“Defend Your Culture”

“Defend your culture,” the politician says. And you do. Gods, you really do. 

You wave the flag. You build the wall. You hate the stranger. You protect the border. You keep the other out. You’re defending your culture. You’re doing your duty. You’re being a patriot.

It’s almost cute. 

Almost.

Because while you’re defending your culture, the culture is actually disappearing. And the people screaming “defend it” are the ones making it disappear.

Your grandfather taught you to fish. He taught you to read the river. He taught you patience. He taught you that the water gives and the water takes. That’s not a metaphor. That’s a memory. That’s an inheritance. That’s culture. The real kind. The kind you can touch. The kind you can taste. The kind you can pass down. But culture isn’t just the river. Culture is the town. Culture is the job. Culture is the land. Culture is the school. Culture is the hospital. Culture is the family. Culture is the future. And all of it is disappearing while they point at the stranger.

Main Street. The hardware store. The diner. The barbershop. The movie theater. All empty now. All closed. Walmart came in and killed them. Amazon came in and buried them. The politician said free market. The politician said competition. The politician didn’t say the tax breaks went to the corporations that destroyed your town. The politician didn’t say the subsidies went to the companies that put your neighbors out of business. You defended your culture while they sold it.

Then the union job went. The pension. The health insurance. The weekend. Shipped overseas. Automated away. Busted and broken. The politician said globalization. The politician said efficiency. The politician said free trade. The politician didn’t say the profit went to the shareholders and you got nothing. The politician didn’t say the trade deal was written by the lobbyists for the corporations that fired you. The politician didn’t say the union was the only power you had and they broke it on purpose. You defended your culture while they shipped it.

Then the land went. The family farm. The generational inheritance. The earth your grandfather worked with his hands until they bled. Now it’s a subdivision named Oak Ridge. There are no oaks. There is no ridge. Just identical houses on dead soil where something real used to grow. The developer got a tax incentive to build them. The bank got the foreclosure. The agribusiness got the subsidy. You got a “For Sale” sign in the yard and a politician telling you the immigrant took your livelihood. The immigrant didn’t take the farm. The corporation did. The bank did. The politician did. You defended your culture while they paved it.

Then the school went. The community center. The church. The VFW. The bowling league. The little league. All shrinking. All struggling. All dying. The school is underfunded. The teacher is buying supplies. The program is cut. The building is crumbling. And the politician points at the border. Points at the immigrant. Says the stranger is the reason your town can’t afford to keep the lights on. 

But the immigrant didn’t close the school. The immigrant didn’t vote for the tax cut that emptied the budget. The immigrant didn’t defund the community center or make it impossible to afford to live in the town your grandparents built. The politician did. You defended your culture while they starved it.

Then you started dying. Over 150 rural hospitals closed since 2010. The nearest emergency room is 45 minutes away. The nearest specialist is three hours away. You have a heart attack, you die in the car. You have a stroke, you die in the ambulance. You have cancer, you drive three hours for chemo and you can’t afford the gas. The politician said the market decided. The politician said the numbers didn’t work. The politician didn’t say the numbers never included you. The politician didn’t say the hospital closed because the profit margin wasn’t high enough for the corporation that bought it. You defended your culture while they let you die.

Then you couldn’t even have a family. The ability to have kids. To buy a home. To stay home with them. To afford childcare. To pass something down. All gone. The birth rate isn’t dropping because people don’t want kids. It’s dropping because people can’t afford them. Housing costs doubled. Wages didn’t. Childcare costs more than rent. The expanded child tax credit reduced child poverty by nearly 30%. Then it was allowed to expire. The politician said the family is the foundation of society. The politician made it impossible to afford one. You defended your culture while they made it unaffordable.

Then you couldn’t even rest. Pensions killed. 401ks given. You work until you die. You can’t afford to stop. The stock market crashes and you lose everything. The fees eat your savings. The inflation eats your fixed income. The politician said personal responsibility. The politician said plan ahead. The politician didn’t say Wall Street would take a cut of every dollar you saved. The politician didn’t say the system was designed to extract from you until the day you die. You defended your culture while they stole your old age.

And “defend your culture” always means the same thing. 

Always. 

White culture. 

White heritage. White tradition. White pride. That’s what they mean. That’s what they’ve always meant. Black culture is “divisive.” Indigenous culture is “ancient history.” Immigrant culture is “invasion.” Queer culture is “grooming.” The word “culture” is a dog whistle. 

And you’re the dog. 

You hear the whistle and you come running. You bark at the stranger. You bite the immigrant. You snarl at the trans kid. Meanwhile, the guy with the whistle is selling the land out from under your feet. And you’re still barking. You’re still biting. You’re still defending your culture while your culture disappears. And the beauty of the scam? You’re defending the people who are destroying it. You’re attacking the people who had nothing to do with it. You’re a guard dog for the thief. And you don’t even know it.

Who profits from the destruction? The factory owners. The developers. The politicians. The lobbyists. The same people who tell you to defend your culture are the ones destroying it. The same people who tell you the immigrant is the threat are the ones poisoning your water. The same people who tell you to build the wall are the ones building the factory on the river. They’re not defending your culture. They’re defending their profit. And they’re using your grandfather’s memory as the shield.

Both parties take the donations. Both parties vote for the deregulation. Both parties tell you to defend your culture while they sell the land. NAFTA. Signed by a Democrat. The trade deals that shipped your jobs overseas. Written by lobbyists. Passed by both parties. The tax cuts for the corporations that killed your downtown. The deregulation that poisoned your water. The defunding that closed your hospital. Both parties are complicit. Both parties are guilty. Both parties are selling your culture to the highest bidder.

Costa Rica abolished their military in 1948. They took the money that would’ve gone to weapons and they invested it in the land. In the water. In the forests. In the schools. In the hospitals. In the future. Forest cover went from 21% to over 52%. Clean water. Clean air. Life expectancy higher than the US. They didn’t have to defend their culture because they didn’t let their culture become a commodity. They didn’t let their land become an asset. They didn’t let their water become a waste dump. They protected the things that made the culture worth living in. And they did.

The culture is actually disappearing. The town. The job. The land. The school. The hospital. The family. The future. All of it. And the people screaming “defend your culture” are the ones who passed the laws, signed the trade deals, busted the unions, deregulated the banks, gave the tax breaks, and sold the land out from under you. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the plan. They need you looking at the stranger so you don’t notice the town is dead. They need you hating the immigrant so you don’t notice the factory on the hill. They need you defending your culture so you don’t notice that there’s nothing left to defend.

Your grandfather taught you to fish. He taught you to read the river. He taught you patience. He taught you that the water gives and the water takes.

The water took. And then the town. And then the job. And then the land. And then the hospital. And then the family. And then the future.

And you didn’t notice because you were too busy looking at the stranger.

Defend your culture? You can’t. It’s already gone. And the people who took it are the same people who told you to defend it.

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