Cultures of Defiance and Resistance

Social Movements in 21st-Century America

Scott G. McNall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138239722
• eBook ISBN: 9781315295114
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

How does one achieve a sense of freedom and meaning in a confusing, over-bureaucratized, and unequal world? Scott McNall offers the compelling case that we do so by taking a stand to protect our identities and values, and by taking further steps to create a sense of community with like-minded people. Modern social movements have sprung up on the right and left, to provide this sense of community, to seek explanations for why things are the way they are, and to discover what might be done in response. At this critical juncture in American society when divisions over race, class, gender, and government influence persist, movements allow their members to feel they are not trapped by their conditions.

Cultures of Defiance and Resistance is an eye-opening account of the 'Antis' - those who stand in opposition to received wisdom and power, who resist the science of climate change, who reject vaccinations, who want to ban GMOs, and those who have resisted what they see as political or cultural oppression, such as Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and the Tea Party. McNall masterfully explores the goals, narratives, and rhetoric used by groups on the left, right, and center to understand and cope with 21st century America in a time of mass discord, uncertainty, and hostility. In doing so, he reframes social movements for a new era in one of the first cross-comparative books reflecting the entire political spectrum.

1 Cultures of Defiance and Resistance

The Search for Dignity and Respect in 21st-Century America

Consider:

• Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in November 2016 in part because white working-class Americans embraced a politics of resentment.

• Fox News is an example of a social movement organization used to advance conservative candidates and causes.

• Cultures of defiance and resistance are grounded in opposition to dominant social, economic, and political institutions.

• Resistance is a way to assert one’s self worth and maintain dignity.

• Protest movements are a way to test the boundaries of established norms and rules and to advance a cause.

• Our race, class, and gender determine which movements we embrace in our quest for acceptance and dignity.

• Many of today’s social movements can be characterized as a Great Refusal.

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” shouts Howard Beale, the long-time news anchor of the fictional Union Broadcasting System (UBS). In the 1976 movie classic, Network, Beale is told that because of declining ratings he has only two more weeks left at UBS. He goes on the air and tells his viewers he’s been fired and that he plans to commit suicide live on next Tuesday’s broadcast. He is immediately terminated by the corporate brass but after apologizing profusely they give him a chance to retire with dignity. However, instead of apologizing, the next time he goes on air he engages in another rant concluding that life is “bullshit!” The result of Beale’s antics is that ratings spike and the network decides to keep him. In one of his ensuing diatribes, he encourages his viewers to shout out of their windows, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” The movie then shows listeners echoing Beale’s rant leaning out of their windows across the city shouting, “I’m not going to take it anymore!” There are clear similarities between this fiction and the reality of the 2016 presidential election, which revealed a nation divided and angry.

In writing about cultures of defiance and resistance it is tempting to focus solely on the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President. Above all, he was a political outsider—a wealthy reality-television personality and real estate developer who had never before been elected to any public position or held a high military office. What he had was experience in making deals, which he claimed would “Make America Great Again.” During the primaries and in the general election campaign he made provocative and outrageous comments and completely dominated the news cycle all the way through the primaries and into the general election. He was, to use the words of the social theorist Douglas Kellner, a master of the politics of spectacle.¹ He Tweeted attacks on a Muslim family who had lost a son fighting our wars in the Middle East. He claimed that Mexico was sending rapists and murderers across the border and Mexico would have to pay for a “beautiful” wall. He claimed that climate change was a hoax created by the Chinese to weaken American businesses. He ridiculed a former beauty queen as being too fat. He asserted with no proof that Hillary Clinton was going to abolish the 2nd Amendment and take away people’s guns. He mused that maybe 2nd Amendment supporters could take care of her.²

The promises he made to the American people were extensive. He promised that Obamacare would be eliminated and everyone would have cheaper and better medical care. We’d get rid of environmental regulations so that jobs in coal would return, never mind that most jobs had been eliminated by automation and cheaper fuels like natural gas. Manufacturing jobs would return because he would negotiate better trade deals and impose tariffs so high that American companies would think twice before setting up shop in low-waged countries. He promised to strengthen our military (already the most powerful in the world), and wipe all traces of the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) from the face of the earth. He promised to give huge tax cuts to the wealthy and improve the lives of ordinary Americans. And so on.

What trends and issues caused so many (though not a plurality) Americans to vote for him? Why did the message of the Alt-right, which combines populist fervor with white nationalism and racism, become a powerful force in bringing people to the polls? The slogan, “Make America Great Again,” suggested there was a point in time when things were better, but for whom?

Anxiety and Fear Revealed in the 2016 Election Cycle

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency can be understood as a social movement grounded in the politics of resentment.

The demographics of who voted for Trump, and who did not, tell an important story about existing and growing divisions within American society. Trump labeled his efforts to capture the Presidency as America’s greatest mass movement ever. It wasn’t, but it should be understood the same way we understand other mass movements.³ The story of Trump’s ascendancy tells an important story about why cultures of defiance and resistance exist. Trump voters tended to be male and to be older, whiter, less healthy, less educated, and living in rural areas. Clinton voters were concentrated in urban areas, tended to be better educated, younger, African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and women. Trump’s margin of victory among whites without a college degree (67% to Clinton’s 28%) was the largest for any candidate since 1980.⁴ However, such demographics tell only part of the story.

The electoral divide was not just between red and blue states or red and blue counties but between cultures and classes. Though racists and misogynists voted for Trump, he won because millions of Americans, both Democrat and Republican, were deeply distressed about the direction of their country and felt abandoned by status-quo politicians in their parties. They were tired of being made promises that were never kept. In the words of the fictional character, Howard Beale, they were “mad as hell.” Seventy-three percent said the country was on the wrong track.⁵ The electorate did not trust our major institutions and did not trust the leadership of either party to help them.

Voters gave many reasons for their growing anger, but one repeated over and over was the lack of well-paying jobs. People were frightened by continued deindustrialization and their place in the overall economy. A survey by the AFL-CIO of 1,600 white working-class voters in Cleveland and Pittsburg found that “people are fed up, people are hurting, they are very distressed about the fact that their kids don’t have a future.” There had been no recovery from the recession.⁶ There were other issues. Families reported being stuck with thousands of dollars in medical bills, some having to declare bankruptcy. The cost of drug prices had continued to soar. Retirees saw their pension plans threatened. For many Americans, working hard and playing by the rules no longer meant you could feel secure.

Republicans were more pessimistic than Democrats about the country’s future and, perhaps, most susceptible to promises of change. When asked whether or not life would be better or worse for the next generation, 64% of Republicans though it would be worse, compared to 39% of Democrats.⁷ Confidence in the two parties’ abilities to reverse this course of events was extremely low. Only 8% of voters expressed confidence in the Republican Party, while 15% trusted the Democratic Party. Only 4% of voters expressed any confidence in Congress.⁸ Why not go with an outsider?

Trump hit a nerve with voters when he claimed he would “drain the swamp” of the nation’s capitol by flushing out lobbyists and professional politicians.⁹ As the opinion writer for the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan, wrote, Trump’s victories in the primaries signaled that people were fed up with entrenched political elites who had failed to act on the interests of white working-class Americans.¹⁰ For most workers real wages (purchasing power) were the same in 2016 as they were in 1970.¹¹ Voters were highly attuned to the fact that they were stuck in place economically, while over the last four decades the 1% had grabbed most of the country’s economic growth and wealth for themselves. The structural inequality that had once defined the condition of minorities was now a fact of life for a growing number of white Americans. Both Sanders and Trump, and to a lesser extent Clinton, played on these concerns but Trump would be the major beneficiary of growing anger, especially among white working-class voters.¹²

As The New York Times opinion writer Charles M. Blow explained, a rejection of America and its institutions occurred on both the left and right.

There is profound disappointment. On one hand, it’s about fear of dislocation of supremacy, and the surrendering of power and the security it provides. On the other hand, it’s about disillusionment that the game is rigged … It is about defining who created this country’s bounty and who has most benefitted from it.¹³

There is fear and anger about changing demographics and culture. White ethnocentrism and racial resentment were highly visible in the 2016 campaign. One measure of ethnocentrism is to ask whites to compare themselves to African-Americans, Hispanics, or other minorities in terms of whether whites are more trustworthy, intelligent, and less violent than minorities. Another way is to ask whites whether they resent gays, lesbians, and transgendered people. Combining these two measures, 41% of Democrats expressed resentment against minority Americans, including members of the LBGT community. Among independents, 56% expressed resentment while 72% of all Republicans did.¹⁴ Just how important were these cultural factors? For some voters they were as important as their economic interests.

In Iowa, which Obama had easily won in 2012, voters went for Trump in a 15-percentage point reversal over Obama’s earlier victory. A retired farmer interviewed by Trip Gabriel of The New York Times noted that Trump opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which would have helped with the export of corn and soybeans from Iowa. People voted against their own economic interests in supporting Trump.¹⁵ In attempting to explain this, a news director for an Iowa radio station described two young men he had known since they were children:

Trump voters were asserting the importance of their culture and values and attempting to reclaim their dignity.

They’re hard workers. As a kid, one washed dishes … at a restaurant. Every summer, the other picked sweet corn by hand at dawn for a farm stand and for grocery stores, and then went to work all day on his parents’ farm. Now one is a welder, and the other is in his first year at a state university on an academic scholarship. They are conservative; believe in hard work, family, the military and cops, and they know that abortion and socialism are evil.¹⁶

The two men wanted little to do with liberal America, and by extensi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Cultures of Defiance and Resistance: The Search for Dignity and Respect in 21st-Century America
• 2 The Battle in Seattle and Occupy Wall Street Movement: The Meaning of Success and Failure
• 3 Black Lives Matter: The Evolution of a Social Movement
• 4 Cultures of Hyper-Masculinity: Guns, the NRA, and Militias
• 5 The Anti-Vaccine Movement: Bounded Rationality
• 6 The Body as the Last Line of Defense: The Fight against GMOs
• 7 The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, But It Can Be Organized
• Index