Notice how frustrated people are these days?
Pissed off, ticked off, irritated? Stressed out? Anxious, impatient, manic?
Before, it seemed like it was just old white dudes. And they were pissed off, ticked off, and irritated because Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones or Fox News was vilifying anybody who wasn’t an old white dude. Ultimately, white dudes were being asked to live up to the ideals they were raised with and always claimed they believed in, but the practical application of those ideals wasn’t easy. They felt like swell guys espousing them, but when anyone began asking them to deliver on the promise those ideals signified, they felt belittled, besieged, and disrespected. They had prepared themselves for gratitude and adoration, not real action. They wanted the credit for the notion, but they weren’t interested in seeing meaningful change in motion.
Ergo, the current roster of the Texas State Legislature.
Ergo, Greg Abbott.
Ergo, Donald Trump.
And there was a catch-all term they’d been using for decades to justify their perennial titty-baby mode, and conservatives wielded it even better than they wield the current cultural boogeyman acronyms like BLM, DEI, 1619, LGBTQ, and others.
It was “the welfare state.”
It’s “a system whereby the government undertakes to protect the health and well-being of its citizens, especially those in financial or social need, by means of grants, pensions, and other benefits. The foundations for the modern welfare state in the U.S. were laid by the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.” It was expanded by President Lyndon Baines Johnson (a Texan, believe it or not) in what his administration dubbed the Great Society. It was a small step in the right direction in terms of humanity and our nation finally trying to make good on its ideals, but bitchy, whiny, old white men have been attacking it ever since. They say it’s not fiscally responsible (even though it’s minuscule compared to the military-industrial complex and our dipshit for-profit health-care system). They also say it disproportionately favors everybody but bitchy, whiny, old white men — who never want to talk about or acknowledge the mistakes and atrocities of their forebears but act like they themselves — not their forebears — built this country, and we all owe them because of what they accomplished?!
What we have here is a failure … to ruminate.
Taxation without representation — later becoming equal representation — was the lynchpin of our break with the Brits.
Look it up, under “American Revolution.”
And all Affirmative Action and programs like DEI are trying to accomplish is a significant step toward inarguably that. Which, by the way, is coming up on 250 years — yes, count ’em — overdue. The denigration and general malfeasance that have been directed at anything trying to address American sociopolitical truancy is unconscionable and, well, un-American. But that doesn’t stop conservative politicians and pundits from exploiting the issue and profiting from our cognitive dissonance.
They have us right where they want us — at each other’s throats.
Look, I know you haven’t asked and probably don’t want to hear, but you’re Texans, right? Don’t we call ’em like we see ’em?
I like to think so, just like I like to think some of you do some thinking. There’s certainly not much evidence of it — especially considering who we let sway us — but I’m feeling neighborly. So, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Criticism of the “welfare” state has always been unadulterated malarkey perpetrated by conservative blowhards. No one enjoys more “welfare” than the military-industrial complex and the rich.
We don’t live in a welfare state (even though Texas leeches off the federal government as much as anybody). Truth be told, we live in a male-fare state — a white male-fare state, to be specific.
And women, minorities, LGBTQs, stereotypical “others,” and other trouble-making sentient folk of every shape and stripe will just have to learn to live with it.
Because, as Gawd is almost every bitchy, whiny, old white guy’s witness (and patriarchal excuse), nothing will change until we pry their cold, clumsy, wrinkly hands from their petulant, red, white, and blue (but mostly white and red) dick-wag.
But that’s not going to happen either.
Here in Texas, it’s practically against the law for anybody except old white dudes to be pissed off, ticked off, and irritated.
Fort Worth native E.R. Bills is the author of The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas and Tell-Tale Texas: Investigations in Infamous History.
This column reflects the opinions and fact-gathering of the author(s) and only the author(s) and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. He will gently edit it for clarity and concision.
