Mike's idea of dedication was modeled on the church. On another visit, Mike had driven me in his red truck to the Catholic grade school he'd attended across the street from the Catholic church where he had been confirmed and next to a graveyard where his parents and maternal grandparents lay buried. He recalled the nuns instructing him to clap the blackboard erasers on the sidewalk (God would reward him if he did). But he remarked in passing, "The nuns were great teachers and lived very modestly. I think all public servants ought to be like those nuns." They wouldn't need much tax money. But he realized that the incentives to enter public service would be almost nil, making it hard to attract the best people, and on yet another visit, he confessed, "I could never live like they do."
Thinking over the Bayou Corne disaster, I was still puzzled. Mike embraced a free-market world because he wanted to preserve community. But did a total free-market world and local community go together? And in essence, wasn't Louisiana already like a society based on a near pure free market? Governor Jindal advocated the free market and small government— Mike had voted for him on those very grounds. He had cut public services, lowered funds for environmental protection, and installed pro-industry "protectors." The state hadn't functioned to protect the residents of Bayou Corne at all and, in the minds of some, had even absorbed the main blame for the sinkhole, just as Lee had absorbed the blame for PPG's pollution of Bayou d'Inde.
Having explored all the places the Great Paradox had taken me—from the 4,000-feet-deep storage vaults in the Napoleonville salt dome to the advice of state officials to recreational fishermen on how to prepare mercury-laced fish—I thought I was looking at an open-and-shut case for good government. But my new friend saw in this advice on how to prepare a contaminated fish an open-and-shut case for less government.
I had criticisms of the federal government myself—over-surveillance, the declaration of war in Iraq, letting off Wall Street speculators behind the 2008 crash, for example. But my criticisms were based on a faith in the idea of good government.
Mike lands his boat at his dock and we return to his dining room table. He has told me that we don't need Social Security or Medicare. "Take Social Security. If you and I hadn't had to pay into it," he told me, "we could have invested that money ourselves—even given the 2008 downturn—you and I would be millionaires by now."
We didn't need the Federal Department of Education, he thought (that could go to each state) or the Department of the Interior (we could privatize most public land). But hadn't Texas Brine just treated the public waters of Bayou Corne as if the company privately owned them? Did Mike want more of that? I was feeling stuck way over on my side of the empathy wall. So I turned my question around.
"What has the federal government done for you that you feel grateful for?"
He pauses.
"Hurricane relief." He pauses again.
"The 1-10..." (a federally funded freeway). Another long pause.
"Okay, unemployment insurance." He had once been briefly on it.
I suggest the Food and Drug Administration inspectors who check the safety of our food.
"Yeah, that too."
"What about the post office that delivered the parts of that Zenith 701 you assembled and flew over Bayou Corne Sinkhole to take a video you put on YouTube?"
"That came through FedEx."
The military in which he enlisted as an ROTC officer?
"Yeah, okay." Another pause.
And so it went. We don't need this, we don't need that. Other interviews went the same way, with the same long pauses.
How about the 44 percent of the state budget that comes from Washington, D.C.? Mike searches his mind. "Most of that goes for Medicaid. And at least half of the recipients, maybe more, aren't looking for work."
"Do you know any?" I ask.
"Oh sure," he answers. "And I don't blame them. Most people I know use available government programs, since they paid for part of them. If the programs are there, why not use them?" On another visit Mike recounted a near accident and rescue; he was taking his new bride and her two daughters on a boat ride when a powerful storm came up, his motor quit, and the boat rocked heavily. "First the girls screamed with delight. Then they got quiet. We almost capsized. Luckily the Coast Guard saw us and towed us to shore. I was glad to see him," Mike said, adding, "He did check if we had safety vests which I guess is okay."
