The Law of Averages

The Post ran an article the other day about a community in Utah that has, despite a downward trend throughout the rest of the country, consistently given George W. Bush a 95% or higher approval rating since he became president. The article, something of an anthropological slice of life, is quite revealing.

The scene that opens the article describes an exchange between a local waiter and a tourist pasing through on the way to a ski slope. The tourist asks if they have Dijon mustard. Not surprisingly, they don't. After the woman leaves, this young man says he's never even heard of Dijon mustard. Fair enough. But what he says next sums up all that is wrong with America. Not only does he not know what it is, but he doesn't want to.

This seemingly innocuous comment is echoed in one form or another by almost every resident of this small community. They don't know what's going on outside their town, and they don't care. Iraq? No one here is dying. Homeless people? Not here. Katrina? That was miles away. Warrantless spying? I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care? Again and again, each resident proclaims a proud lack of interest in the world.

What really galls me, enough to actually use the word gall, was the woman who, after complaining about gays and athiests, says no one cares about "Average Americans" like her and her neighbors.

Hold on, sister. Average? You?

I have absolutely had it with this podunk, small-town bull about how "folks" living in the "heartland" or in little desert towns constitute the "Real America."

This may be news to some, but the vast majority of Americans live in major cities or in suburbs. Four times as many as those who live in little rural towns like our friends in Utah.

Although a clear majority of Americans are Christians, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints only make up a small portion of that population. Most Christian Americans belong to the Catholic faith or to one of the more mainstream Protestant denominations. In fact, there are actually many more Americans who count themselves as athiests, agnostics or secular humanists than count themselves as members of CJCLDS. Not to mention that members of all other religions also outnumber them. This is not intended to disparage members of this particular faith, but to point out that, despite claims to the contrary by this particular member, they hardly constitute the average, let alone a majority, of our nation's population.

So who is the average American? Certainly not these folks living in a podunk litle Utah town miles away from the nearest city or freeway. Yet they insist that they, and they alone, represent the average, the standard, the real America.

Unfortunately, politicians from both sides of the aisle have a tendency to believe the same thing while ignoring the needs and values of the greater population. In 2008, it would be nice to see candidates dropping in on cities like Baltimore or Asheville instead of pretending to know how to slop hogs in the middle of nowhere.