Taking the pulse of post-America

I've never for a microsecond had second thoughts about using the name "post-America" for the nation I live in. To be sure, I get blowback about it with some frequency.  You know what motivates such blowback?  Denial that has morphed into disconnect.

No, I stand by my assertion that the nation we still called until recently, with complete accuracy, the United States of America is now properly to be referred to as post-America.

I've run across two big-picture-type columns today that articulate much of what has been on my mind regarding this.

Salena Zito points out that not everyone is in denial. In fact, she says, the majority of post-Americans see the disconnect between the lofty concepts and sterile buzzwords of the pointy-heads and the on-the-ground experience of normal people.  They do, however, succumb to distraction when the searing realization of just where we are becomes too much to bear:

This isn't just about politics anymore; it is about values. Our nation is at odds with the intellectual elite in wealthy, urban and academic enclaves, who now control the engines of industry. To the rest of us, those engines are not robust machines; they're like little red tricycles.

The evidence could not have been clearer than when the Labor Department reported Friday that our unemployment rate went up and our hourly wages rose only 0.3 percent in the private sector.

It was a blunt reminder to Wall Street and the White House that their message of brisk national economic momentum rings hollow to the rest of us.

We've all known for a long time that this economy — built on apps (which might employ three people), “green” jobs (they don't exist, people), social sustainability (still don't know what that does), and trying to build a middle class by forcing companies to pay $15 an hour — is a house of cards.

Today's economy is all about convenience, but that convenience comes at a price.

Grocery shopping? Self-checkout. Travel plans? Dozens of websites will compare every motel and hotel known to man to suit your budget; same for airlines and car rentals. Apps will mark every gluten-free/vegan/free-range/local-grown/food-to-table restaurant within a five-block radius of your destination, so you can carbon-footprint-transfer it (walk) there — after you read the sanctimonious reviews at the bottom of the app, of course.

All of these conveniences, via the iPhone or watch from which you can't detach yourself, come at a big price: jobs.
Somebody once checked out your groceries, filled your bags, found a hotel for you, booked your airline, checked you in or out at the airport. Not anymore.

We used to make stuff in this country, too. But that has been driven overseas by union and corporate greed or by the environmental elites.

There's a reason that, last week, much of America was transfixed by a 60-year-old woman, glammed up to look like a 35-year-old woman, who once was a man and the world's greatest athlete. It's the same reason we are obsessed with loving or hating the entire Kardashian family: We want a distraction from how bad things are — the economic uncertainty in our lives and communities, the terrifying instability seen not only in the Middle East but in many of our own black communities.

Kyle Smith looks at how swift and massive the cultural shift accompanying the economic changes has been:

Consider America circa 2002: Not that different from today, seemingly. A time traveler who spent a few hours walking around your town then and now might have a difficult time filling a small notebook with observations about what’s changed. Maybe there are more Starbuckses. And what happened to Blockbuster Video?
Yet support for gay marriages to be treated the same as straight ones went from 39% just nine years ago to 60% today, according to Gallup. As recently as 2010, a clear majority opposed gay marriage. Today, a large majority support it.

As for the broader issue of whether gay and lesbian relationships are even morally acceptable, only 40% said yes in 2001. Today that number stands at 63%. 

He goes on to cite a similar turnaround in views about marijuana and single-parent households.

My concern is that expressed by Zito in the last couple paragraphs of her piece.  I don't see a presidential candidate, or any kind of public figure who qualifies as a galvanizing cultural leader who is adequate to the task of spelling out for us just where we are in such a way that we are truly roused.  A few come close, and that's encouraging.

What we must not settle for is any message by such figures that even faintly hints at myopia.  This is why I'm becoming increasingly annoyed by pundits and talk-show hosts who are beginning to come across like one-note johnnies.  I suppose anyone winds up having a pet issue or two, but what ails us is not just the need for jobs for the middle class, or secure borders, or homeschooling, or protection of second-amendment rights, or even championing the normal-people model of family.

We are where we are because we have done nothing less than engaging in a wholesale turning of our backs to almighty God.

There, I said it.

Throughout scripture, the phrase "stiff-necked people" appears.  I've only been traipsing this realm for a little over a half-centruy, but I daresay there has never been a bunch so stiff-necked as we who now find ourselves in a pickle of biblical proportions.

Let us pray for mercy and guidance.  And more than a touch of humility.