04 November 2004

Two Americas

As I said in my postmortem yesterday, I AM sick of all this, for now, but I intend to become active in MoveOn and Democracy for America before the midterm elections. We can't give up.

Notice how Edwards's class-based concept of TWO AMERICAS can be interpreted another way? The electoral map this year looks almost identical to 2000 ... Red America is the South, intruding into Indiana and Ohio, maybe even Iowa... the Great Plains and Mountain West. Blue America is where most of America's historical strength and greatness originates: the Upper Midwest, Eastern Seaboard, New England, Tidewater as far South as Maryland and D.C., and the West Coast (which will in future probably come to include Nevada and possibly even Arizona and New Mexico).

It's like the Pre-Civil War geographic divide. You have to wonder how long Blue America will be willing to be governed by a region with decisively different political philosophy, notwithstanding the fact that most commerce, and the majority of the people, in this country are seated in Blue America.

We have to consolidate our philosophy, organize, and press for reform that takes disproportionate electoral power away from the small Western states especially. This won't be feasible in the short term, because the powerful in the Republican party aren't stupid, and they know how to hold onto power... but somehow, someday, we have to ensure that power does not continue to reside with vested interests which have become so adept at culture wars that they have the so-called "heartland" voters as overswayed as the Nazis had pre-war Germans.

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