Nail Factories, Red States And Growing Up In Trump Country
If you're familiar with the story of the Poplar Bluff, MO nail factory facing likely shutdown or offshoring thanks to Shitstain's trade tantrum, that's my starting point.
I’m from Missouri and grew up in a fairly small town, though on the opposite side of the state from Poplar Bluff. I drive through many small towns in Missouri (and Kansas and Arkansas) similar in size and demographics to Poplar Bluff over the course of a year, or towns and villages that are smaller still.
Though there are always exceptions, one thing has remained constant for most of them over time — decay.
It’s the peeling paint and the crumbling houses and crime scene tape. It’s the endless list of meth convictions in the court reports in the local paper. It’s the plastic pickle jar on the counter of the C-store asking for donations to help little Rhonda or Jackie or Kevin or Sara and their families pay for treatment for leukemia or a brain tumor or a car crash (since as we know, universal health care socialism communism arglebarglewagghhh!!!), treatments they will never, ever in multiple lifetimes be able to pay for.
It’s the going out of business sign on the only grocery store in town, or the only hospital in 3 counties closing because states won’t expand Medicaid. It’s roads and bridges that would embarrass a Ukrainian, and library districts facing cutbacks because “nobody uses them”. It’s the tax sale lists on the county collector website.
And it’s yard signs and billboards and radio call-in shows, and more yard signs and TV ads and bumper stickers, all shouting TRUMPTRUMPTRUMPTRUMPTRUMP from the treetops to the valleys, and counties that voted 60%, 70%, 75% for the Orange Asshole, and people who keep on voting for the same old shit that’s killing them and destroying where they live.
I’ve pretty much been forced to adopt the attitude that I imagine wildlife biologists adopt when dealing with the bloody realities of predation — a cold acceptance of the facts. The difference, of course, is that these aren’t elk or cod or deer being eaten, they’re people who could choose another way. However, they overwhelmingly choose not to do so, even though (unlike deer or cod) they have other options.
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