If It Were Not For The South, America Would Be Another Canada Or (Horror!) France.

ComtedeMaistre

[ComtedeMaistre]

I had yet another look at the 2000 electoral map, and I was struck by the fact that Bush carried every single state in the South, all by substantial margins. It made me wonder of how American conservatism would be, if the South had succeeded in its tragic War of Independence in the 1860s.

Sure, there are many bastions of solid traditional American conservatism outside the South. The people of the American West, in states like Utah, Montana, Alaska, Colorado, Nebraska and Idaho, are probably the most freedom loving people in the entire country. They are the strongest defenders of the second ammendment right to bear arms, largely because of their outdoors culture of hunting, ranching, and fishing. They are also the strongest defenders of free speech, self-reliance, property rights and are fierce individualists. They hate taxes with such an intensity, it is scary.

Many midwestern regions, are also solidly conservative. The small towns in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, represent the true heart of middle America. And there a few islands of conservatism in the East, in areas such as New Hampshire and Upstate New York, surrounded by a sea of liberalism.

But if you remove the South from the map, do you think that Northern Bastions of conservatism can hold out against the liberal tidal wave? Gore would have carried the 2000 election in a massive landslide, if it were not for the South.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

There are three big counties in Florida that are very liberal. Want to guess where the majority of these jackasses moved down from?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Orlando and Tampa aren't terribly liberal. North of Orlando is certainly conservative, less the college towns of Gainesville and Tallahassee.

[billbears]

If you want an idea where the remnant of the U.S. would be, you might not go far wrong to read Harry Turtledove's American Front series.

I was with Turtledove up until WWI. lincoln more than likely would have been a Socialist (found it interesting that the author used exact quotes from the man to easily deduce this). However, I also think the union would have turned Socialist moreso than the black uprising Turtledove portrayed in 1917 or so. BTW, the latest book is out and he has convienently finished his portrait of the Confederacy as the Third Reich. Methinks ol' Harry's been reading too much of the Socialist leaning historian James Mcpherson

[faithincowboys]

God bless the South and other places where men know how to shoot and properly make love to their wives. Wuss America-- where Chris Matthews and Bill Mahrer and Paul Begala reign supreme- is trying to emasculate American men in the South and other conservative strongholds. I hate the sissy men on the Left whose prescription for defense after 9-11 would be to happily offer their soft asses to the Taliban as a peace offering.

[tophat9000]

Well we (I) do thank you ...

But will you accept just a little mea culpa for Bill, Jimmy, Lyndon, and Al Bore...... three lemons Presidents and one almost ... and don’t blame the Yankees ... they were elected first in there own states as Governors and Senators... giving them a spring board to national power...and I also remember something about FDR and the solid south.... ;>

[pinochet]

>>>Now come down here and spend some money, but please, don't move here, we got enough of y'all Yankees clutterin' thangs up already<<<

I see you do not want carpetbaggers in your part of the South.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

All perfectly true enough, but, given the political realities, it simply means the the South and the conservatives elsewhere end up voting for the GOP "lesser of two evils" which means we'll be in Canda's (or France's) situation within another 20-30 years at most.

Modern "conservatism" is simply yesterday's liberalism; liberalism on the cheap, as it were. You get your leftist socialist welfare/warfare police state, tomorrow, instead of today. But you do get it, eventually.

Given enough time, gay marriages will be a "family value" and the federal disarming of civilians will be "constitutional". Why not? Most of the things conservatives support today would have horrified conservatives of a 100 years ago, but today's conservatives like to pretend otherwise.

[#3Fan]

Really? Perhaps we could have been as 'enlightened' as the north and just outlawed blacks altogether then as several of the separate and sovereign states in the north did.

Don't try and tell me that slavery was a good thing because it showed how inclusive you were. You neo-Confederates are ridiculous.

[#3Fan]

I was with Turtledove up until WWI. lincoln more than likely would have been a Socialist (found it interesting that the author used exact quotes from the man to easily deduce this).

Share them with us since you made the extraordinary claim.

However, I also think the union would have turned Socialist moreso than the black uprising Turtledove portrayed in 1917 or so.

That's a laugh. Socialist presidents like Wilson and FDR had their base in the South, not the North. They carried the South almost totally in their elections.

[holdmuhbeer]

I don't know about conservatism, but American music wouldn't be worth a damn

Ain't that the truth!

[shhrubbery!]

Bush did carry Florida, despite the fact that the margin wasn't "substantial".

