into tall buildings: it just makes them mad.
When roused, usually by a wholly correct moral indignation, Scots-Irish America believes it is the agency for Divine retribution. Don’t snigger: you are here because of this gut reaction. Back in 1940, the United States was split down the middle - nothing new there - over the war in Europe. The large German immigrant communities of the industrial Mid-West (think Ohio) were fervently isolationist. They had just re-elected Franklin Roosevelt on a platform of non-intervention. The Americans in favour of dealing with the fascists were the Scots-Irish, who had a long tradition of military service, especially during the Civil War (on both sides). Otherwise, the capital of the EU would be called Germania.
OF COURSE, there are downsides to the Scots-Irish psyche in America. Historically, it has been prone to racism. It was socially conservative long before the rise of Christian fundamentalism (and I worry about a Bush administration packing the Supreme Court with reactionaries for the next generation). Mind you, I suspect that if we put gay marriage to the vote in Scotland, it would be rejected. And I think it is too easy to put the Bush victory down to an evangelical plot: the Catholic German strongholds of the Democratic Party in the industrial Mid-West are stridently anti-abortion.
Here is the saving grace of the Scots-Irish version of American nationalism: it would really rather finish the job quickly in Iraq, and go home and listen to Roy Acuff or Hank Williams. It does not like being drawn into the role of imperialist policeman. But anti-Americans should beware of getting what they wish for - living without the Americans may prove worse than living with them.
As a culture based on self-reliance and Mosaic rules of social conduct, Scots-Irish American nationalism cannot comprehend societies based on clientelism and endemic personal corruption.
That’s why it does not like the way the United Nations has developed into a talking shop, and why it gets exasperated by the Middle East. The Scots-Irish have given George Bush a mandate: but it says: "Finish the job quickly, or we will let the world stew in its own juice."
The world has woken up to four more years of George Bush with something of a headache. Personally, I’m glad the incipient trade war that the Democrats were planning against Europe - to make good their promise of protecting jobs in Ohio - has receded into the distance.
I also think that by legitimising George Bush with a serious popular majority, the Scots-Irish have cut the diplomatic feet from under those who dismiss him as a usurper; as well as seeing off tiresome posers, such as the documentary-maker Michael Moore, who trivialise and personalise debate.
The world can now get down to some serious politics, starting at the G8 summit at Gleneagles Hotel in July. Remember that Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder will retire long before Bush. There is a space for a new generation of European politicians to rebuild the transatlantic alliance.
Like it or lump it, a Bush White House is now a fact of life. But if Scotland calms down a minute, we might discover that his America is a far less alien place than we imagine.
This article is right. Americans are never going to cow down to anyone...I see that same attitude in Australians...
Half of us get up in the morning and pray with each meal... and that scares the people in Europe.
I don't know if what I saw coming out of Iran yesterday was real or fantasy, (ie... people celebrating Bush's election and also Poland,) but if it's true then these are going to be happy times for everyone...
That Bin Laden tape was the best thing for waking us up...
Tell an American he can't do something...?..... don't make me laugh...
nick
"In measured hundredweight and penny pound
WHEN THE MAN COMES AROUND."
Well done and well written
as someone with a scotch-irish last name, I say "aye".
Sometimes a thing has to be viewed from afar to be understood. This guy gets it about right, at least as far as the historically significant but now diminishing influence of the Scotch Irish in the US are concerned.
While I enjoy blasting the occasional dumb animal, I completely agree with this statement, and I am proud to be named among these people.
Long Island voting profile was 1.2 million total votes with the difference between Bush and Kerry only 35 thousand. Suffolk County was a virtual dead heat with a gap of only 1,665 votes out of 580,437.
To this day, their predilection for owning guns is less to do with the desire to blast away at dumb animals, as pique at the idea that someone should tell them what to do. That’s why it is not a good idea to try to frighten them by crashing airliners into tall buildings: it just makes them mad.
This article seems to me to be more of an attempt to explain Bush's victory in a way that Euros can understand, rather than an accurate analysis of the election. As plentiful as the Scots-Irish may be in the US, they certainly do not populate all of the red counties. It's almost like they are trying to name some pathology that would explain this election, rather than accepting that, to the American way of thinking, Bush was the better man for the job. And given the success of the US as compared to Europe, the US way of thinking seems to be the stronger one.
I give my own hearty "aye" as well.
I am a Texan, an American, and of Scots-Irish decent. That makes me pretty indiviualistic. I couldn't care less what the world thinks of us, but am glad to see that at least one Scotsman is figuring things out.
"That’s why it is not a good idea to try to frighten them by crashing airliners into tall buildings: it just makes them mad."
He go this part right, anyway. Any pictures of his former girlfriend?
My dad's paternal ancestors were largely Scots-Irish... a fascinating lot.
Nice post. It's good to hear that America isn't getting bashed by everyone in the world because we elected a Don't take no ___ from nobody, President.
Agree it's an oversimplification but it speaks the right words to get Euros to start smelling the coffee. There are indeed great opportunities for a new generation of European leaders, such as Tony Blair has shown, to work with the US. Even France and Germany, although they've got a long way to come...
Cool article. I have Scots-Irish blood inherited from the Patterson side of my family.
We call ourselves "Scotch"-Irish in South Carolina. Always have..always will I suspect.
The rest of your post I agree with.
Johnny Cash?
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