Red, Blue and . . . So 17th Century?

Washington Post ^ | 03/28/04 | Joel Kotkin

[Pokey78]

America's Roundheads cluster in the South, the Plains and various parts of the West, while the Cavaliers inhabit the coasts, particularly the large metropolitan centers of the Northeast and Pacific Northwest. Each side has its own views, confirmed by its favored media. Fox TV, most of talk radio, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Sean Hannity speak for the Roundheads, supporting President Bush and America's global mission. The mainstream media, the universities and the cultural establishment, including most of Hollywood, are the voices of the Cavaliers, whose elites, like many of England's Cavaliers and Charles I's French wife before them, are most concerned with winning over continental opinion and mimicking the European way of life.

[Unam Sanctam]

This sort of strained historical comparison, where facts are distorted to make a consistent comparison, is ridiculous. One could just as easily state that the Cavaliers, in their defense of traditional values and constitutional legitimacy, are the modern conservatives, and the regicide revolutionaries intolerant of traditional religion, are the modern liberals.

[Destro]

Um, I would have supporterd the Cavaliers and the King over Oliver Cromwell and his band of roundhead brigands. If you are trying to say the roundheads are the Bushies then just like in the UK the nation will tire of them and ask the Prince to come back and reclaim the crown.

Oliver Cromwell's England was a dictatorship and a failure.

[Destro]

Amen, brother. See my post above.

[nopardons]

Not really a good analogy.

The English civil wars were religious based,which were also cultural, but not in the way Americans would see it in 2004.It also had to do with Charles I dissolving Parliament and the Divine Right of Kings.

What you wrote is revisionist history and spurious at best.Sorry, but it makes even less sense than the also inaccurate tripe about America and the Roman Empire.

[CyberAnt]

It's so simple - GOOD vs. EVIL !!

I rest my case!

[Casloy]

Yes, on planet Washington Post it was so much nicer when the Democrats ran everything and the Republicans were thrown a bone now and again. They can't stand the fact that Republicans have power so they have to find some horrible social ill that MUST be going on for the people to be so divided. Try this on for size, the Democrats need to bend to the will of the Republicans and everyone will get along just fine.

[sauropod]

It's a shame that the usual suspects can't see the forest for the trees.

America is approaching a flash point and some here are straining at gnats while swallowing camels.

[raloxk]

Complete opposite analysis from the elitist homosexual Richard Florida

[livius]

Absolutely. This is not a good analogy.

However, aside from that, there is a profound divide, although I'm not sure that it really has an historical precedent.

[CAPTAIN PHOTON]

"AND GEORGE MY LAWFUL KING SHALL BE,
UNTIL THE TIMES DO ALTER."

"BUT THIS BE LAW THAT I'LL MAINTAIN, UNTIL MY DYING DAY SIR
THAT WHATSOEVER KING SHALL REIGN, THE CORPORATIONS STILL HOLD SWAY SIR!"

[A Jovial Cad]

Interesting article, had some things I definitely agreed with, others I didn't. Where I think it was most accurate was in its' description of the elitist disdain the Cavalier's had come to feel for their own country (wanting England to become more like the Continent), vis-a-vi the modern day American liberal. Your average American liberal today wishes that this country could be transformed into a larger version of Canada or France, and despises all those old heroic values that made this country the beacon of the world.

[TopQuark]

This author gave himself away as a Marxist --- everything is from economics --- in this paragraph:

This changing picture rests on basic economic trends.

And a bad economist at that;

Roundhead America thrives on the basic Bush economic policy of low taxes, low interest rates There is not a person in America that does not thrive on that.

and military spending. This is a cost --- to everybody.

His further argument about the South benefiting more from military spending is outright ridiculous: military is getting more and more high-tech, and California businesses benefit most.

The Cavalier economy struggles with overpriced housing, Garbage: today's housing is not overprices but overused. In 1950s two people per room lived in this country on average, and today it is two rooms per person. An average house builkt today is 50% bigger than in 1950s. And, there are fewer families; many more single people.

the fizzling of the dot-com boom, Really? I thought it were mostly people woh day-traded stocks that got burned, i.e., those rich enough to play.

the shifting of jobs, including skilled ones, overseas. Unemployment today was considered minimal possible even in theory as recently as a decade ago.

the increasing lack of affordable housing and high levels of taxation and environmental regulation in most key Cavalier locales are sending companies to less expensive and less heavily taxed and regulated places, where people can buy homes and businesses can operate most profitably.

Unintentionally, he admits that the liberals bring their own demise by socialist policies.

Note also references to "Bush recession." He can't help it: despite all the quasi-learned talk, he is a poor thinker and a leftist.

[risk]

CWII ping

[NYC GOP Chick]

America is approaching a flash point and some here are straining at gnats while swallowing camels.

I do admire your way with words - the way you paint such vivid pictures. :)

[sauropod]

I wish i could say it was original but it isn't.

Perhaps my use (context) of the phrase qualifies as art ;-).

[archy]

CWII ping

Aye!

[Travis McGee]

Terrible analogy, but the author is correct about America being in a pre CW phase. Or as some put it, a "Cold Civil War."

[risk]

"Is anyone winning?"

Yes. Our external enemies are stronger every day. They're emboldened by our lack of consensus.

[Travis McGee]

We have a lot of external enemies who will gleefully pour gasoline on our internal fires.