What image of the government was at play? Was it a nosy big brother (the Coast Guard had checked for safety vests)? Was it a remote-controlling big brother (a federal instead of state Department of Education)? A bad parent playing favorites (affirmative action)? An insistent beggar at the door (taxes)? It was all of these, but something else too. Just as Berkeley hippies of the 1960s felt proud to be "above consumerism," to demonstrate their higher ideals of love and world harmony—even though they often depended on the parental money they were "above"—so too Mike Schaff and other Tea Party advocates seemed to be saying, "I'm above the government and all its services" to show the world their higher ideals, even though they used a host of them. For everything else it is, the government also functions as a curious status-marking machine. The less you depend on it, the higher your status. As the sociologist Thorstein Veblen long ago observed, our distance from necessity tends to confer honor.
I count all the reasons Mike disdained government. It displaced community. It took away individual freedom. It didn't protect the citizenry. Its officials didn't live like nuns. And the federal government was a more powerful, distant, untrustworthy version of the state government. Beyond that, Mike was surrounded by a local culture of endurance and adaptation; if fish have mercury, cut around the dark meat and eat the white. It was this culture of adaptation that Mike himself would later challenge, as we shall see.
But something else animated Mike's dislike for the government, something I was to discover wherever I went. Sometimes talk of it was angry, front and central; sometimes it was quietly alluded to. But over their heads, the federal government was taking money from the workers and giving it to the idle. It was taking from people of good character and giving to people of bad character. No mention was made of social class and enormous care was given to speak delicately and indirectly of blacks, although fear-tinged talk of Muslims was blunt. If the flashpoint between these groups had a location, it might be in the local welfare offices that gave federal money to beneficiaries—Louisiana Head Start, Louisiana Family Independence
Temporary Assistance Program, Medicaid, the national School Lunch and Breakfast Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. Liberals were telling Americans to "feel sorry" for recipients, but those were coastal urban liberals trying to impose their feeling rules on older Southern and Midwestern Christian whites. And they seemed to be on the other side. So I wondered: did some of the malaise I was seeing derive from a class conflict, appearing where one least expected it (in the realm of government) and between groups (the middle/blue-collar class and the poor) that liberals weren't focusing on? Was this a major source of resentment fueling the fire of the right? And in that fight, did the entire federal government seem to them on the wrong—betraying—side? Maybe this was the main reason Mike was later to tell me, in reference to the 2016 presidential election and only half jokingly, that he could never bring himself to vote for the menshevik (Hillary Clinton) or the bolshevik (Bernie Sanders).
As I leave, Mike hands me the jar of peaches that had been on the table when I arrived. I drive back up Crawfish Street, past tilting yards, onto the potentially sinking only exit route, and wonder what news of Bayou Corne, federal regulations, handouts, and much else he received from church or from his favorite television channel—Fox News.
8
The Pulpit and the Press:
"The Topic Doesn't Come Up"
In the first ten minutes after meeting Madonna Massey for coffee at the Lake Charles Starbucks, I notice how many people seem happy to see her.
"Hi Madonna, y
ou look beautiful today."
"Well thank you, Mr. Gaudet, you're looking well yourself."
"Hi Madonna, beautiful singing the other night."
"Thank you, Joey. How's your daughter doing?"
She wears a flowing floral skirt, and a mass of blond curls cascades to one side of her lacy jacket. She has an easy, friendly manner, a lilting laugh, and a wide smile that seems to cast a circle of warmth around her.
I had first met Madonna at a gathering of the Republican Women of Southwest Louisiana, where she told me she was a great devotee of the conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. "Oh, I follow the Rush doctrine," she'd said. "Especially what he says about femi-nazis." Imagining she'd be interesting to talk to, I'd asked if we could meet for coffee.
Upholding the right-leaning culture that surrounded me now was a social terrain. I had explored industry and the state. But what of the church and the press? Mike Schaff had defended his beloved community against the encroachment of government. Did others feel the same about the church? Were my new Louisiana friends defending an honored sphere"? Or, independent of that, did the church promote personal values that might resolve the paradox I was exploring?
