Americans are right to hate us

In an Appalachian high school, the kids were set the task of writing about Europeans as part of their history curriculum. When the day came to hand in their work, the teacher took one boy aside and expressed displeasure about the sheer lack of effort he had put into his homework. ‘You have had three days, Bubba. And all you have written is “Europeans are bastards.” Would you please take your work back and expand it considerably by tomorrow.’ The following day the teacher approached Bubba for the finished article – and he took from the child an essay which read, simply: ‘All Europeans are bastards.’

I was told that joke when I was about 12 years old – so the timing makes it impossible for Bubba to have been J.D. Vance, even if the sentiment and indeed the location would seem to be bang on the money. Further, the generality of that viewpoint holds strong among a vast, probably majority, swath of Americans – by and large the ones who voted for Donald Trump in November. The ones in the middle of the country, the ones who believe in God; the ones who farm for a living, the ones who sometimes incorporate snakes into their worship procedures. The ones who abide in mountains or on endless plains or in delta swamps. It is a state of mind best expressed by that sadly late Republican Party Reptile P.J. O’Rourke, who once proclaimed: ‘I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.’