AMERICAN CULTURAL DIVIDE: A Very Old Story

Courtesy of Emphasis Added, Digby over at Hullabaloo tries to figure out what the hell's wrong with half the country:

History suggests that the southern culture has always been as defined by it's resentment toward the rest of the country as much as anything else.

And

One thing this little historical trip should show everyone is that it is nonsense to think that this cultural resentment and cultural contempt was created by Hollywood movie stars and limosine liberals from New York City. Indeed, this has been a problem since the dawn of the republic. And it isn't a problem that will be solved by the Red States gaining and maintaining power. They have held power many times throughout our history and they were still filled with resentment toward "the north" (now "the liberal elites.") And, it won't be solved by adopting different stances on "moral issues," or telling the current Democratic southern constituencies to suck it up. Maybe it's time we looked a little bit deeper and realized that this tribal problem isn't going to be solved by politics at all.

The "liberal elites" will no doubt be making more compromises in the direction of heartland values for pragmatic reasons. But, judging by history, it won't change a thing. Neither will Republican political dominance. So, maybe it's time for the heartland to take a good hard look at itself and ask when they are going to adopt the culture of responsibility they profess with such fervor. It sure looks to me as if they've been nursing a case of historical pique for more than 200 years and that resentment no longer has any more meaning than a somewhat self-destructive insistence on maintaining a cultural identity that's really defined by it's anger toward the rest of the country. They are talking themselves into a theocratic police state in order to "crack the whip over the heads of the northern men" and it's not likely to work out for them any better this time than it did the first time. The real elites in the church, the government and the corporations will take them down right along with us when that comes to pass.

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Digby's got a good point: historical resentment of rural America towards urban America, South towards North, "Red" states towards "Blue" states, continues to exist. What he misses is that this resentment need not be as politically enflamed as it is today. The United States was once, during the mid twentieth century, a fairly progressive country. What has happened is that determined conservative ideologues, armed with butt-loads of cash, have been making a concerted effort to fan the flames of these cultural resentments for over three decades.

By establishing conservative "think tanks" such as the Heritage Foundation, which offers a ready and endless supply of "experts" to give the mainstream news media conservative opinions at a moment's notice, by creating a now-dominant alternative news media that caters exclusively to conservative tastes, by playing the campaign finance laws like a fiddle, along with other political tactics, conservative leaders have masterfully turned relatively minor cultural differences into what President Bush now calls "political capital." Meanwhile, the Democrats have gotten fat, scared, and lazy, continually retreating in the face of what appears to be an unstoppable opponent.

Like I said, these resentments do exist, but, by themselves, they're not enough to turn America into the redneck nation that it has now become. America can once again become a progressive nation, but it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of strategy. I think the energy exists to do the work. The real question is if liberals are willing to mount an effective counter-offensive in the war of ideology. Given that the Democrats continue to be running scared, I'm not going to hold my breath.

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