Bush would have won Florida by a margin of 10,000 - 15,000 votes, had the networks not prematurely declared victory for Gore in Florida before polls closed in the panhandle part of the state.

This projected margin of victory for Bush was confirmed even by Democratic activist/pollster Bob Beckel.

[wardaddy]

You here already?

Whatever happened to twodees?

[Alberta's Child]

Socialist presidents like Wilson and FDR had their base in the South, not the North. They carried the South almost totally in their elections.

But there was a reason for that. From an economic standpoint, the American South was so far behind the rest of the country that a massive redistribution of wealth from the North was seen as the only means to bring it on par with the rest of the country. In essence, from the 1920s onward the northern states paid (and continues to pay to this day) massive "reparations" to the South for the Civil War.

[x]

It's pretty much a given in American politics that if Massachusetts and Vermont vote for one party, Mississippi and Alabama will vote for the other. It's a polarity that goes back over generations, like Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles, or Blacks and Whites. It's not always 100% certain that one pole would always remain liberal and the other conservative -- or that liberal and conservative would always be understood in the way we understand them now.

If the US were broken up into smaller units, though, it wouldn't necessarily have followed that the South would be more "conservative" in the way that we think of the word today. Parts of the South might well have become another Haiti or Brazil or South Africa, either repressive or anarchic or both. Or they might have followed demagogic leaders into more radical statist or egalitarian forms. Or settled down into a political system not so different than we have now.

I suppose the South and the West do keep the rest of the country from following Canadian or European political patterns and models. But if we broke up the country today, all parts would sooner or later gravitate towards those foreign models, or else adopt truly bizarre political systems. In today's world, markets and media tend to push countries in similar directions. Should we give way to disunion, European ideas would become more potent with out the example of a strong united American union, and eventually those ideas would prevail.

[#3Fan]

But there was a reason for that. From an economic standpoint, the American South was so far behind the rest of the country that a massive redistribution of wealth from the North was seen as the only means to bring it on par with the rest of the country.

LOL Glad to see that you agree with me that the South turned to socialism more than the North.

In essence, from the 1920s onward the northern states paid (and continues to pay to this day) massive "reparations" to the South for the Civil War.

Not for the Civil War. The reason that the South got so far behind was that they based their economy on slavery. The North had to work and be innovative for their income, the South simply made others do manual labor for theirs. That got them so far behind in technology and infrastructure that it took 130 years to catch up.

[wardaddy]

#3....that does not compute.

The largest percentage black states in the Union are in the South, primarily the old Cotton States which still manage to vote conservative as a rule in National elections.

Your average white person in the north is more likely to be liberal than the same demographic in the South. Research voting stats...in a Cotton State, typically the whites have to go 70% or better Pubbie to carry the state and they do more often than not. I doubt you will find whites voting like that anywhere else in the country.

I would also argue that Southern blacks....particularly rural blacks are more Conservative at least culturally than those in the North.

Have you ever been to the liberal mecca of the Upper West Side of Manhattan? Hardly a black in sight south of 125th (sans a few blocks of Amsterdam up near St John the Divine).

I would agree that black voting patterns account for local liberalism largely in urban areas but they do not explain the broader picture. Black liberal voting habits also make most Southern urban areas liberal as well. Atlanta is a perfect example and Nashville too except their influence is somewhat less due to lower numbers.

[wardaddy]

We have seasons in the mid South. The weather here in Nashville is comparable to Washington DC.

Not exactly New England I admit.

The Deep South is indeed hot and winters wet and temperate.

I like cold weather too and enjoyed upstate NY mainly for that reason. My 8 years in Manhattan were maybe 2-3 degrees on average colder than Nashville and summers in the city can be very very hot. Manhole lid popping hot as anyone who has lived there knows.

[wardaddy]

We are so grateful..lol

[GraniteStateConservative]

No need to chop off the North, just repeal the 19th Amendment. Same effect.

[Alberta's Child]

Actually, the South was so far behind as a function of climate more than anything else. Until the advent of air conditioning, it was extremely difficult to carry out any kind of rigorous activity on a daily basis for much of the year.

And the North didn't have to work and be innovative for their income, either. They didn't use slaves simply because they didn't need them -- there were plenty of different groups of recent immigrants to do the kinds of dirty work that few Northerners wanted to do. They may not have been "slaves," but the Irish immigrants who worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania were worse off in many ways than blacks in the South.