The coming elections will be nasty ... and critical

It was from my life in California that I understood the place-based politics that I have been worried about forever since.  Life in the Central Valley was nothing like the California that people have in mind.  I used to tell people that the SoCal versus NorCal (Southern California versus Northern California) was an incorrect framework, and that the realistic one is coastal California versus inland California.

Coastal California is urban, cosmopolitan, and everything that we think of when we think about the state.  It is liberal in its politics and culture.  People have no hassles relating themselves to the world.

The inland communities and people gave me a very different taste of the Golden State.  When What's the matter with Kansas? came out, I could easily relate to the discussions there because the dynamics were similar to what I had experienced in the southern San Joaquin Valley. 

Moving to Oregon reinforced the place-based understanding.  It turned out that the state being described as liberal and full of hippies was one hell of a gross caricature.  There were--and are--some hard core conservatives, whose outlook was/is no different from the population in California's Central Valley.

All these are why I never dismissed the possibility of tRump winning not only his adopted party's nomination but also the general election.  And I was worried sick about tRump, even as the "progressive" Berniacs were enthusiastically beating up on Hillary Clinton.

I was thinking about all these as a result of reading this compelling essay about the gilets jaunes (the yellow vests).  When we think about France, we think in terms that are comparable to reducing California to its coasts, or Oregon to its liberals.  As much as there is a lot more in these two states, there is plenty more to France as well.  The neglected are pissed off, and for good reasons; the "populist anger as the inevitable response to the widening gulf between those “rooted” in a particular place and cosmopolitans at home anywhere"

To most of us--yes, including you, the reader--the world is our larger home within which we have a physical address as our "home."  We ask ourselves "in an age of massive displacement and global travel, does the concept of home even make sense anymore?"  But, this is not a question that tRump's base or the gilets jaunes or the Brexiters ask themselves.

This struggle is bound to worsen in the US if the economic benefits from all-things-global are not accompanied by constructive redistribution policies and programs.  Unfortunately, the party that fuels and funnels the rage of the "rooted" is also opposed to redistribution of any kind.  Let us see if any of the Democratic contenders are able to overcome this important challenge.  I hope they will.