THE PEOPLE OF THE RED STATES AND THE BLUE STATES

Slate.com is presently running a series, called ''Who's Winning, Who's Losing, and Why'' that includes an ongoing dialogue, since the conclusion of the presidential election, concerning the reasons the Democrats failed in this most recent and other elections.

The header includes a review of recent editions by such writers and thinkers as Chris Suellentrop, William Saletan, and Timothy Noah who, for their parts, blame the lack of Democratic success on Kerry's ''too nuanced and technocratic'' approach (Suellentrop); on a failure to base campaigns on ''values and moral responsibility'' like Bill Clinton did (wow!) (Saletan); or the lack of the right kind of advice (Noah).

While each of the earlier pundits seems to offer reasoned and reasonable explanations for the fact of Kerry's loss and the reality of the Democrats losing five of the last seven presidential elections, the most recent entry, by Jane Smiley, entitled ''Why America Hates Democrats--A Dialogue: The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States'' is grossly mis-titled.

Ms. Smiley's essay is so filled with vitriol, over-generalizations, inaccuracies, and distortions, that it serves only to remind those who just voted George W. Bush into office for a second term--with the highest number of popular votes in the history of the Republic--just why we voted that way.

Forgive the extensive quoting that is to follow, but Ms. Smiley's remarks so stunningly illustrate what is wrong with the left's arrogant attitude toward the rest of America, that it would be a disservice to readers to merely paraphrase. I wish for Ms. Smiley's words themselves to reveal how John Kerry and the Democrats continue to hoist themselves on the same petard.

Having said that, I wish to make one criticism before allowing Ms. Smiley herself to express the liberal contempt for the rabble of mankind that the left deigns to take care of when given the reigns of power. Ms. Smiley expresses the differences between the left and the right in terms of ''Blue State'' (Democrat) residents and ''Red State'' (Republican) residents. It is a false dichotomy. When one looks at an electoral map, one gets the impression, for instance, that California is a ''blue state.'' And in many ways, it is--certainly, Kerry won the popular vote in California and its 55 electoral votes were duly awarded. One look, however, at a county-by-county breakdown of the vote in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections reveals that there is no such thing as a ''blue'' state. California in particular looks very, very red. It is only in the far northern and most populated northern counties (San Francisco) and in the populated southern counties (Los Angeles/Hollywood) that the state is blue. Everywhere else, it is red. This is true of the entire map of the United States. ''Blue States'' are ones with the densest urban populations--and in cases in which those urban populations outnumber the rural populations, the state has voted in the last two cycles, with little variation between 2000 and 2004, for the Democratic nominee. States in which the urban population does not outnumber the rural have gone uniformly Republican. But the conservatives control the vast majority of the geographical area of the United States in terms of blue or red.

The Founders instituted the electoral college for precisely this reason: if the presidency was determined by gross popular vote, then the only citizens that would elect the president each time would be those who live in the most densely populated areas--which today includes Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York. If the folks in Indiana didn't happen to like the candidate preferred by the ''city folk,'' well too bad. There just ain’t enough Hoosiers for that to matter much.

A look at the Democratic election strategies of Al Gore and John Kerry proves that each candidate understood that if he could carry the heavy population centers, he could win. But each failed to convince enough of those that live in ''fly-over'' country to put him over the top. Al Gore won the popular vote--but not in the right places. Kerry missed everywhere.

If the Democratic strategy in the last two elections does not illustrate nicely enough the contempt on the left for the ''common'' citizen of the general population, then Ms. Smiley's article should remove all doubt as to why the Democrats continue to lose major elections and why not only George Bush has been elected to a second term, but why the Republican majority has been expanded in both the Congress and the Senate, and why governorships and state representatives all over the country are shifting from ''blue'' to ''red.''

After admitting that members of her own family are Republicans (and later attacking them for being--like (apparently) all Republicans, ''greedy and full of classic feelings of Republican superiority''), Ms. Smiley quite directly expresses her understanding of why George Bush won the presidency again: ''The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance of the citizenry.'' (Translation? ''The right-wing is better at it than we are . . .'')

Ms. Smiley goes on to explain that, in the ''red'' states, ''ignorance and blood lust'' have a long history; that the ignorant have a penchant for cheating and violence to get their way, and that the combination of the moral-less Capitalist (Cheney) and the deluded Religionist (Bush) is the perfect combination for the ignorant masses who simply follow them in lockstep because they are too stupid and lazy to see how they are being manipulated by the right-wing in its Satanic pursuit of power.

According to Ms. Smiley, '''Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God in you--if you don't believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell.'' Because the Bible itself is contradictory, she goes on, this necessitates the suspension of all ''critical thinking.'' To reinforce this suspicion of critical thinking Ms. Smiley adds that those on the right convince the ignorant that ''Satan himself resides in the toils and snares of complex thought, so it is best not to try it.'' (Translation: Simple thought = Republican; Complex thought = Democrat; Simple = Dumb; Complex = Smart--Therefore (look Ms. Smiley! I’m doing it! I’m doing it!) Republican = Dumb; Democrat = Smart).

