Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

One Nation, Slightly Divisible: A Report from “Red” and “Blue” America
The Atlantic Monthly | December 2001 | David Brooks

Posted on 12/03/2001 6:03:55 PM PST by rface

Sixty-five miles from where I am writing this sentence is a place with no Starbucks, no Pottery Barn, no Borders or Barnes & Noble. No blue New York Times delivery bags dot the driveways on Sunday mornings. In this place people don’t complain that Woody Allen isn’t as funny as he used to be, because they never thought he was funny. In this place you can go to a year’s worth of dinner parties without hearing anyone quote an apercu he first heard on Charlie Rose. The people here don’t buy those little rear-window stickers when they go to a summer vacation spot so they can drive around with “MV” decals the rest of the year, for the most part they don’t even go to Martha’s Vinyard.

The place I am talking about goes by different names. Some call it America. Others call it Middle America. It has also come to be known as Red America in reference to the maps that were produced on the night of the 2000 presidential election. People in Blue America, which is my part of America, tend to live in big cities on the coasts. People in Red America tend to live on farms or in small towns or small cities far away from the coasts. Things are different there.

Everything that people in my neighborhood do without motors, the people in Red America do with motors. We sail; they powerboat. We cross-country ski; they snowmobile. We hike; they drive ATVs. We have vineyard tours; they have tractor pulls. When it comes to yard work, they have rider mowers; we have illegal aliens.

Different sorts of institutions dominate life in these two places. In Red America churches are everywhere. In Blue America Thai restaurants are everywhere. In Red America they have QVC, the Pro Bowlers Tour and hunting. In Blue Americawe have NPR, Doris Kearns Goodwin and socially conscious investing. In Red America the Wal~Marts are massive, with parking lots the size of state parks. In Blue America the stores are small, but the markups are big. You’ll rarely see a Christmas store in Blue America, but in Red America, even in July, you’ll come upon stores selling fake Christmas trees, wreath-decorated napkins, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer collectable thimbles ans spoons and little snow villages.

We in the costal metro Blue areas read more books and attend more plays than the people in the Red heartland. We’re more sophisticated and cosmopolitan – just ask us about our alumni trips to China or Provence, or our interest in Buddhism. But don’t ask us, please, what life in Red America is like. We don’t know. We don’t know who Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins are, even though the novels they have co-writtenhave sold about 40 million copies over the past few years. We don’t even know what James Dobson says on his radio program, which is listened to by millions. We don’t know about Reba or Travis. We don’t know what happens in the mega-churches on Wednesday evening, and some of us couldn’t tell you the difference between a fundamentalist and an evangelical, let alone describe what it means to be a Pentacostal. Very few of us knows what goes on in Branson, Missouri even though it has seven million visitors a year or could name five NASCAR drivers, although stock-car races are the best attended sporting events in the country. We don’t know how to shoot or clean a rifle. We can’t tell a military officer’s rank by looking at hi insignia. We don’t know what soy beans look like when they are growing in a field.

All we know or think we know, about Red America is that millions and millions of its people live quietly underneath flight patterns, many of them are racist and homophobic, and when you see them at highway rest stops, they’re often really fat and their clothes are too tight.

And apparently we don’t want to know more about that. One can barely find any books at Amazon.com about what it is like to live in small-town America—or, at least, any books written by normal people who grew up in a small towns, liked then, and stayed there. The few books that do exist were written either by people who left the heartland because they hated it (Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent, for example) or by urbanites who moved to Red America as part of some life-simplification plan (Moving to a Small Town: A Guidebook for Moving from Urban to Rural America; National Geographic’s Guide to Small Town Escapes). Apparently no publishers or members of the Blue book-buying public are curious about Red America’s eyes.

[[The next section is called, “Crossing the Meatloaf Line”]]


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-42 next last
I was passing through Coal City Illinois, its part of Red America (south of Joliet), and I stopped at a lunch joint and saw this article. It is not available on the internet (as best as I can tell), so I transcribed the first section. I did a search and saw where someone had posted part of the Atlantic Monthly Forum that discussed this long piece written by Brooks.

I encourage everyone to go to their local library and get hold of this issue. I say it is a great article.

