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Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010
O.C. is home to nearly 3 million people, many of whom arrived with the development booms of the '70s, '80s and '90s. "A lot of working-class and middle-class folks," says Rohrabacher. He elects to omit a healthy portion of upper-middle-class citizens, many of whom work in the aerospace or high-tech industries, which are the economic backbone of the county. Unlike the rapidly growing immigrant population of Latinos and Asians -- now a million plus -- who cluster north and inland in what Tavoularis refers to as "the armpit of Orange County," they tend to live in the "South County" and along the coast in places like Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest and Irvine.
These communities are dominated by metastasizing housing developments that sweep over the dry, rolling hillsides like some overdesigned lichen, their advance punctuated here and there by mini-malls and the occasional shopping center. Broad arterial roads wind through canyons along former creek beds. There are sidewalks, but one seldom sees pedestrians. Neighborhoods, though segregated by the value of their homes, are nearly indistinguishable, as are the houses themselves, which often seem like appendages attached to massive garages. Strict "covenants, conditions and restrictions" (CCRs) ensure that no one chooses an inappropriate trim color, lets a backyard shade-tree get too tall or, God forbid, elects to work on her car's engine in the driveway. Neighbors tend to enforce these rules on their own, quickly phoning relevant committees to report violations.
While it would be going too far to say that the inhabitants all look alike, a certain sameness in appearance seems to be the norm. Men in casual mode tend to dress like professional golfers, women in watered-down L.A. chic, the kids in whatever faux hip-hop baggies the Gap or Abercrombie & Fitch are pushing. Gardeners and housekeepers aside, most people are white. African-Americans draw notice if not suspicion. Attitudes in general seem carefully conformist. For a visitor from someplace like Seattle, accustomed to encountering unusual or transgressive people around any corner, it's all a bit unsettling, even stultifying. Welcome to George Bush's America.
"I have no doubt about Mr. Bush," says Ann Hagerty of the Capistrano Valley Republican Women, Federated. She cites his "sincerity, honesty and forthrightness." This notion of Bush as a straight shooter is typical here in O.C., as is distrust of anyone critical of his policies and an undisguised contempt for his political rivals. Ann had begun our conversation by citing the "biased coverage" of the L.A. Times and went on to say that the Democratic candidates -- "these 10 people" (she was speaking before Florida Sen. Bob Graham dropped out of the race) -- couldn't "measure up to [Bush's] bootstraps."
Benta Collura, a 50-ish lawyer sitting with her husband in the slightly surreal environment of Fashion Island, an upscale megamall, would agree. "An open-minded liberal is an oxymoron," she offers. Much of the criticism of Bush, she says, is "hateful." The word "leftist" is tossed around, conjuring a picture of a Trotsky-bearded rabble hoisting red banners.
This prickly defensiveness is intriguing. Many O.C. Republicans apparently still subscribe to the belief that there is a "liberal media" conspiracy targeting their man -- though to liberals it seems as if the mainstream press couldn't bend over any further to give Bush a free pass. And though their party now controls the executive branch, both houses of Congress and, yes, the Supreme Court (not to mention Fox News), they still act the part of beleaguered underdogs. James Cassidy, an attorney and one of the few Democrats I encounter (he actually lives in D.C. but keeps a home in O.C.), says he "gets asked some pretty odd questions [by Republicans] at parties" out here. Like, "Why are people in Washington, D.C., taking us to hell in a handbasket?" Why indeed? Maybe they should ask Dick Cheney. You get the feeling that only the total annihilation of non-right-wing thought in America and the world will allow these folks to sleep comfortably. For all their chin-up defiance and air of moral certainty, though, they strike me as people who are seriously spooked.
I've often wondered whether there is some characterological trait that distinguishes the truly right-wing (as opposed to merely Republican) from the generally liberal. The cliché is that conservatives cling to stasis and certainty while liberals are more comfortable in the flux and flow of modern life. Like most clichés, this one may contain a nugget of truth. It could go a long way toward explaining why idiot ranters like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage thrive in the far-right medium of talk radio, where many listeners tune in solely to hear their darkest, most paranoid preconceptions confirmed. Liberals -- at least the ones I know -- tend to begin any discussion by acknowledging the other side's point of view. How much simpler the absolutist perspective: Liberals are traitors; black NFL quarterbacks are undeserving; gay people with AIDS had it coming; and everything bad is the fault of those pinko sodomites, the Clintons.
David, a young salesman I find reading a newspaper on the boardwalk at Laguna Beach and who'd prefer I not use his last name because "my friends already think I live at the beach," may be a case in point. He believes Bush is "doing better than anyone could" given the circumstances, but that "no matter what he does [liberals] will think he's doing a bad job." I find myself thinking, Well no, David. If Mr. Bush were suddenly to embrace the idea of conservation as a rational response to our energy woes, if he uncharacteristically admitted that his alms-for-the-rich economic policy was flawed, and stopped lying about why we went adventuring in Iraq, I'd be happy, as a liberal, to give him credit. But I don't say it. I'm here to listen.
What has these folks nervous and defensive, I believe, is simple, ever-encroaching reality. Much as they'd prefer to ignore them, the facts at hand no longer support their worldview. The one item nearly everyone admitted gave them pause was the lack of a clearly enunciated strategy for withdrawal from Iraq. Americans will happily tolerate a quickie war -- particularly one that results in overwhelming victory. But prolonged occupation of foreign territory, expensive in blood and treasure, rankles the national psyche. Bush's lies -- and the misrepresentations of his handlers and minions -- have become big angry chickens looking to roost. The $87 billion first installment on our rental of Mesopotamia is hard to ignore, the near-daily tally of dead American kids grimly unsettling. And the $500 billion-plus deficit is an affront fiscal conservatives must strain to dismiss.
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