Posted on 11/23/2016 9:28:12 AM PST by TigerClaws
Three days after the election, my wife and I were shopping at the Fairway Market in Red Hook, Brooklyn. For those unfamiliar with it, Fairway is a less corporate, more co-op version of Whole Foods, offering pretty produce and exotic cheeses that don’t come cheap. The mood in the store was glum. As in most of Brooklyn, people stared ahead, moving slowly, still in shock from the political earthquake of Tuesday night.
After getting our Brazilian Arabica ground for drip (I know, I should really use a French Press), Libby and I walked towards the organic maple syrup. That’s when it started. I suppose there had been music playing in the store, but I hadn’t noticed until a familiar guitar lick pierced the air and a soft voice said, “Turn it up.”
Libby and I both stopped and looked at each other. “Seriously?” said my wife, a very disappointed Clinton supporter. She started gripping her soft Tomme Crayeuse a little too hard. By the time Ronnie Van Zant’s drawl started in with “Big wheels keep on turnin’,” everyone in the store was standing in shock. Brows were furrowed, people mumbled to each other. The song seemed to get louder as one of those New York moments happened, when everyone was thinking the exact the same thing.
A woman in her fifties, wearing a Love Trump Hates button, turned to her Brooklyn-bearded husband and said loudly, “This is unbelievable!” She found the nearest store clerk, a young woman in a green apron who was staring up at the ceiling, looking for the invisible speakers blaring this message from the other America. “This is so inappropriate,” the woman said. “Can we turn this off?” The City of Homes, Cafés, and Clinton
Brooklyn was the epicenter of the Clinton campaign. Throughout the summer and fall in Brooklyn Heights, you could see young staffers near the campaign headquarters: expensive coffee in hand, eyes bright, ready to tackle the future. Cafés turned into phone banks, where you could buy a croissant and make a few calls to flyover country. Buttons, banners, and bumper stickers were everywhere.
As the election grew near, confidence was overflowing. A big victory was on the horizon for Lena Dunham and the new Brooklyn. This ground zero for upscale progressivism was ready for a party; white male supremacism was about to be crushed beneath a professional high heel.
Fittingly, perhaps, the only exception to Clinton mania in Brooklyn was in the southern part of the borough. In Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst, big trucks could be seen with “Hillary for Prison” and “Make America Great Again” detailed on their back windows. This is not the Brooklyn of “Girls” or “The Slap.” It is the Brooklyn of “Blue Bloods,” the home of cops and firemen, plumbers and construction workers immune to the appeal of a President Clinton. These are people who listen to Skynyrd, and not ironically. Everything Old Is New Again
I couldn’t stop laughing as the Fairway patrons tried to continue shopping with “Sweet Home Alabama” blasting in the background. And in retrospect, the moment was a perfect encapsulation of a very old fight within America
The song itself was written in response to two songs by Neil Young: “Southern Man,” and “Alabama.” It was 1974, and as the Civil Rights era faded into history, the South and Southern rock was reasserting pride in their culture and way of life.
Last year, “Garden and Gun” talked to Gary Rossington, the last surviving member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, about the creation of the song. He said:
“Neil Young had “Southern Man,” and it was kind of cutting the South down. And so Ronnie just said, We need to show people how the real Alabama is. We loved Neil Young and all the music he’s given the world. We still love him today. It wasn’t cutting him down, it was cutting the song he wrote about the South down. Ronnie painted a picture everyone liked. Because no matter where you’re from, sweet home Alabama or sweet home Florida or sweet home Arkansas, you can relate.”
For his part, Young would eventually agree that he had painted the South with too broad a brush. In his 2012 autobiography “Waging Heavy Peace,” Young would write, “My own song ‘Alabama’ richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don’t like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue.”
If “accusatory and condescending” sounds familiar, it should. Along with being called deplorable, Trump’s supporters (of which I was not one) have been treated in a way that is rare in American politics, and deeply troubling. The campaign that emerged from Brooklyn didn’t just attack the politics of people who don’t live in big cities. It attacked their entire way of life, and promised it was dying. Ignoring It Doesn’t Make It Go Away
When the angry older woman with the anti-Trump button asked the clerk to turn off the song, the younger woman looked at her sympathetically and said, “I don’t know how.” In that moment, something seemed to click.
Of course, this woman thought that “Sweet Home Alabama” could just be turned off. After all, we can block out things we disagree with. We can unfriend people on Facebook, block them on Twitter, and decide not to let their negativity be a part of lives. For many progressives, this is the key to wellness.
But turning off Skynyrd doesn’t make it go away. Somewhere in the land where the stars still shine, it plays on, whether you hear it or not. The shock and despair in Brooklyn over Hillary Clinton’s unfathomable defeat comes in no small part because her denizens refused to hear the rumblings of an America they chose to ignore.
Just like a hillbilly band rocketing to the top of the national charts, Donald Trump has awakened the right sort to the fact that they do not control everything. For Trump and his supporters, the protests and challenges to the Electoral College should be seen as another victory. Not only did they win, they are being heard—even in Brooklyn.
Several people from my small town worked in the music business at Muscle Shoals. Just about any top ten from 65’ to 72’ had a song recorded there.
