Friday, December 03, 2004
Yet Another Look at the "Red vs. Blue" Chatter
In a column published today on FindLaw, John Dean joins the chorus of those (including WLIR) who say that the so-called "divide" between Red states and Blue states is illusory, a product of the So-Called Liberal Media's fevered imagination.
Dean refers to numerous recent works, among them:
Of course, I don't have the advantage of academic or other statistical evidence. But I think we're "centrist" only in the aggregate of issues. Someone who's liberal on, say, health care may be conservative on the death penalty; observers look at that person and announce, "Centrist. Definitely centrist." But that's not true on an issue-by-issue basis, and every issue does not carry equal weight in the given person's psyche and life. If our putative centrist has four school-age children and is staggering under the weight of their pediatric care, but does not know anyone who's ever been the victim of a capital crime, and if you give him/her a choice -- "You can have government-guaranteed health care, or you can have government-guaranteed death sentences?" -- which one would Mr./Ms. Centrist pick? Damn straight they'll pick health care.
That's why it's important that we not move to the center on every stinking issue. (No wonder everyone in Kansas is so confused about what the Democratic Party stands for.) And likewise, that's why it's important to identify the principles and the issues that people care the most about, and embrace -- and articulate -- the unambiguously liberal position on them: because on the issues that most Americans care most about, most Americans are in fact liberals. They just don't know it, because the public face of the Donkey has been, for far too long, this gray amorphous neutered-centrist shape in the political landscape.
Dean refers to numerous recent works, among them:
- Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas?:
"The trick never ages; the illusion never wears off. Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. Vote to make our country strong again; receive deindustrialization. Vote to screw those politically correct college professors; receive electricity deregulation. Vote to get government off our backs; receive conglomeration everywhere from media to meat-packing. Vote to stand tall against terrorists; receive Social Security privatization. Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes, in which workers have been stripped of power and CEOs are rewarded in a manner beyond imagining." (Emphasis in [Frank's] original.)
As Frank explains, a key part of the whole bait-and-switch, one of the tactics that maintains the illusion, is to make a big deal out of the red states/blue states divide. This television graphic has provided conservative activists with a rhetorical device which they have used (and continue to use) effectively to marshal their followers.
...The evidence is overwhelming: The so-called culture split is largely nonsense, pure hokum. We should not let pundits divide America by falsely claiming there is already a deep rift, and then trying to deepen it.
Telling two people they are natural enemies is a good way to make them suspicious of each other. Telling two segments of the population the same thing, doubtless has the same effect. The more we think of our nation as two inimical constituencies, the less we will be able to fight genuine enemies outside our borders - such as the terrorist network that still persists. - Morris Fiorina's pamphlet Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America:
"Americans are closely divided, but we are not deeply divided," Fiorina writes. "And we are closely divided because many of us are ambivalent and uncertain, and consequently reluctant to make firm commitments." He finds that "we divide evenly in elections or sit them out entirely because we instinctively seek the center while the parties and candidates hang out on the extremes."
Of course, I don't have the advantage of academic or other statistical evidence. But I think we're "centrist" only in the aggregate of issues. Someone who's liberal on, say, health care may be conservative on the death penalty; observers look at that person and announce, "Centrist. Definitely centrist." But that's not true on an issue-by-issue basis, and every issue does not carry equal weight in the given person's psyche and life. If our putative centrist has four school-age children and is staggering under the weight of their pediatric care, but does not know anyone who's ever been the victim of a capital crime, and if you give him/her a choice -- "You can have government-guaranteed health care, or you can have government-guaranteed death sentences?" -- which one would Mr./Ms. Centrist pick? Damn straight they'll pick health care.
That's why it's important that we not move to the center on every stinking issue. (No wonder everyone in Kansas is so confused about what the Democratic Party stands for.) And likewise, that's why it's important to identify the principles and the issues that people care the most about, and embrace -- and articulate -- the unambiguously liberal position on them: because on the issues that most Americans care most about, most Americans are in fact liberals. They just don't know it, because the public face of the Donkey has been, for far too long, this gray amorphous neutered-centrist shape in the political landscape.
