Posted on 11/07/2012 9:10:56 AM PST by teflon9
But whether Barack Obama is elected to a second term or Mitt Romney is elected the 45th president, the contours of their support during this fiercely fought campaign show that we live in two Americas.
The culturally cohesive America of the 1950s that some of us remember, usually glossing over racial segregation and the civil-rights movement, is no longer with us and hasn’t been for some time.
Niche media has replaced universal media.
One America listens to Rush Limbaugh, the other to NPR. Each America has its favorite cable news channel. As for entertainment, Americans have 100-plus cable channels to choose from, and the Internet provides many more options
We tend to choose the America that is culturally congenial. Most people in the San Francisco Bay area wouldn’t consider living in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, even for much better money. Most metroplexers would never relocate to the Bay Area.
There are plenty of smart and creative and successful people in both Americas. But they don’t like to mix with each other these days.
One America tends to be traditionally religious, personally charitable, appreciative of entrepreneurs, and suspicious of government. The other tends to be secular or only mildly religious, less charitable, skeptical of business, and supportive of government as an instrument to advance liberal causes.
The more conservative America tends to be relatively cohesive. Evangelical Protestants and white Catholics make common cause ... Southern or northern accents don’t much matter.
That’s typical of the Republican party, which has always had core support from people who are seen as typical Americans but are not by themselves a majority in our always diverse country.
The more liberal America tends to be diverse. Like Obama’s 2008 coalition, it includes many at the top and at the bottom of the economic ladder.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I think he has stumbled upon the Dems’ Achilles Heel. That is one rag-tag mess of a coalition they are running with. It has to pull apart at the seams at some point. Unions vs. Enviroweenies, Blacks vs. Hispanics, etc. Will be interesting to watch Barry tap-dance to try and keep them all together.
If I had a choice, the latter. You can't fix stupid.
Isn’t Michael Barone the one who predicted a landslide for Romney?
Yeah, like he’s credible...
I think the only chance we have of not splitting up is to return to the federalist vision set forth in the pre-New Deal constitution, where most power resides in the States.
Absent that, open conflict is inevitable, in my view.
“Can we put Humpty Dumpty back together, or are we headed the way of Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia?”
IMO, status quo till the Congressional elections in two years. I don’t have any hope that changes will be any different then.
Perhaps Barone fell and hit his head when he stumbled and that's how he came up with the Romney Landslide.
Barone's lost all credibility and will be hard-pressed to regain it.
It actually would be a good thing to go the way of Czechoslovakia. They decided to peacefully divide into two countries and accomplished it without shooting each other.
This has confirmed my fears that we could very well end up in a new civil war.
“It actually would be a good thing to go the way of Czechoslovakia. They decided to peacefully divide into two countries and accomplished it without shooting each other.”
If this was Facebook, I’d give that a “like.”
Good point without a common enemy the Rats will eat themselves its in their nature.
We are beyond the point of no return.
Yes, the Repubs have some issues, but the “problem” is with the electorate, not the party. We have become “a nation of takers” (Google it) and those “takers” voted against the ones they thought were going to take away their sugar. 9M people on SSDI, 48M people on SNAP, countless still milking UE benefits, the fastest growing demographic are “the takers”.
So the cultural divide is really based upon the 47% that get government goodies. There is virtually no way they will vote for a candidate that pledges to address these issues. Peel off a couple of young liberal women with the abortion issue and the Bamster gets elected.
Someone on the NRO twitter feed last night wrote what politician is going to run on getting budget and entitlement issues under control? Only a fool would go back there.
And we know where this all leads, economic stagnation and possible financial catastrophe are in our future.
sschu
One would think so, but that rag-tag coalition doesn't seem to be anywhere near breaking up now, and I don't see it breaking up anytime in the near future.
Among Hispanic Catholic peasants, Black Baptists, and transvestites there appears to be only harmony.
Isn’t it ODD that some many of these pundits whom had “cred” on predicting, were off? Either they were: shills of disinformation, someone who should have never been listened to anyway, OR fraud was so enormous with the electronic voting counted by another Country, that they were right, but it was stolen with the flip of a switch.
Isn’t it ODD that some many of these pundits whom had “cred” on predicting, were off? Either they were: shills of disinformation, someone who should have never been listened to anyway, OR fraud was so enormous with the electronic voting counted by another Country, that they were right, but it was stolen with the flip of a switch.
“I think he has stumbled upon the Dems’ Achilles Heel. That is one rag-tag mess of a coalition they are running with. It has to pull apart at the seams at some point. Unions vs. Enviroweenies, Blacks vs. Hispanics, etc. Will be interesting to watch Barry tap-dance to try and keep them all together.”
And we don’t have such problems? Mormons vs evangelicals. Tea Party vs GOP-e.
sorry for the double post, i did wait after the preview to hit post only once, but my computer tablet is not working well today.
The boots on the ground do NOT match the “reduced turnout” count.
I think it is probably time for an amicable divorce between the “two Americas”. If you look at the Electoral College map, you’ll see that the geography and idealogy line up very well to make this convenient. I’d be willing to leave the blue state I live in.
The “Red States” (How God fearing, Capitalist, Patriotic states ever got to be the “Red” states, I don’t understand), are completely contiguous (except for Alaska, of course). You could travel by car to every Red state, without passing through a Democrat state.
We could give the lefties, a 10 or 20 mile wide stretch on the Candian border, through ND, MT and ID, to connect MN to Washington State and a similar strip of land to on the Mexican border in Arizona (I’m sure AZ would appreciate the illegal alien buffer zone). Then they could travel to all their states without passing through ours.
We could be the friendliest of allies, and I think if we seperated, would actually like each other a lot more.
We can keep the flag, the military, God, Faith, Guns, the Constitution, etc. and all the other great things they hate. They can keep the food stamps, the illegal aliens, same sex (or even inter-species if they want) marriage, Hollywood, Washington DC, etc.
We’ll take half of the 16 trillion dollar debt, and pay our share off in 10 years or so, while their 8 trillion grows to 100 trillion over the same period.
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