America became the most economically successful country in the world despite conservative whites.

Today white MAGA conservatives claim that if only America could rid itself of multiculturalism, diversity, and minority immigration — if it could return the government to its Christian roots and women to the kitchen — then the country would be great again. But conservative whites are not who made America great in the first place. Arguably, America became great despite conservative whites.

Slavery is America’s founding evil. And it held back the economic development of the South. In Confederate apologist mythology, the South only lost the War of Northern Aggression and their fight to preserve states’ rights because of the North’s superior weapons — a product of its more expansive industrial base. This raises the question, why did the North account for the bulk of the nation’s industrial output?

In an essay, “Industry and Economy during the Civil War”, Benjamin Arrington writes,

“In 1860, the South was still predominantly agricultural, highly dependent upon the sale of staples to a world market. By 1815, cotton was the most valuable export in the United States; by 1840, it was worth more than all other exports combined. But while the southern states produced two-thirds of the world's supply of cotton, the South had little manufacturing capability, about 29% of the railroad tracks, and only 13% of the nation's banks. The South did experiment with using slave labor in manufacturing, but for the most part, it was well satisfied with its agricultural economy.”

Note “well satisfied”. Conservatives are fearful of new things — today it is alternate energy. They whine about fossil-fuel independence. But if they had their way (and they might), the US would cede the profit and jobs created by new technologies to China, South Korea, Germany, and God only knows who else.

The situation was very different in the North. A slave-based economy did not crush the entrepreneurial spirit of driven go-getters. And — constantly dissatisfied — inventors, tinkerers, and dreamers obsessed about how to do things better.  

“By 1860, 90 percent of the nation's manufacturing output came from northern states. The North produced 17x more cotton and woolen textiles than the South, 30x more leather goods, 20x more pig iron, and 32x more firearms. The North produced 3,200 firearms for every 100 produced in the South. Only about 40% of the Northern population was still engaged in agriculture by 1860, as compared to 84% of the South.

Ironically, the North was even more productive in agriculture.

“By 1860, the free states had nearly twice the value of farm machinery per acre and per farm worker as did the slave states, leading to increased productivity. As a result, in 1860, the Northern states produced half of the nation's corn, four-fifths of its wheat, and seven-eighths of its oats.”

After their defeat in the Civil War, Southern conservatives clung to the old ways. Jim Crow kept over 40% of the South’s population in chronic poverty, contributing very little to the economy of the former slave states. What a waste.

In the ensuing century, the pattern held. The South remained a rural backwater resistant to innovation. Political power rested with the good old boys who saw no reason to let outsiders swim in their pond. Meanwhile, the North saw the supposed dregs of European society wash up on its shore.

There is little reason to think that white Northern nativists were happy about this — there was no shortage of bigotry there — but the factories, construction and shipbuilding industries, mines, meat-packing plants, docks, and the burgeoning industry in the North needed labor. And even Southern Blacks embarked on the “Great Migration” to take jobs in the new automobile industry.

Today the South is not the backwater it once was. And Southern-style white conservatism infects rural areas in every state. New York City is a liberal stronghold — while Upstate New York has a lot in common with Alabama. And the Pacific North West Coast is very different from the area inland of the Cascades.

The GOP today is a haven to conservative reactionary nihilism, the clinging to the old ways, and the nostalgia for a non-existent past. The Republican Party is now the home for Southern white rural conservatism wherever it exists across the United States.

There is a direct line from plantation owners, to Jim Crow, to immigrant bashing, to anti-CRT school curriculums. The anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, “Know-nothings” led to fear of anarchists, the Red Scare, the John Birch Society, paranoia over NATO, the New World Order, and international Jewish bankers.

Conservative groups like the American Enterprize Institute, The Heartland Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and the Federalist Society present themselves as small government libertarians true to original constitutional principles. In truth, they give a veneer of intellectual cohesion to a cabal of rights-denying, anti-democratic plutocrats. These buccaneers aim to grab power — and the profit produced by the sweat of other people’s labor.

Underpinning all this madness and terror has been, and is, an implacable fundamentalist Christianity that both fleeced the congregation and imposed its tradition of misogyny and homophobia on a majority-tolerant America. A practice trumpeted by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and an endless stream of multi-millionaire media shills warning of feminazis and the gay agenda.

They enshrine their conservative bigotry in organizations that lard their names with “Family,” Values,” “Liberty,” and “Traditional.” For example, the Family Research Council, the Family Research Institute (I guess there is a difference), the Traditional Values Coalition, and the American Family Association. These and other groups collect millions each year to prevent the LGBTQ+ community from identifying as the people God made them. (If you believe in God the creator, that is. Otherwise, as nature created them.)

So here we are today. There is no vestige of the intellectual conservatism embodied in William F. Buckley. Jr. These horrible people reject reality, history, and science - and even resist medical advances.

Conservatives are why Americans cannot enjoy the features of a great country. Such as paid parental leave. Universal healthcare. Food security. Clean air and water. Safe working conditions. And affordable higher education.

Conservatives have also destroyed the American Dream. The US is now 27th in social mobility behind the socialist paradises of Western Europe, Australasia, and the more enlightened countries of Eastern Asia. And thanks to pirate capitalism, the vast majority of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of a tiny fraction of its population.

Our maternal and infant death rates are higher. We live shorter lives. And we have to listen to the ravings of a lunatic supported by a chorus of mindless, fake-Christian, gun-toting morons who last used a book only to keep a door open.

Ask me how I really feel.