I’ve started writing this newsletter to help inform those looking to learn what Flyover Country thinks about the current state of things and to provide support for other refugees like me that are concerned with what’s happening to our communities, our states, and our country over the last few decades.
Over several posts, I want to provide a foundation for future analysis and content by defining some terms that I’ll be using throughout future posts from Flyover Country.
To start, periodically, I’ll provide some background on who I am. Cal is merely a pen name I’m writing under, and while you may not know my real name, you’ll get to know me.
I left a middle management position at a Fortune 50 company over 5 years ago to work as a CEO of a local chapter of a well-known non-profit. I saw it as a way for me to apply a passion for leadership and community service into meaningful impact in my community.
I was in for a rude awakening.
I’m a rarity in that while my for-profit career was on the upswing, I decided to leave that behind to run a non-profit. Who does that? I’m also conservative and Christian in a sector where people with those characteristics or viewpoints are in short supply.
I might as well be a unicorn or a Loch Ness Monster because as an outsider with different values, it’s made me a frequent target of attempts to undermine, reprimand, and even fire me at least in part because I hold a viewpoint that threatens the MERC’s carefully constructed environment.
These “credentials” are largely meaningless, but these experiences provide me unique insights and understandings of the culture, attitudes, and language of “The MERC”. I’ve grown to understand certain interconnected realities at the local level that I’m confident apply at the state and national level as well. The only difference being the scale and the stakes.
The MERC is my own shorthand for “Managerial Experts, Ruling Class”. I created this acronym as an all-encompassing term, and it applies in just about any situation, regardless of scale or stakes.
To start with, the MERC rely on their credentials, typically obtained from certain “elite” universities or institutions. They revel in the belief that this bestows on them a certain “expertise” or special knowledge that distinguishes them from others, particularly residents of Flyover Country, people who “only” attended a state university or community college, or people who perhaps went right way into a given job.
Further, they use this perceived self-importance to assert their authority in situations as definitive and foregone. Because of their “credentials” they don’t take kindly to being questioned by any of the aforementioned groups above. Their actual position may be of little real-world importance, but in their particular environment, they believe it comes with authority that they plan to assert and their “credentials” merely reinforce that authority.
Think of it as a lack of humility or a “superiority complex”
Certain people are MERC, but more importantly, the attitudes, language, and culture of MERC define them as much as anything else. The MERC aren’t necessarily evil, corrupt, or conspiratorial. Like any of us, though, they frequently act out of self-interest instead of true service. For them, though, it’s the default, not the exception.
Why, then, should you care about the MERC?
First, the MERC thrive on this division and chaos happening across our country today. Many of the issues dividing neighbors and friends create useful distractions that the MERC largely ignore. If Critical Race Theory (CRT) is or isn’t taught in schools is almost beside the point. The MERC want you paying more attention to who is or isn’t supporting CRT because that and other similar issues spark emotion and passion that distract us from other more important issues that may be flying under the radar.
Second, for those that don’t take a stand on any number of divisive issues like CRT, the MERC want to create an overwhelming sense of confusion and anxiety. We’re flooded daily with controversy, tragedy, and violence. Any college Psych class or simple Google search will bring up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. When you’re overwhelmed, you turn your focus inward on you and your family, and not what the MERC is doing out there.
Which brings us to number three. While you’re distracted arguing with parents or your local school board, or you’re dealing with feeling overwhelmed when all you want to do is get through the summer softball season or binge on Tik Tok videos, the MERC have the time and space to consolidate and accelerate their own agenda without Flyover Country disrupting their carefully constructed environments. They’re going to benefit regardless of which side of the current division “wins”.
What’s happening to our communities and country right now is driven by the MERC. In Flyover Country, we’ve entrusted leaders - political, cultural, academic, business, etc. - to make decisions on our behalf that are also in the best interest of Flyover Country residents. We expect them to make decisions in their roles that will help us achieve the American Dream.
But that’s not what’s happening anymore, at least not with any regularity.
While we’re dealing with division and distraction, the MERC have largely been making decisions that enhance and add to their own best interests.
While you were distracted by COVID, closed schools, and lockdowns, the MERC were busy enacting their agenda. When their decisions benefit Flyover Country residents in realizing the American Dream, it’s happenstance or at the margins.
Whether you identify as Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, conservative, liberal, progressive, whatever, the MERC make decisions that reinforce their worldview regardless of how it aligns with yours, like progressive (“open borders”) or conservative (“build the wall”). The MERC operates out of self-interest.
So, it’s time to start paying attention. Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll provide you with specific examples of the “who” and “what” of MERC including personal stories of engaging with the MERC that you can then use as a “decoder” of sorts. I want to help you better understand the language and culture you’re up against. You can use that new knowledge to hold the MERC accountable and to ensure their interests start aligning with the best interests of you and your community.
THAT is your circle of influence. You can affect your community positively. If enough of us in Flyover Country start taking action, even those in areas that feel lost to an anti-American sentiment, we’ll create a momentum that will start to change a region, a state, and eventually, get our country back on the right track.
Perhaps, I’m biased, as a lifelong resident of Flyover Country, but I’m confident that we hold the key.
To keep up with the MERC and how it affects Flyover Country, be sure to sign up for my newsletter.