Then, Ms. Smiley (you know, you are good enough, smart enough, and, doggonit, people like you!) expresses the first of her contradictions. Remember--she began her article by describing her relatives as illustrating that typically Republican greediness and sense of superiority. But then she writes that the right wing tells us fools that we are ''the best of a bad lot'' who are, nevertheless, by adhering to the right wing conspiracy against the left ''among the chosen.'' She goes on: ''This is flattering and reassuring, and also encourages you to imagine the fates of those you envy and resent.'' I'm sorry--how does one who preternaturally feels ''superiority'' simultaneously ''envy'' those who are not the same? How is it we ''resent'' those that we feel are so inferior to us? Pity? Maybe. But Ms. Smiley’s rigid contempt for those who disagree with her is beginning to show through.

Then she argues that the right encourages folks, ''when things get rough'' to cling to their ignorance and rely upon their betters to make things right. This is where Ms. Smiley mistakes a liberal's understanding of the world for a conservative’s. Conservatives believe that people are responsible primarily for their own lot. They are also responsible for their own success and ought, by rights, to reap the rewards for it. It is the liberals who believe the lowly are incapable of taking care of themselves: that their misfortune is the result of some kind of victimization that can be assuaged by a program--if only the stupid louts would allow their betters to ''fix'' things for them.

Ms. Smiley then reveals the Marxist roots of her philosophy of the rubes: ''The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey—workers and consumers.''

This is right out of Karl Marx. Never mind that the fall of the Soviet Union, the complete historical reality of the failure of class-warfare as the basis of an economy, the very coveting of China for Hong Kong, gives the complete lie to the idea that Marx's ideas work or reflect anything remotely connected to human beings and why they do what they do. Ms. Smiley's language reveals her belief that the majority (given the numbers of this election) of people are simply incapable of taking care of themselves and it takes smarter people who virtuously dedicate themselves to such a role to take care of them. The government, therefore, exists as a means of taking care of the majority according to the genius of the minority. Thank God for Ms. Smiley.

Ms. Smiley ends by saying that ''progressives'' (code for Marxists) have only one course of action at this point, since the ''red'' state denizens know little more than lying, cheating, and stealing--which is to call ''them'' on it every time they try it.

But, Ms. Smiley does not seem to understand that just because someone does not agree with her point of view, it does not mean that he or she is stupid or evil.

If Ms. Smiley really would like to know why ''America Hates the Democrats'' she should know it is because we don’t like being called stupid, evil ignoramuses with a propensity for violence. At the same time, Ms. Smiley should know that John Kerry lost the election not only because ignorant conservatives don’t agree with her.

Kerry lost also because rank and file Democrats don't agree with her. According to her very own logic, there really is no other explanation.

About the Writer: Gregory Borse is assistant professor of English at Ivy Tech State College in Wabash, Indiana. Dr. Borse, a family man with "a beautiful wife and four beautiful children," enjoys writing, current events, media, politics, and golf. Gregory receives e-mail at gregorbo@peoplepc.com.

I VOW to the 58,000 + names on
The Viet Nam Wall who never came home

"I will do everything I LEGALLY can
to expose Hanoi Kerry once and for all."

MSM still refuses to tell the real story about Hanoi Kerry!

ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, NY Times
is part of THE cover up of the election.

Do you wonder why the Left whines about the election results?

They still think Hanoi Kerry is a "war hero"

They don't know what a traitor he is!

And I don't know about you but
I'm sick and tired of the Right media saying
"what an honorable man Senator Kerry is"

Why isn't the Right all over Hanoi Kerry
to be impeached from the US Senate?

"In a bombshell development that could have turned President Bush's victory into a landslide
had it come out before the election, John Kerry wrote in his Vietnam war diary that
he met with "terrorists" in Paris - a revelation that "flabbergasted" his running mate John Edwards."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/11/7/101350.shtml

And still the MSM,
ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, NY Times
hide the truth from America.

And still 99 US Senators refuse to impeach this traitor.

Timeline of John Kerry

http://www.archive-news.net/Kerry/JK_timeline.html

Hanoi Approved of Role Played By Kerry and VVAW

http://www.nysun.com/article/3756

The whole 42:09 Stolen Honor online FREE right now! E-mail it NOW!

Stolen Honor nails Kerry and the VVAW
and how they lied at Winter Soldier.
And how Kerry lied to the US Senate in 1971
And how Kerry and his pack of liars caused our POW's to suffer!

Kerry and the DNC cannot stop
EVERYONE on the internet from seeing this!

http://stolenhonor.com/documentary/watch-video.asp

EXPOSE HANOI KERRY!

Distribute these url's!

http://tonkin.spymac.net/hanoikerry1.html

There is a backup site
if the 1st url is unavailable.

http://stophanoikerry.150m.com/

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