Nearly everyone I met in Louisiana goes to church. Harold and Annette Areno attend the Lighthouse Tabernacle Pentecostal church. Harold Areno s niece, Janice, meets Sundays with a small band of non-denominational Christian worshippers awaiting divine guidance before choosing their next pastor. Lee Sherman, who had pushed the tar buggy to the water's edge near Bayou d'Inde, attends a Mormon church. Bob Hardey, the mayor of Westlake, attends a Catholic church. Mike Tritico quit one church, tried another, and now conducts Bible study with the Arenos or on his own in his disheveled cabin in Longville, and he attends a nearby Baptist church sing-along for the lively accordion gospel music. Yet another Lake Charles survivor of a desperate childhood would tell me that Sunday was her "favorite day." A black Baptist minister in Crowley gently cautions a devoted all-black following against patronizing payday lenders. As a twice-divorced Catholic, Mike Schaff declines Sunday services but, from his twenties on, has attended a yearly Jesuit retreat, where he keeps two days of total silence, occasionally sneaking a quick iPhone text. Some go to church twice a week, and meet for Bible study too. People speak of children not as "going to church" but as being churched. And this is said with the same pride as others might say "highly educated" or "well mannered." Church in Louisiana—usually Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, or Pentecostal—is a pillar of social life.
In Donaldsonville, population 7,000—the nearest big town to the home Mike Schaff was born in—Churchfinder.com reports eleven Baptist churches, four Methodist, four Catholic, and one described as "spirit-filled." To the west some 108 miles, Lake Charles, with its population of 70,000, has 100 churches—mostly Baptist and "spirit-filled" (57) but also Pentecostal (12) and Catholic (13). That's a church for every 700 people. Some buildings hold a thousand worshippers, others a few dozen. By comparison, my hometown of Berkeley, California, a city of 117,000, has 82 churches—one for every 1,423 residents. Berkeley has eight synagogues, Lake Charles has one, and Donaldsonville, none.
Around Lake Charles, God seemed in the air everywhere. Prayers were said before private meals and usually in public meetings before the flag salute. Church was in childhoods. "I went to church twice a week when I was a boy, and every day during revival." Harold Areno recalled of his youth in Bayou d'Inde. It was in business. At the Lake Charles Chamber of Commerce banquet at the Golden Nugget Casino, for example, Board Chairman Glen Bertrand found himself in a decidedly secular setting. But speaking of the great $84 billion investment in the region, he said, "I hope that we recognize our economic successes as a blessing from above."
Church as Emotional World
At 7:05 on a Thursday evening, Glenn Massey, Madonna's husband, is walking the aisles of Living Way Pentecostal Church, chatting with congregants, waiting for men to get off their shifts at the plants. I am sitting in the front row on the right, next to Madonna. It is where she usually sits, with her mother in the row behind; both are accomplished gospel singers. Outside, parishioners are parking their SUVs, tucking in shirts, combing hair, and walking from the parking lot toward an extended hand or the hugging arms of greeters in the foyer of the church. "Good to see you.... Glad you could make it."
By 7:15 P.M., some 700 worshippers are settled in their seats. As Pastor Glenn Massey speaks, gentle piano music runs beneath his words about how the Lord "smoked my spirit." His eyes are closed. His arms rise. His hands swivel and wave in gestures of drawing closer to God. After Pastor Glenn's words, his speaking in tongues (in direct communication with God, Pentecostals believe), parishioners come forward to assistant pastors who are ready to receive them. One woman bows in a posture of despair. Another flutters her hands as if freeing them of something dreadful. Dressed in military fatigues, a man stalks slowly back and forth below the edge of the dais, as if to protect the troubled worshippers or to calm an inner anxiety of his own. Every human emotion is on display.
