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Notes -
Jesse James was a living folk hero in his time. Fallen, impoverished rebels with the resentment of defeat wanted to believe in his legend. Folks out on the frontier had their own reasons to entertain themselves with his story. Banks and railroads, like cops and insurance companies, generate societal grievances that make them easy to hate. Even at the end of his life and career, when more people were tired of his story and reputation, people still wanted to believe. Jesse was famously betrayed and murdered by a compatriot who then received a pardon for shooting him in the back. Ford himself was murdered for the act some years later.
There's a good movie about Jesse's later days that film nerds will rave about in film nerd ways. It's a pretty good slice of history in addition to the cinema perverts interest. Stiles argues in this book that Jesse provided an avatar to help make sense of their reality. He was not really Robin Hood, but he was a good story. In the aftershocks of the real war Jesse became a #resistance icon in the culture war. The real war ended, but the culture war kept on.
The rapidly changing, modernizing nation kept on rapidly changing and modernizing. Mangione is no Jesse James. He is not cool enough or famous enough or a talented enough criminal. Mangione is not interested in reconciliation, no. Disgruntled bushwhacker outlaws weren't interested nor the yellow journalists crafting the narrative.
We can find a hundred exceptions that support why we are exceptional people in exceptional circumstances. We can also find plenty to demonstrate how we are not so different. Radicals and anarchists celebrating political murder is not new. Journalists making folk heroes out of criminals is not so new. Wielding the Constitution as a weapon is not new, though the acceptance of disregarding it totally is new-ish. Like the gossips and rebels of the late 19th century -- partaking in true crime entertainment, folk hero memes, and #resistance efforts -- we live in a rapidly changing, modernizing world.
The things you list, such as support of political murders are useful for forecasting, but I don't share the weight you give them. Maybe I'm blind or I am not equipped to make such connections. I will note that Ozy wrote that post in 2018. Here we are 7 years later. You say stuff is clearly more bitter and immoderate. Maybe. This post and that post may have fit in somewhere as early as 2012. The stronger case for doomerism lies in the fundamentals you mentioned. The degradation of a national identity and loss of a shared cultural values. Which, near as I can tell, is rolled into your perspective, but the weight put on something like Mangione becoming a fun Eat the Rich rallying cry is not nearly as important an indicator for me.
The fact no one in a position to address these concerns is interested or capable of addressing these concerns is itself concerning. America can probably trudge along with half the country hating the other half for a good while longer. Perhaps with enough additional ties it can do so in perpetuity. "American" may not be enough, but it staves off the worst. If we are headed to the reality where kids from Nebraska don't want to be "American" anymore we are doomed, but we are not there yet.
Generational changes are a thing. Our children may find our problems silly, esoteric, or boring. If we manage to not throw it all away. If you consider the project failed rather than failing, fair enough. We can't go back to the 90's, or the 1890's for that matter, and I don't expect anything like a national healing anytime soon. But, we will face possibilities of going somewhere other than national divorce. I don't know how or what possibilities we may face, but a national divorce sounds fundamentally difficult enough -- and costly enough -- that avoiding it should garner widespread support.
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