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1. Mayor Frank
I spent 65 minutes on Tim’s show yesterday feeding the Good Wolf. Then, in the final segment, Bad JVL busted out of his box like Les Grossman after a case of Red Bull.1
What set me off was this NPR report about Trump voters in the Maryland town of Emmitsburg who are possibly having second thoughts.
With the distance of a day, I want to revise and extend my remarks, apologize to these very fine people, and make a case for why all of us need to broaden our minds.
Let’s start with Emmitsburg. The town is home to the National Fire Academy, which is like the Army War College for firefighters. The NFA became a target of DOGE and, by order of the Trump administration, is no longer conducting in-person classes. This development is bad for the local economy, bad for the institution of the National Fire Academy, bad for firefighters, and ultimately bad for anyone, anywhere, who might someday need emergency services.
NPR spoke to a number of people in and around the NFA, all of whom voted for Trump, all of whom claimed to support what Trump is doing as president—and all of whom think that what Trump is doing to the National Fire Academy is . . . bad.
Here is Frank Davis, the mayor of Emmitsburg and a volunteer firefighter:
Frank Davis saw a lot of waste during his decades in the federal government. In November, he voted for Donald Trump to get rid of it. So far, Davis likes a lot of what he has seen.
“I’m probably gonna get shot for this, but he is doing what he said he was going to do,” says Davis, who serves as mayor of this town of about 3,000 people in western Maryland, just south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Davis says the administration is reviewing the academy’s operations, and he is hopeful it will restore classes. If not, he says, he’ll see the administration somewhat differently.
“It will change my outlook to say that they’re not being fair,” says Davis, who also serves as emergency medical services captain at the local firehouse, known as the Vigilant Hose Company. “They’re just going in to cut and not caring what they cut.”
Here is John Beck, a volunteer fire chief (and Trump voter) from a neighboring town across the Pennsylvania state line, who was supposed to attend a leadership course at the NFA this summer:
“We’re only 100-plus days in,” Beck says of Trump’s current term. “I wish things were going differently.”
Beck doesn’t regret his vote — yet.
“I’m not 100% there yet, but it may not take much more,” he says.
And here is Susan Glass, who owns a pub in Emmitsburg that gets 30 percent of its business from firefighters visiting the academy:
“I’ve already told a lot of our employees that it’s a possibility they won’t have a job for the summer, but we’re hoping things open back up,” Glass says.
In fact, many of the town’s residents hold out hope that the administration will see the value of the academy and start classes again. Glass also voted for Trump but feels the administration is moving too fast.
“I agree with a lot of things that they’re doing, but sometimes I disagree on how they’re doing them,” says Glass, who thinks the administration shouldn’t try to do so much at once. “Maybe … spread it out a little bit. It just seems like it’s just one hammer after another.”
Perhaps you can understand why Bad JVL got so worked up.
But still.
2. Firefighters
I’m sure that somewhere out there is a firefighter who’s a jackass. But I’ve never met one. Firefighters are like nurses: One of those professions that attracts the very best kind of souls.
There’s an old joke: Tough guys who want to boss people around become cops; tough guys who want to help people become firefighters.
So I should assume the best about Mayor Davis and Chief Beck because firefighters are great human beings. And I bet these guys are great, too. If they were selfish, they wouldn’t have become firefighters in the first place. You don’t sign up for that gig for the ducats.
I’m sorry, guys. I was the jackass.
But what made me angry was the narrowness of vision expressed by the people of Emmitsburg. Because this isn’t just an intellectual failure. It’s a civic failure. And a potentially fatal one.
The general view of the Emmitsburg Trump voters NPR spoke with was:
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They like Trump.
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They want Trump to shut down a bunch of government programs.
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They do not have any specific recommendations for programs they believe are wasteful.
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However they are certain that their pet program is valuable.
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And so if Trump restores funding to the National Fire Academy, they will continue to support him.
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But if Trump does not restore funding to the NFA, then—and only then—they will conclude that his assault on government is harmful.
This is a myopic, untenable civic approach to democracy.
3. The Tao of the DPC
We talk about Direct Personal Consequences, but the truth is that national politics rarely manifests DPCs for voters.2
The Trump administration—unlike most previous administrations—is causing a great many Direct Personal Consequences. Miss Glass, the Emmitsburg pub owner, might lose her business because of Trump’s decision to cancel in-person classes at the National Fire Academy.
But Direct Personal Consequences should not be the determinative factor in either people’s understanding of the world or their voting behavior.
Put it this way:
The Trump administration chose to destroy USAID. As a result, children in Africa are dying.
The Trump administration chose to disrupt medical research being funded by the NIH and is seeking to impose deep cuts on public health programs at both the NIH and the CDC.
The Trump voters in Emmitsburg look at these actions and essentially say:
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If Trump restores funding to the National Fire Academy, then the cuts at USAID, the NIH, and the CDC are okay with me.
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But if Trump permanently cuts National Fire Academy funding, then I will view the other cuts as bad, too.
This is not okay. Politics in a healthy society cannot be driven by such provincialism.
The most important issues rarely have Direct Personal Consequences for Americans. That is one of our nation’s many privileges.
America fought the Cold War for fifty years and it was the most important political issue in most of the elections during that time. Yet the U.S. strategy in the Cold War did not carry Direct Personal Consequences for most voters. Still, they cared about it anyway and considered it part of their decision matrices.
On the other hand, consider how much Americans say they care about immigration right now, even though immigration has zero bearing on their day-to-day experiences. Seriously: Go ask someone how their month went when border crossings were up versus on a month when border crossings were down. The average American experiences zero impact on their lives relative to the number of immigrants, yet cares a great deal about “immigration.”
We’ve got to do better.
A society in which people reserve judgment on the alligator until they see whether or not the alligator eats them is in trouble.
That’s physics. It’s inevitable.
What is a Direct Personal Consequence?
You could define the DPC in lots of ways, but a narrow definition is the most useful.
If your tax rate goes up, or down, during a presidential administration, that’s a DPC. The president signed a law determining the rate at which your income will be taxed.
If you work for the Department of Energy and DOGE fires you, that’s a DPC. The executive branch mandated the elimination of your job.
If you own a pub and you have to go out of business because Trump shut down the National Fire Academy’s training programs, that’s a DPC.
But if the price of your groceries goes up under Joe Biden is that a DPC for a voter?
I don’t think so? Biden didn’t pass the Raise Grocery Prices Law. That’s an environmental effect—and environmental effects can be powerful. But it’s not a DPC.
Great Job Jonathan V. Last & the Team @ The Bulwark Source link for sharing this story.