I was riding in a tour bus in Germany and/or Luxembourg, and the driver had some tunes on the speakers. One song played was “Sweet Home Alabama”. Kind of fun to be riding along in Germany listening to SHA.
Amen! “Toin’it up!”
“One of the best documentaries ever made is “Muscle Shoals””
Yes indeed. It’s amazing how many bands sought out a bunch of home grown musicians from a podunk town in Alabama to help them further their careers.
Its Brooklyn, with a bubble!
Redneck here, too. Bigly.
You just painted a picture of the hippies and their Leftsit poster child - BHO.
It does have one of the all time great opening guitar licks.
Heh!
Why, Donald Trump did it of course.
COUNTRY FOLKS
Bubba Sparxx, Colt Ford, Danny Boone
Country fried, baptized in gravy I can't wash off what the good Lord made ya No matter how far that highway goes An old dirt road'll get you home (c'mon!) If you see it in their eye when they try to lie If you the bullet-hole-in-a-stop-sign kind Then I'm right there wit'cha, put your drinks up high For my country folk (hey) my country folk (hey)
I'm out here on a thousand acre plot of land And I can't hear 'em hatin' on me, I'm a modest man Talkin' with Jimmy Mathis and he got a plan And when he talk I listen to him, that's a lot of man (pops!) He said we need to take it back to the root of it I put on for the country, that's the truth of it I'm talkin' last millenium we was reppin' it Before anybody had accepted it (anybody!) We introduced 'em to the cooler on the tailgate Full of cold Nattie Light playin' "Satellite" A lil' Dave while we misbehave, okay (okay) Once we figured the game out, we go play (go!) The generation of people that love 2Pac And hate, we bangin' it in the boondocks Now put your drink in the air if you ain't scared Dem folks been doin' that thang, yeah
Country fried, baptized in gravy I can't wash off what the good Lord made ya No matter how far that highway goes An old dirt road'll get you home (c'mon!) If you see it in their eye when they try to lie If you the bullet-hole-in-a-stop-sign kind Then I'm right there wit'cha, put your drinks up high For my country folk (hey) my country folk (hey)
See me and Bubba, we've been doin' this a long while It sure seems a lot longer than a country mile Hollywood look good, full of fake friends I never thought we could ever be here again (we back!) Time heals, one fell, one came up Back together son, we gon' tear this thing up A lot of talk cousin, I ain't gotta name 'em They wanna be us, hell I can't blame 'em (nah) So looky here, cold beer on the tailgate Been doin' this for some years, y'all so late (so late!) Bangin' OutKast and a little George Strait Hot damn, Colt Ford back with Bubba K
Country fried, baptized in gravy I can't wash off what the good Lord made ya No matter how far that highway goes An old dirt road'll get you home (c'mon!) If you see it in their eye when they try to lie If you the bullet-hole-in-a-stop-sign kind Then I'm right there wit'cha, put your drinks up high For my country folk (hey) my country folk (hey)
E'rything real funny 'til the money come (and then what?) Now they want some (what) when they ain't wanted none (oh) And that's just how the thing go when you get 'er done (how?) We did it son (yeah we did it son) We was drinkin' Jim Beam by the handle (handle) Me and Steven heard they're loadin' up ammo (ammo) Bumpin' Goodie Mob, real tree camo (camo) This white boy really think he Rambo! (Go!) Cut the beat on, I bet his ass jam though You don't like it straight to hell is where you can go 12-Pointer hangin' right above the mantle You don't like the program? Change the channel (woo!)
Country fried, baptized in gravy I can't wash off what the good Lord made ya No matter how far that highway goes An old dirt road'll get you home (c'mon!) If you see it in their eye when they try to lie If you the bullet-hole-in-a-stop-sign kind Then I'm right there wit'cha, put your drinks up high For my country folk (hey) my country folk (hey)
To me this was a key sentence (and it is reflected in the SNL sketch I mentioned):
After all, we can block out things we disagree with. We can unfriend people on Facebook, block them on Twitter, and decide not to let their negativity be a part of lives. For many progressives, this is the key to wellness.
**
Libs live in ‘safe space’ bubbles. They defriend anyone who disagrees with their worldview. They rely on Huff Po, Dem Underground, and other leftist sources for their ‘news’ so they have no idea what’s taking place in America or in the world.
These sites (and I visit all of them to see the spin) created a cartoon bad guy version of Trump (Hitler, basically).
Instead of an open dialogue and attempt to understand alternate points of view, liberals are bringing up children incapable of dealing with reality.
Bless their cotton pickin’ hearts!!!
Great article.. Thanks for posting.
Gawd! That’s hysterical. I was down at that Fairway a couple times after it opened (also the first time I realized how much that part of Red Hook had changed). All I remember besides the cheese and the bakery was that they had about 8 dishes of olive oils to sample (and pieces of bread to dip).
The place was ridiculously expensive and so far out of the way, that we stopped. We like healthier choices, but this was silly.
TS, your correspondent in Brooklyn
They say they are for the middle class and the working class, but they despise them.
*************
I worked around plenty of liberals most of my career and nearly every one of them was disdainful of the common man. They have elitist attitudes and perceive themselves to be intellectually and morally superior to everyone else. Liberals have a sense of self-entitlement and feel that only they should be allowed to govern the masses.
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