Maybe I'll get around to transcribing the next section some other day. (This section probably amounts to 2% of the entire article)

Ashland, Missouri (Red America)

1 posted on 12/03/2001 6:03:55 PM PST by rface
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: rface
Wow...you're right - it looks like a great article. Now you got me hooked by starting it. I'll have to find the whole thing. Thanks for posting.
2 posted on 12/03/2001 6:11:06 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: anniegetyourgun; All
Atlantic Monthly Forum/FReeRepublic
3 posted on 12/03/2001 6:12:55 PM PST by rface
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: rface
Interesting. I'll have to get a copy of this. Thanks (something different for a change).
4 posted on 12/03/2001 6:17:55 PM PST by Texas_Jarhead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: rface
Sounds like where I live. Around here the 'good old boys' still have a good time on Sat. night. We still love Old Glory. We and millions like us are still Americans in the true sense of the word. Good post thanks.
6 posted on 12/03/2001 6:20:17 PM PST by vladog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rface
Those of us who made our livings with mining know where Coal City is, and it is VERY Red AMerica. This looks like an excellent article...I will try to find it.

Thank you for posting this, I know transcribing is hard work.

7 posted on 12/03/2001 6:21:30 PM PST by Miss Marple
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: anniegetyourgun
I live in Blue America and most of my friends and coworkers are like the people this article says live here. I hope the rest of the article is a lot less condescending about Red America. The part you've posted makes the people who live there sound like parochial, naive (if innocent and harmless) white trash. If you say it's a good article I'll believe you, but I'm eager to see what the rest of the piece says.

The Atlantic Monthly has a summary of the piece that might be useful to those who are curious, followed by some debate that will make you laugh between normal people who might fit in here at FreeRepublic and loonytunes who clearly come from blue regions and who have never visited a red one. Check out http://forum.theatlantic.com/WebX?.ee71cdc for amusement if you have a minute.

8 posted on 12/03/2001 6:24:36 PM PST by JOHN ADAMS
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: JOHN ADAMS
Actually, I didn't post it - rface did. It is interesting and I probably would agree with you assessment of their assessment of Red zone folk.
9 posted on 12/03/2001 6:26:44 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: JOHN ADAMS
Much if not all of the debate I mentioned is at the url posted by rface at #3.
10 posted on 12/03/2001 6:26:46 PM PST by JOHN ADAMS
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: rface
If you read the entire article, then -- what was the author's conclusion? I am quite curious. I'm trying to predict the ending, but -- I want to know where it ended up.
11 posted on 12/03/2001 6:28:44 PM PST by summer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rface
Re #3 - I think I'll stay here, thank you.

I found this rather interesting from the exerpts they post on the Atlantic Monthly site:

"In Red America people eat meatloaf, dine at Crackerbarrel, shop at Walmart, attend Church and participate in Church-related activities regularly, live near family, obtain minimal educations, hold conservative views on issues like homosexuality and abortion, and enjoy a close-knit community life. "

While lots of this is correct, the "minimal educations" is factually incorrect. Christians (as a group in America), for example, are slightly better educated than the national average.

12 posted on 12/03/2001 6:30:29 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: rface
BTTT
13 posted on 12/03/2001 6:30:40 PM PST by Fiddlstix
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: summer
Can't tell too much from their website excerpts - looks like the author is headed toward suggesting that the two Americas are really not as far apart as one might think. One would have to work hard to convince me of that.
14 posted on 12/03/2001 6:31:56 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: JOHN ADAMS
I don't think this report is condescending about Red America, I do think it kind-of pokes fun a Blue America because of their "Superior" attitudes towards their Red American cousins.....but I base this assumption on parts of the rest of the report.
15 posted on 12/03/2001 6:31:57 PM PST by rface
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: rface
many thanks bttt
16 posted on 12/03/2001 6:32:25 PM PST by XBob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rface
Everything that people in my neighborhood do… Blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada.
Face it you live just south of Boring, east of Dullsville, and wouldn’t know a good time if it fell on you. Why do you think cities are crowded? Do you think we are somehow forced to live here? People live here by choice, as a matter of fact there is a housing shortage. BTW when and if I ever decide to sell out and move to loathsome USA, the sale price for my house will buy three there.

Jersey City (Close-enough-to-Ground-Zero)

17 posted on 12/03/2001 6:40:55 PM PST by TightSqueeze
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: anniegetyourgun
"Although there are some real differences between Red and Blue America," he writes, "there is no fundamental conflict. There may be cracks, but there is no chasm. Rather, there is a common love for this nation--one nation in the end."

Yeah, like the 20-year-old American Taliban and his flakey bi-coastal parents who paid his way over to fight for them.

18 posted on 12/03/2001 6:52:08 PM PST by madprof98
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: TightSqueeze
how come people who live in Red America always talk like...yada, yada, yada. What the hell does that mean?
19 posted on 12/03/2001 6:56:17 PM PST by rface
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: rface
Book to read, on this topic and many others, be prepared to be outraged and to laugh yourself silly within four pages: The Redneck Manifesto, by Jim Goad.
20 posted on 12/03/2001 6:58:34 PM PST by Long Cut
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson