It’s a lovely myth

“The default position for many Americans is a robust individualism that leads to suspicion of government mandates. Overcoming this natural tendency requires energetic persuasion.” https://t.co/FsCH9KocOU

— Michael Gerson (@MJGerson) July 7, 2020

It’s a lovely myth, that we are each of us our own John Wayne; but it’s utter bullshit.

I remember the anti-war movement of the’60’s, when the “default” response was not “robust individualism” bu “Shut up and do as you’re told!”  The response to the civil rights movement was “We don’t allow that and you’d better not think otherwise!”  Funny, but when people filled the streets and protested on college campuses, they weren't "many Americans" but a noisy minority; "outside agitators" and "troublemakers", a label applied to the now revered Dr. King as well as to Malcolm X or Stokely Carmichael.

This myth of "many Americans" being "rugged individualists" is just a pernicious lie.  First, the people who manage to get in front of TV cameras are not representative of all Americans.  The anti-war and civil rights protestors understood this:  TV exposure is crucial for getting the message out.  But nobody in the '60's confused those people who took to the streets for the majority of Americans.  It was LBJ (following on Kennedy) who got the Civil Rights Act passed (he did largely on the back of Kennedy's funeral; it was Kennedy's bill, originally).  LBJ got the Voting Rights Act passed, and refused to run for office again because of opposition to the War.  But the war didn't end until 1975, 7 years after the end of LBJ's term; and Dr. King was killed in '68, 3 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed.  Was that assassination an act of "robust individualism"?  Or a denial of it?

The "Tea Party" was an astroturf campaign by big money conservatives that, again, got in front of cameras, which exaggerated it's representation all out of proportion to reality (and hid it's racism very nicely, thank you.  Then again, media hid from and hid Trump's racism until just recently, when it has become visible to a blind man (a good metaphor for the media).).  The "re-open America" movement (it doesn't really fit that label) was a handful of shouters on the streets who got more attention for carrying guns than for carrying signs.  They were such "robust individualists" many of the ones carrying guns wore balaclavas to hide their faces.

There is no "suspicion of government mandates," either.  There is a suspicion of other people, based on racism.  Nobody had a problem with "government mandates" when the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement protested injustice (not "government mandates").  None of these "robust individualists" had a problem with laws they liked; it was the protest against the injustice of those laws they didn't like.  It was the laws requiring equal justice under the law they didn't like.  It was the laws require fair treatment in housing Donald and Fred Trump didn't like.  It wasn't a 'natural tendency' to want to live free or die.  It was a natural tendency to want to use the law to make things more comfortable for people in power, who happened to be white because that's the "natural order" of things in America.

Stuff this John Wayne bullshit.  Government works great when it works for me.  When it tries to work for somebody else, that's when it goes wrong.  I've seen it in court cases where my client is on the wrong side of the law.  They are never wrong, it's the law that's unjust!  It percolates up to the notion society owes them a comfortable life, and if it's at the expense of someone else, then that someone else is invisible and even deserving of being on the wrong side of the law.  The Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement were both, at root, about injustice.  As justice was more equally served, suddenly people found they were "individuals" who were "suspicious of government mandates," because the mandates that kept everything "seperate but equal" were just fine with them, and removing those was the real injustice.

We've been telling ourselves lies about justice in this country since 1776.  We didn't stop doing that 50 years ago; we just found new ways of doing it.  We still do.  But it still stinks like the same old bullshit.