The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America

by Sarah Kendzior

he came of age in an era marked by a socioeconomic gulf between the people who agitate for wars and the people who fight them.

We lost more in Iraq than a war. We lost accountability and faith in our institutions, and most of all, we lost the outrage that accompanies that loss, because we came to expect it and accept it as normal. This quiet acquiescence is, in the end, as damaging as any lie we were told.

If you are being “humanized,” you are already losing. To be “humanized” implies that your humanity is never assumed, but something you have to prove.

The absence of complaining should be taken as a sign that something is rotting in a society. Complaining is beautiful. Complaining should be encouraged. Complaining means you have a chance.

is not thought of as complaining when a prominent advocate speaks about oppression to a crowd.

It is a long road from whiner to witness.

Long-term complaining indicates that a problem is serious and structural, not that it is hopeless and should continue to be ignored.

In 2017, our political focus shifted from examining systemic flaws to stopping imminent disasters.

Geographical inequality, which Trump’s team expertly exploited, remains rampant, with prestigious jobs clustered in cities few can afford.