Makes Sense

“American Woman” was originally recorded by The Guess Who, a Canadian band, and was a song harshly critical of the United States. Why does Kari Lake hate America? https://t.co/cLq2tLUiKs

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) June 1, 2023

The "hippies" in the '60's had long hair and "rock music" and were anti-war and anti-government. Then the "outlaws" (Willie and Waylon and the boys) had long hair and sang quasi-rock music (electric guitars in the band that weren't steel guitars), and then "rednecks" had long hair and heavy metal and Garth Brooks turned country music into what was then "rock music," and now it's the extreme right wing that's "anti-government."

I remember the Guess Who version of this song (still pops up on some of my Pandora channels because, you know, I'm old), and that it was a virulently anti-war song pretty much rejecting, in the blanket way of the popular song, all things American.  I've no doubt Kari Lake thinks she's the "American Woman" being rejected by the Deep State, which makes her the champion of all right-thinking people.

I do wonder what switch it is that people have in their heads that flips them from one extreme to the other, but that's a well-documented personality trait in some people, too.  Conservatives after the '70's loved to gloat about the arch-liberals who "grew up" and became arch-conservatives.  Now those "arch-conservatives" are MAGA, and suddenly they aren't so attractive.  The difference is the "hippies" of old were affluent white kids who could afford the "poor" lifestyle because they were never at risk of true poverty, and could be anti-war because their college enrollment blocked them from the draft.  That they became yuppies was never really surprising; they just went back home.

MAGA, on the other hand, is people who think they are losing social/political/cultural power.  Hippies kinda sorta wanted to set up an alternate culture, but they never really sold all they had and gave it to the poor (the true alternative, IMHO; and no, I've hardly done it, either).  MAGA wants a culture where they alone have power.  That's not really resonating with American culture/people, either.

But they need to associate themselves with an alternative; so they reach back to hits from the '60's and '70's.  There's still a few Boomers out there, after all.  Although I heard Boomers being blamed for Trump winning in 2016.  Fair enough, but be careful who you point fingers at; because that'll be your generation, soon enough.

My father got more liberal as he got older.  I was impressed with that (I didn't love him the more for it; it was just a good life lesson.)  My brother-in-law who joined the Army and went Green Beret in Vietnam is not a liberal, but he understands the need for social justice/compassion.  He's not MAGA, not by a long stretch.  Some of us shrink with age (I understand how that happens, now); some of us, like old rivers, just grow wilder.

May you have the wisdom to grow "wild" in the right ways.  May we all have such grace and wisdom.  People always need that as a guiding star, if nothing else.