Once, years ago, I was sitting on a plane next to someone from Los Angeles and chatting when they asked me where I was from. I told them I lived in Missouri and they paused, their brows furrowing in clear confusion and wonder until they finally asked me, “… What are you doing? I am doing there?”
To clarify, they were not asking me what I do for a job. They asked what there is to do there, what activities were available to me to fill the long and possibly boring hours I spent in Missouri. One of the side effects of living in the middle of the country is that people who live in big cities along the coasts often scoff at people who don't. More often than not, we're referred to as “cow country,” “flyover country,” or other monikers that all carry the same message: There's nothing to do in the Midwest but sit back and watch the corn grow.
But not now. Now that the primaries are in full swing, Midwesterners are enjoying a special thing that only happens once every four years: All of the most important figures in American politics come together to announce, constantly and loudly, how great everyone in the Midwest is. . Suddenly, we're America's creamy middle, and the “coastal elites” are such a dry cookie.
“We need Washington to be more like our small towns, not the other way around,” is the slogan of candidate Pete Buttigieg, who is drawing heavily on his Midwestern heritage when talking about the campaign.
In a campaign field choked with New Yorkers, it's an easy argument for Pitt, but he by no means has a monopoly on such rhetoric. Four years ago, Donald Trump made a similar argument when he introduced “small town” Mike Pence, who also hails from Indiana. Years before that, Sarah Palin traveled the country touting the small-town values of “real Americans” in places like the state of Alaska.
Every election cycle, politicians on both sides try to shore up their support for Americans by trying to tap into a deep well of goodwill that Americans have for small towns, with their simpler lives, their old-fashioned ways, their family values. their work ethic.
Usually, when a large group of people get together to talk about how great I am, I accept it, of course, as the universe makes sense after all. But generally there is more to it than that.
If you look back, American mythology is filled with examples of this same belief, the idea that small-town Americans from rural areas are just better from other people.
You see it in Luke Skywalker. He's not American, but he was created and portrayed by one, and he grows up on a simple farm doing chores for his aunt and uncle, providing the moral background needed to rule the Force and overthrow empires. The first stop on his journey of discovery is what passes for the “big city” on Tatooine, a “wretched hive of scum and evil” where everyone is out to get you, giant slugs run organized crime, even the popular music is called “jeez.”
The contrast is stark and obvious: There are good and pure country farm boys like Luke, and there are sleek city boys like Han Solo. By the end of the film, Luke's kindness flows to Han — kindness earned from a lifetime of repairing humidors for Uncle Owen.
Or take an even more American tale of rural goodness, The Wizard of Ozwhere a Kansas farm girl is transported to a magical land and ends up making it all through the Midwestern and a good heart. The Wizard of Oz has been interpreted by some as a political allegory, with Dorothy representing the entire Midwest with her simple morality (the yellow brick road is supposed to be about monetary policy) that she brings to the Emerald City (Washington DC) to put everyone on the straight.
Or consider the most Midwesterner of all, Clark Kent. An all-powerful alien creature who not only fell from the sky, but did so without a green card, Kent should represent all that is terrifying to red-blooded Americans. But the creators of Superman knew how to make Kent look as good and pure and trustworthy as he could be: let him grow up on a farm, raised by simple Kansas farmers, absorbing all that “truth, justice, and the American way” that we have heard so much about.
And as soon as he grew up enough, Clark went to the Big City, because there is no need for Superman in Kansas. Everyone is already great there, so it's time to bring simple Midwestern values to a place where they are sorely lacking and desperately needed.
Of course, anyone who has ever lived in a big city knows firsthand that big cities are just as full of great people with strong characters as anywhere else. And anyone who's ever lived in a small town knows firsthand that it's just as full of jerks as anywhere else. People are the same everywhere, generally speaking, and no particular geographical area can claim to have the best morals or the purest people.
So where did this come from?
Like many things in America, this started because of money, power and votes. In the early days, when we were figuring out how this whole “democracy” thing would work, it was an open question who could vote. As is well known, women and most blacks failed to do so in the end, and we had to go back to the drawing board several more times throughout American history to fix it.
And originally, one of the things the Founding Fathers were fairly divided on was whether or not landless people should be allowed to vote. When discussing what they called “universal suffrage,” many of our most prominent figures believed that the people should only be allowed to help decide the fate of our country if they owned a small part of it.
One of the great proponents of this was Thomas Jefferson, who he said very about things that sound all too familiar about how great ordinary farmers were: “The tillers of the land are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and are attached to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most enduring bonds.'
Jefferson wasn't referring to “subsistence farmers,” the kind of people who grew crops to feed their families through the winter. He was talking about large plantations, rich landowners who were essentially mini Monsantos dotting the landscape. “Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because in the end it will contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.”
Of course, it's not enough to make the countryside look good, virtuous, and attractive: You also have to make the cities look ugly. “When we pile one upon another in the great cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe,” Jefferson also said. he said.
Basically, the people who owned real estate were good, and the people who rented—like many of the people I know, and probably many of the people you know or have met as well—were bad. Most of the people I've met in my life wouldn't have been allowed to vote under that system, and neither would I.
Jefferson failed in his attempt to prevent poor people from voting, but he succeeded in helping to embed a vision of country folk in the American consciousness, leaving behind a pervasive belief in the virtues of the “simple life.”
In the last two hundred years the fate of the farmer has been somewhat reversed. Most farming is now done by large agribusinesses and the idea of the “family farm” is slipping further into the past. Whereas in Jefferson's day most of the residents he spoke of were wealthy “job creators,” today many rural areas have a real problem with poverty.
But because Jefferson failed in his attempt to prevent the poor from voting, every four years those poor become a valuable source of votes. So, somewhat ironically, the myth that Jefferson created about the virtues and values of country folk is still very useful today—he failed to use it to keep people from voting, but politicians today often manage to they use him to get people to vote the way they want.
So there you have it: You probably didn't think there was a subject that could combine Thomas Jefferson, Sarah Palin, and Superman into a unified field theory of American presidential politics, but I'm that good. Maybe Mayor Pete is right about me after all.
