This is prolly my laziest post ever (though one would really need an atomic microscope to spot the difference) but here goes...
One week after the election, trying to digest (then purge) everything I've read about why what happened, happened (values? the no-show youth vote? weak candidate? swifties? Iraq? terrorism? gheys?)... I haven't a clue....
But in my travels, a few things I've spotted along the way paint a sort of picture. Now there may be something to it (though the "it" is less an answer and more of a question in and of itself), or there may not be. That's where I'm hoping you come in.
So, okay...
Here's the gist of it, unsupported by any links, tangible data, or support of any kind. If you're that hungry for it, say so and maybe (not today) I'll try and retrace my steps and locate the places I've come across it. Hopefully it's not so absurd as to really require that, but I'd understand.
When you compare the red states who voted for Bush against the blue states who voted for Kerry, some striking things seem to jump out at you.
I saw a list of the average IQ of different states. It ranged from 110 down to 90ish. Except for Colorado and one other state that I can't remember, the top of those were entirely blue, and the bottom entirely red.
The next is, the so-called donor states as compared to the free-loader states. That is, what states pay in taxes as compared to the states who pay less and benefit from the taxes paid by the other states. Again, except for a few examples it was blue at the top, red at the bottom.
Now we come to the values thing. The blue states were again at the top, having less divorces, and the red were at the bottom.
But maybe the Daily show put it best.
Stephen Colbert: Two issues, John. Exit polls of Bush voters said the issues most important to them were terrorism and cultural values. Both of which fall under the umbrella of fear.
JS: So, how are both of those issues "fear"?
SC: Well, first look at terrorism. It tends to terrorize people. One of its defining aspects. And Bush's hardline anti-terror rhetoric served voters in the Heartland, which is filled with such obvious Al-Qaeda targets as Nebraska's Carhenge and South Dakota's Corn Palace. In short, so many of the things we Americans hold kitschiest.
JS: Well, what about cultural issues?
SC: Well, that's fear as well. Eleven states approved anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives. Clearly our deep national fear of hot man-on-man monogamy drove turnout among the nation's so-called "value voters". And here's what's interesting: these voters see the connection between terrorism and what I'll call "homo-ism". Think of it, John. Both groups recruit impressionable young men, at camp, in remote mountain regions. Then, they videotape it and release it on the internet. Or so I've been told.
JS: First of all, what a gay staff we have.
SC: Oh yeah!
JS: Second of all, if those are the two major issues concerning voters, and again, why would New York City, which really has the most significant gay population in the country and has already had the most significant terrorist attack in the country, vote overwhelmingly for Kerry?
SC: Well, here's the thing, John. We in New York are too close to the terrorism and the gay people. Only the red states with the advantage of a safe distance can take in the whole picture and clearly see what we should do about those issues. And so, on behalf of everyone living in the blue states, I'd like to thank the red states for saving us from ourselves. John?
I'm absolutely certain that you could take the sort of damning case I've made against the red, turn it around, and make an equally damning case against the blue. It's not really my intention to do a tit for tat. What I'm trying to do is draw a distinction between the two, and I'm more at home with the blue's argument, so that's the one I gave.
On its surface, you could say that 52%-48% appears to be a nation almost evenly split. But if you look at both sides, some clear differences, and commonalities within each side emerge.
Two sides with clear differences vying for power. Not a population split so much as a
regional split. It's not 50-50 in California, Texas, New York or Alabama. It is these states versus those states.
If I were a typical Georgian and Kerry had won, it wouldn't be "What's wrong with people?!", and it wouldn't be "Those damned Liberals", it would be "Those damned North Easterners" or "Those damned West Coasters" (battleground states excluded).
The same would be true of the typical New Yorker. I bet they feel that they're being held hostage by the "heartland" states that dictate the government they are under.
It's like... I dunno, a civil war in the germination stage. Right now it's a cultural war/class war/ideological war, and for the time being, purely academic. But the lines that are dividing the two seem clearer now than I can ever remember them being. Ie. southern democrats are a thing of the past.
So...
Does this portend something? Do you think it will settle down and become a less discernable split? Or even more clearly divided? If yet another election falls along these same lines and illuminates the divide even more so, will folks come to recognize that whoever gets into the White house depends on the victor of North vs South, Red vs Blue?
Lastly, and again, I know I raised issues regarding the differences between the two, and they were one sided. It was only done to illustrate the divide or, at the very least, how that divide may be perceived by one half of it. But it is the divide that matters.
What of it?
