Petionville

I am currently working in an area of Northern Wisconsin seemingly isolated from much of the world. Scandinavian last names still rule there, and much of the area is filled with lakes and the lake homes that now come with them. The population seems very old and white and in some ways well off. While the towns seem to be withering in some ways, in others they survive, and the remnants of old farms dominate the landscape. These are our Petionville's, the places where the illusion of a comfortable world for privileged whites still exists. Not by law, perhaps, but by wealth. I see why they vote in the disconnected way they do, for they are disconnected from the reality of the country and most people's lives. The older whites, living off the largesse of the old Republic, cast themselves as deserving in a frightening world. They are our fascists, ready to blow up the world for the right to shop at walmart and drink coffee without the bother of all those poor people. Often, as retired rentiers, they provide nothing but empty opinions and traffic problems.