It’s not even a red state-blue state divide, it’s an urban/rural divide. City folk and country folk airing grievances at each other, some of them legitimate, but mostly just attributing the failure of neoliberalism to deliver the ideal future they imagined to the other group for having a different set of cultural totems.
Which is why the rhetoric gets more agitated and the stunts more grandiose, but there’s no thinking through the process, as you observe. It’s a very id-driven politics, everyone wants immediate retribution for perceived slights, but it’s all knee jerk, no consideration of the why and how of the situation.
The maddening thing about the urban/rural divide is that over the last ~150 years, the differences between the two have shrunk! By a lot. We all get our food from the grocery store! We all have to drive to get anywhere! We’re all plugged into the same television/internet! And, of course as you point out, WE’RE ALL PLAGUED BY NEOLIBERALISM!
Currently the big divide between rural and urban is racial integration; in lots of cities white people have shrunk from a majority to a plurality, and there’s much greater richess of diversity in cultural influences. On the other hand, lots of rural areas are basically still “whites-only” sunset towns.
That’s why conservatives are obsessed with talking about “sanctuary cities”, “Democrat-run cities”, “urban crime”, “burning down cities”, “city warzone”, it’s just dogwhistles for “we think civil rights was a mistake and segregation never should have ended”.
It’s not even a red state-blue state divide, it’s an urban/rural divide. City folk and country folk airing grievances at each other, some of them legitimate, but mostly just attributing the failure of neoliberalism to deliver the ideal future they imagined to the other group for having a different set of cultural totems.
Which is why the rhetoric gets more agitated and the stunts more grandiose, but there’s no thinking through the process, as you observe. It’s a very id-driven politics, everyone wants immediate retribution for perceived slights, but it’s all knee jerk, no consideration of the why and how of the situation.
The maddening thing about the urban/rural divide is that over the last ~150 years, the differences between the two have shrunk! By a lot. We all get our food from the grocery store! We all have to drive to get anywhere! We’re all plugged into the same television/internet! And, of course as you point out, WE’RE ALL PLAGUED BY NEOLIBERALISM!
aaaaaaghhghghhg
Currently the big divide between rural and urban is racial integration; in lots of cities white people have shrunk from a majority to a plurality, and there’s much greater richess of diversity in cultural influences. On the other hand, lots of rural areas are basically still “whites-only” sunset towns.
That’s why conservatives are obsessed with talking about “sanctuary cities”, “Democrat-run cities”, “urban crime”, “burning down cities”, “city warzone”, it’s just dogwhistles for “we think civil rights was a mistake and segregation never should have ended”.
Yeah… yeah. God but this country never really changes does it? It feels that way sometimes.
There is an urban/rural divide but the red/blue divide is very real.
Rural New England isn’t anything like the rural midwest