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It's 2000 All Over Again, Only WorseNov 21 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The Polarization of the US into Red States and Blue States is not only Political but Geographical, and we're already worse off for it.
Well, it's now official, Bush was won the Presidency by a score of 286 to 252 for Kerry. It's certain to go down as a replay of the election of 2000 in every way except that this time Bush gained Florida fair and square. The popular vote, by the way, was 59.2 million for Bush compared to 55.6 million for Kerry. Iraq was hardly the only issue that divided the country's land area so sharply. The economy was also a major issue, stupid. Also in the cards was the issue of gay marriage, oil prices that now average $2.10 per gallon at the pump, rising health care costs, and growing resentment among Europeans at the wielding of American political and military power. Also arising as a major issue was Moral Values, no thanks to the very divisive issue of gay marriage. This kept the Democrats from gaining valuable support in the Southern States or the Rocky Mountain States, where reverence for God and country are strong. More on that later. The divergence of America's population and geography The differences between the Red Center(Inland America)and the Blue Sectors (Coastal America) defy easy comparison, but I'll give a reasonable outline: Red Center The entire section of the US south of the Ohio River from Texas all the way east to North Carolina and Virginia (except South Florida) has become an entrenched Bible Belt, with mostly white (and some black) evangelical Christians enforcing strong moral values in their communities, such as opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and promiscuity, reinforced by a strong devotion to patriotism, a sense of history, support for the 2nd Amendment, and such. One look at the red states is enough to tell you that the Bible Belt has also engulfed the Great Plains states, the Rocky Mountain states, and the Midwestern states of Kentucky, Indiana, and to a lesser extent Ohio. Ironically it's the region that produced an American icon named Britney (I'm not yet certain which way she voted, although her friends and family members back in Louisiana are most likely hardcore Republicans.) Added to the mix are Cuban-Americans in Florida and Mexican Americans in Texas and the Southwest (they're different from their liberal counterparts in California in more than one way), and we all know which side they went for. Reports say that Bush got at least 40% of the nation's Latino-Hispanic vote, and it's all for many of the same reasons why the South is now staunchly Republican. Like most Southern whites, many Hispanics in Florida and Texas place a high value on family, go to church every Sunday, and celebrate Christmas and Easter with abandon. There is also anecdotal evidence that some Southern blacks (living outside the region's metro areas) have begun to turn Republican despite the region's long history of turbulent race relations. In short, it's increasingly becoming the insular America that Pat Robertson and his Christian Coalition is becoming proud of. Blue Sectors On the other side of the coin are New York, California, and Massachusetts (all of which have smoking bans in bars and restaurants, surprise surprise), plus Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Illinois, and New Jersey (where there is growing clamor for statewide smoking bans as well). All of these states voted for Clinton, Gore, and now Kerry by a huge margin. They're located in the coastal areas of America, mostly in regions with a high rate of immigration and non-white group percentage. Think Koreans, Filipinos, and Mexicans in California, Arabs and West Africans in Michigan, Hmong people from Southeast Asia in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Cubans and many other Latino-Hispanics in South Florida, and all of the above in the New York tri-state area. The Northeast, the Pacific Coast, and the states of the Midwest around the Great Lakes are now bastions of liberalism, Hollywood culture, large bastions of homosexuality, gun control, gangsta rap, feminism, and a strong entertainment culture that allows for everything except mainstream American heartland culture. Along with all of the above are liberal academics, corporate executives (one of whom is the father of Paris Hilton), and Ivy League college kids with too much time on their hands when they're not studying for courses. The blue regions theoretically could also include virtually every central city in the country except those in Texas. Other than Britney and a few others, virtually all actors and music artists come from the blue regions. If Pat Robertson were to travel in any of these states and liberal cities he'd either get pelted with eggs or fired upon by snipers, whichever comes first. Upshot It boils down to this: the Democrats are entrenched in the Northeast, the Pacific Coast, and the northern Great Lakes region (courtesy of all the hard-core Democrats in the Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis metro areas), while the entire Southern US and most of the Great Plains and Rockies states (aka the heartland) are already a Republican epicenter. One of Kerry's most fatal mistakes was to fail to reach out adequately to this large bloc in the red states, and his roots in super-liberal Massachusetts didn't help either. Whoever runs in 2008 will have a similarly hard time taking on the colors of the opposing side, but if he even has a slim chance of winning, he must try. The large bloc of support for the Christian right in the Red States arrayed against the Liberal left in the Blue States will not bode well for the future of America's diverse cultures and political alignments. There are already reports of pharmacists in Southern states refusing to give out birth control pills due to their moral values, while libertarians and gay movements are already filing lawsuits against the 11 states that approved constitutional amendments to uphold their bans on gay marriage. There may be more conflicts of interest similar to this later, and they'll most certainly erupt in force if the Red Center moralists in the US Government begin pushing their agenda hard against the Blue Sector States. What this means For now the Red States and those living within them have the upper hand. The pendulum is clearly expected to turn a bit more left as the Christian Right begins to press for bans on abortion, sex education, and gay marriage, all of which are held sacred by the typical residents of San Francisco Bay, Massachusetts Bay, New York Harbor, and downtown Los Angeles. There will inevitably be cultural conflict in the years ahead, since the evangelicals from the rural plains of Texas have little in common with the skyscraper-working Democratic-voting commuters of New York City. The pendulum could swing either way in 2008, but for now there's a cultural divide in American that will be hard to overcome, especially with hard-core liberals in Massachusetts lashing out directly against hard-core rightists in the heart of Alabama. And don't think that the entire world (mostly in favor of the blue states) isn't watching.  |
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