This past weekend we had our annual little small town festival. Having lived in a number of small towns in my adulthood I see that they are mostly the same...a few carnival rides, a craft show and a car show, bands in the park, a beer garden. The names may change the reason behind the show may change (though almost always there is some nod to the historical background of the town), but they are almost always the same.
My kids, who have lived in the same town their entire lives, really enjoy our festival. I don't care for it much, but then again I'm an introvert and so don't enjoy all that much which involves huge crowds of people. But I do always walk through it for awhile, mixing among deplorables and hippies alike that seem to populate these things. I'm always fascinated and a little bit disgusted at my fellow humans, such as the huge guy in the tank top with an arm tattoo that said 'Hello Bitch!' in large letters, or the guy wearing the t-shirt saying 'If I die delete my browser history'. 99.9% of the people at these shows are my fellow caucasians, and it makes me realize even more so the stupidity of racism. I mean, if this is the best white people have to offer, then surely we need some more DNA in the gene pool, right?
One thing that I notice in the craft shows is the marketing of the confederate battle flag almost as much as the American flag. T-shirts, wooden decorations, coffee mugs...while I don't live in a former confederate state, I find a lot of people here in Kansas are still fighting the lost cause. They will fly their confederate flags proudly from the back of pickup trucks or wear it on their favorite t-shirt. I'd like to think they are honoring some kind of southern heritage of family values...but more than likely, a lot of those who wear these things really do think that fighting to preserve slavery was really a pretty good idea. Yes "I have black friends" they will say...but really, the confederacy was about slavery at its core, and such a way of life would be perfectly acceptable to many people in Trump's America.
Because here's the thing: I find it interesting that many of the people who proudly wear the stars and bars at the same time are likely also Trump supporters who get enraged that Mexicans want to come to this country and hold onto some of their Mexican heritage. Even as they drive around with a confederate flag in the window, they have no qualms about disrespecting the Mexican flag on the car of another. Even as they tell other people that this is America, love it or leave it, they are still more firmly rooted in an entirely different nation, the confederacy. What a weird kind of patriotic fervor.
