12/ The deeper problem with Little Sky Country optimism is that it has Jeffersonian axioms, while the economy still has Hamiltonian axioms. Ie, the "Real America" today is NOT Little Sky Country at all, but the Big Sky part.
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13/ The Big Sky part is not just a bunch of toxic conversations and partisan discourses in DC and the media. It is not ephemera on top of the sum-of-little-towns populated by self-absorbed WHCD attendees.
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14/ This is where the analogy to 1831 breaks down. Trump = Jackson, Fallows = Tocqueville, but 1831 economy != 2018 economy. 1831 was peak Jefferson, trough Hamilton. 2018 is the exact opposite.
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15/ I laid out this thesis in my 2015 Aeon article, American Cloud. https://aeon.co/essays/america-still-has-a-heartland-it-s-just-an-artificial-one …
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16/ This means a) that the problems at Big Sky Country level are FAR more consequential than just some discourse toxicity, and b) Little Sky Country ain't gonna save us.
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17/ The core issue here is where you think American strength truly lies: in the romanticized Tocqueville small-town yeomanry with its storied highlight moments like the homesteading movement? (Jeffersonianism) Or the talent for scale? (Hamiltonianism)
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18/ I think the evidence of history is unequivocal. The *average* mediocre gold-rushing, land-grabbing, manifest-destinying American contributed far less to America's greatness than the Hamiltonian types who dreamed Big Sky dreams.
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Replying to @jamescgibson
Certainly, but the point is, American greatness is disproportionately a function of the work of those who succeeded. Not those who failed, and not those who didn't try, but simply joined one gold rush or the other.
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It's not. Historically, big sky dreamers require big sky support infrastructure (big government, interstates, war efforts...). The support network is all big sky too.
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Replying to @jamescgibson
Almost all their impact comes from federal funding dollars.
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End of conversation
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