The Deep, Tangled Roots of American Illiberalism (Parallels with Sonoma Valley)
May 4, 2024
Dr. Steven Hahn
Free NYT article link
US illiberalism
“Illiberalism is generally seen as a backlash against modern liberal and progressive ideas and policies, especially those meant to protect the rights and advance the aspirations of groups long pushed to the margins of American political life. But in the United States, illiberalism is better understood as coherent sets of ideas that are related but also change over time.”
“This illiberalism celebrates hierarchies of gender, race and nationality; cultural homogeneity; Christian religious faith; the marking of internal as well as external enemies; patriarchal families; heterosexuality; the will of the community over the rule of law; and the use of political violence to achieve or maintain power. This illiberalism sank roots from the time of European settlement and spread out from villages and towns to the highest levels of government. In one form or another, it has shaped much of our history. Illiberalism has frequently been a stalking horse, if not in the winner’s circle. Hardly ever has it been roundly defeated.
Fred Allebach 5/4/24
Parallels with Sonoma Valley
Here in Sonoma Valley, white heterogeneity rules and a clear history of segregation is roundly ignored and denied. This is a northern Jim Crow pattern where all the same features of segregation are preserved, under coded terms and historical inertia.
Since Republicans don’t win in the Bay Area, they change to what’s called business democrats. It is near impossible to get an actual liberal or progressive majority in Sonoma County or Sonoma City. Governmental majorities on councils, boards and commissions have the power and votes to keep control of the territory from serious liberal/ progressive reform because enough conservative business democrats always win. The support is there to keep the status quo and protect the stakes the rulers have.
LBGTQ rights can be supported because this passes as mostly a virtue signaling exercise that demands no structural change from the local powers that be.
Status quo folks have to listen to the dissonance of class and race-critical views like mine, but never really address them. I am “divisive” for calling things as I see them even as my views are based on solid research from reputable authors like Isabel Wilkerson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Richard Rothstein and Richard Walker.
There is no transformative accounting for unjustly accumulated privilege. Inconvenient truths are sidestepped. In Sonoma Valley, neo feudalism (see Hahn NYT article) is on clear display with a captive immigrant Latino workforce, near equal in size to the population of Sonoma. A concomitant noblesse oblige trickle-down charity system in place along with drastic disparities of wealth and well-being.
Feed them just enough bread so they don’t revolt even as the masters have accumulated way more than their fair share of labor’s value.
Share power and control with the underdog races and classes aligned with those who came to America for liberation and freedom, with those who came against their will, and with those dispossessed? No way. The classic American mythology of liberation from oppression rings hollow, as Hahn notes in his NYT piece. The Who had it, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
A striking parallel to American illiberalisn and Sonoma Valley is what Hahn calls “the will of the community over the rule of law.” This is called “local control” in Sonoma. Locals concerned with preserving the status quo openly subvert state housing laws with policy chess moves and ignore as much as possible laws like AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) which are designed to foster integration of near solid white, low-density neighborhoods. Only the bare minimum gets done, and then with subterfuge and lack of brio.
Local control has endless socio-economic narcissistic energy to look in the mirror of local character and assiduously manage local appearances and stases like an oppressive HOA, while those who serve the whole enterprise are struggling to barely get by in the Latino Springs. Who are the home cleaners, the home healthcare workers, the nannies, the yard crews, the construction crews, the hotel, hospitality, and restaurant workers? Near 100% Latino. Neo feudalism indeed.
When it comes to any plans to actually integrate, local controllers say well, we are for it but we just don’t have the money, sorry. Then life goes back to everything but addressing social inequities. The political will is not there to prioritize seeking a just and equitable society. How long have you not had the money?
Myths of the American Dream and a search for freedom and liberation live on, falsely, against a larger backdrop of American illiberalism oof which Sonoma County and Sonoma Valley is clearly a part.
Demographic studies show that areas of predominant white, high wealth, higher education, higher home value, and single-family zoning are the very ones that fight hardest against change. The nominal enemy is capitalism and greedy developers and the tactics center around preserving small town and rural character. Protecting the natural and social environment against bigger capitalist fish is the rallying point. Smaller fish become collateral damage. What gets ignored is that all this character protection adds up to preserving segregation. This is never admitted.
Very low on the totem pole and never pursued seriously is to “protect the rights and advance the aspirations of groups long pushed to the margins of American political life.” The castle gates of Sonoma and SoCo remain firmly pulled up. Any sense of divestment from this asymmetrical status quo can’t be supported by the silent majority who bend the ears of power brokers out of sight and earshot of any public comments.
It is here that we see the intersection of Bay Area landed liberals land use politics and Trump’s rejection of AFFH as “destroying the suburbs.” “Liberals” have a strong illiberal undercurrent.
So, what to do to actually have the justice and equity promised by the higher ideals of American mythology? We need to keep up a level of magical thinking that the good can prevail, and maybe in one day all the magical-thinking aspirations of all good-hearted people with conscience will intersect and we’ll get there.
In my way of thinking, grappling with injustice should result in reflection and a determination to transform and change. This should transfer into pollical will. However, as historian Barbara Tuchman said, “people don’t change until the sewage is coming in the front door.” And if that’s the case, then those with all the cards now who keep the Sonoma Valley castle gates up so nice and tight should remember, as Allen Toussaint wrote. “the same people you mistreat on your way up, you might meet again on your way down.”
And for world peace as a magical remedy to endless war, strife, and exploitation, we can only hope that in the end, forgiveness and redemption will be stronger than blame and revenge. Dream on.
I realize yours is a minority opinion, but bravely stated, and I agree. I’ve often thought that a team of anthropologists should come and do a study of this valley. The disparity between the halves and the have-nots and the demarcation line east/west is such an obvious glaring defect in this community. But, mention it and you are: “ divisive.”
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