Dying of Whiteness:

How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland

Jonathan M. Metzel

Not Fast Enough – Sociologist and psychiatrist Jonathan M. Metzel delves into a variety of data and conducts interviews with white people in Missouri, Tennessee, and Kansas. His findings show that self-identity trumps (to use just any ol’ word) self-interest. White men and white women consistently vote for more guns, less health care and fewer educational opportunities for them and their children – despite suffering the negative consequences each bear. Beneath it all is fear, deeply felt grievances, and racial resentment.

What to do?

Metzel conjectures that listening and dialog can lead to common ground. I’ve heard and read others who call for community building and cultivating a sense of belonging to mitigate the loneliness of white despair. Still others claim progressives have failed to shape a message that resonates; if only they could get the messaging right!

I think we’re passed the time when any of that will do much good. Let’s not forget that Trump gained 11 million more votes in 2020 than he received in 2016. Rather than rejecting his politics of hate, division and despair, 11 million more Americans voted for him. Working-class whites reflexively, suicidally, vote for Republicans whose policies only worsen smothering income inequality. You can try to “open dialog” with them, but do you really think that’ll work? And community-building? Instilling a sense of belonging? Look at the faces of the thousands hooting, hollering, for Trump and for Whiteness at Trump rallies. Look at those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 at Trump’s behest. They have found their community. They feel they belong. Outreach and messaging won’t work. How do you find common ground and room for compromise with white conservatives who possess a religiously fervent world view that rejects facts, lacks humility, lacks shame, embraces nutty conspiracies, and belittles educational achievement while roasting pitiful, self-pitying grievances and resentments in the furnaces of fear and racism? I don’t think it’s possible.

Their downward spiral (pardon my Schadenfreude) and the country’s looming demographic shifts (in ethnicity, race, age) give me hope for the long-term despite my short-term pessimism. Politics lags demographics so expect a decade or two of continued animosity and turmoil.