Facing the worshippers, assistant ministers lay hands on a head, a shoulder, an arm, firmly, for a period of time, with a gentle shake as if to loosen a spirit. Others in the congregation come forward to lay hands on a person's back or arm, and still others lay hands upon those who have laid hands. Human layer upon layer, forming a momentary still life of human connection. At the end of the service, Pastor Glenn asks everyone who needs to forgive or be forgiven to come forward. Over half the congregation comes forward. When a certain time has passed, there is sighing, sometimes weeping, pats, and release. Plant workers slowly rise, shake hands, hug, chat briefly, and return to their pickup trucks and SUVs to head home.
Living Way focuses on human healing. The needs it fills seem like those met in less religious cultures by psychotherapy and meditation, as well as by family and friendship. Other churches, such as Trinity Baptist, a mega-church in Lake Charles, add a focus on help for the less fortunate. Parishioners have organized a food drive for Abraham's Tent, a local food pantry and soup kitchen.
Bulletin boards in other church hallways feature photos of groups of smiling African children lined up in their Sunday best in front of foreign church mission stations. Trinity Baptist has ministries in Ecuador, Africa, Peru, and Honduras, where they send two dozen doctors, nurses, and dentists each year and host vacation Bible School for children. A group from Trinity goes door to door sharing the gospel in Zimbabwe. Through her church, one woman organized a "one touch pillow" campaign, sending hundreds of soft pillows to American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. "They are young, away from home, scared," she told me. "But when a soldier's head touches this pillow, he knows he's in touch with God." Still other churches organize bands of "prayer warriors" who gather to pray on behalf of those in trouble.
Baptist, Pentecostal, Catholic, and all the churches I visit also meet needs beyond the spiritual, in a way that avoids the indignity that my Tea Party friends link with things public. Trinity Baptist Church provides a large fitness center with stationary bicycles and muscle-strengthening machines. The mother-in-law of a Lake Charles congregant lost fifty pounds in the church fitness center. Her two children, when younger, loved to coast down a giant slide that began on one floor and descended to a recreation room on the floor below, where they discovered a brightly colored soft-sculpted octopus, whale, shark, alligator-piloted airplane, and giant sea gull. For older children at Trinity Baptist, a snack bar and social lounge were open on Sundays and a church camp during summers. It held "celebrate recovery" meetings for former addicts, sponsored its own sports teams for eighth through twelfth graders, and had golf tournaments for the older set. Churches typically ask parishioners to tithe—to give 10 percent of their income. For many this is a large sum, but it is considered an honor to give it. They pay taxes, but they give at church.
The Trinity giant slide reminded me of the imaginatively designed Dolores Park in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco and the public programs
offered by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. On my side of the empathy wall, "public" services and programs were an almost entirely positive thing. I thought of the San Francisco's Girls' Choir and the teen musical theater that performs Fiddler on the Roof, for which middle school students get free acting and voice coaching. San Francisco provides funds for local artists to paint murals on forgotten underpasses. There are exercise classes: acro-yoga, hooping, handstands, partner flip. The city sports leagues include softball, basketball, and tennis. Then there are cooking, hiking, poetry slamming, square dancing, and lakeside summer camps you have to sign up for very early. The lessons and camp cost something, but the city offers needs-sensitive scholarships. City-sponsored volunteers clean off graffiti, maintain hiking trails, plant trees, and become children's walk guides in the botanical garden. Mobile Rec takes a mobile rock-climbing wall around the city. Greenagers is a program for ninth and tenth graders to improve green spaces. Such programs are open to people of all races and creeds, filling the same cultural space, it occurs to me, filled by the church programs I was discovering in Lake Charles.
Silicon Valley's Google, Facebook, and Twitter, like many companies around the country, offer on-site services that bring workers inside their commercial doors. Google offers its employees breakfast, lunch, and dinner, including on weekends, as well as on-site fitness centers, massages, napping pods, medical care, and car detailing. This offers a much desired private sector social world—one partly based on a different worship: work.
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right Page 13
