Thanks, MAGA, For Ruining My Childhood

Rural Americana has lost its charm

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash

When I came to this country in first grade in 1967, I was quickly introduced to the folkloric magic land called the USA. In school I learned of Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox, gleefully deforesting the landscape, Johnny Appleseed whimsically skipping here and there planting a billion apple trees, and my favorite, John Henry, with superhuman strength pounding in railroad ties in some vast, flat stretch of the country that was blessed by God, but which has recently been rechristened Magastan — that flyover red swath of insanity that somehow refused in the last election to repudiate the Orange Huckster.

Back then there was something called Saturday Morning cartoons, populating the imagination of every young American with country-fried characters like Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, and Rocky and Bullwinkle. No, the cartoons weren’t about boring urban or suburban life. They were centered in the mythic rural hallucination called “the country.” And they were awesome. Anybody my age has etched in their unconscious the image of Elmer Fudd saying, “Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits.”

Bugs Bunny, of course, with his New York accent was a fish out of water in these rural environs. Yes, the implication was that the sophisticated city slicker would outwit the rube, but the…