One Nation, Slightly Divisible

Alantic Monthly -[forum]- ^ | 11/24/01 | David Brooks [Sage Stossel]

[dandelion]

Now, as far as CIVILITY goes, (which is different than "tolerance" in the PC world) I will say I've seen a dramatic drop in the level of civility concerning attacks against posters. This happened most notably after the 2000 election, and the worst attackers/offenders have usually been newbies who have signed on since then. We've also gained many wonderful newbies, so I guess it's worth it to get a few bad apples in the barrel. But those few "bad apples" have a tendency to post with such fervor that it's hard to get away from them. I'll wager that not a few of those "bad apples" were "hand picked" by a certain group for our little forum...

[tpaine]

I've got the article at home. Good read.

Brook mentions he was almost finished with it before 9/11, and was a bit surprised that the attack didn't really make much difference to his conclusions. He says that 9/11 rallied people and neutralized the political/cultural leaders who tend to exploit differences. --- "Americans are in no mood for class struggle or a culture war."

Too bad we can't say the same about many on this forum.

[RLK]

Minnesota, depending upon the area, is much more Scandinavianized in culture. Where I was raised was nearly exclusively Germanic from a certain area of Germany. We had three Turner Verein Hallen in the town. In Minneapolis the biggest organization used to be the Sons of Norway hall. It also depends on your age. I'm in my 60s. In the 40s I knew old time Krauts who were born befor the civil war.

In the last 40 years there is no similarity in the populations. The area has been over=run by outsiders. The turner halls are now closed dure to lack of interest.

[tpaine]

Never been to DU. - You there a lot?

[tpaine]

Give us a little hint who this 'group' is, can you? Or freepmail me if you're shy.

[tpaine]

The english side of my family was in wabasha co before the civil war. The bulk of the germans settled there after, up till the 1880's or so.

Most of the scandinavians homesteaded further north.

I'm 65, and know a LOT of old krauts. - And, I belong to the Sons of Norway, to keep me wife happy.

[RLK]

The huge Sons of Norway hall I saw in Minneapolis-St Paul is of a style that only Scandinavians could design. I watched the old nordics sail their model sailboats on the small lakes up there.

Where I was born there were at one point 28 beer breweries. Coordinate with the East Davenport Turner Halle there was the German Saturday Morning Beer Drinking and Sparrow Shooting society which existed up to the 1920s. On Saturday mornings they would gather together with their rifles, shotguns and steins to shoot at sparrows.

They were occasionally an unruly bunch. The feds confiscated some of their beer for non-payment of taxes. They got together with some of the Irish, got picaxes and sledgehammers, broke down the government warehouse, and drank all the beer.

It's a part of ethnic America that has been lost.

[prognostigaator]

"Is Norman Rockwell turning over in his grave,he should be."
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3bf82a5a3ef2.htm

[re: your last comment.]

[RLK]

Personally, I grieve for the country I once knew or heard about that has been lost. I don't recognize my original home area. I remember Milwaukee when it was a clean city of all Poles and Germans with polka music on the juke boxes instead of pop songs. My Amish cousins in Lancaster, Pennsylvania are being swamped out and displaced by outsiders. New England has lost its strong independent character and has become a swill for hippies.

I don't like what everything is being replaced with.

[raisincane]

Last election was the first time the majority of wealthy voters voted for Dems. Hence, the blue zone elite came out in full force. I have lived in rural Indiana all my life. I am offended when the red zone is referred to as "the fly over country."

[dandelion]

Democrat Underground a fun place to hang around - if you're into pain. Alright, occasionally there's a breath of fresh air which wafts through the place, or an original thought. But most of the time it reads like James Carville's hit list - which means that NOBODY steps away from the party mantra unless they want to be personally attacked. I've always described myself as an independent, and that means that nobody wants me; but at least at FreeRepublic I can *usually* discuss a matter without being told to "get in line".

[dandelion]

Sons of Norway - is that anthing like the Sons of Hermann? They have the coolest hall here in Dallas; it's a great place to go for Americana music and atmosphere. It's also one of the few places you can take your kids to hear "grown-up" music without feeling unwanted!

[xm177e2]

Franklin County, on the other hand "is Red America. It's a rural county, about twenty-five miles west of Gettysburg.... The joke that Pennsylvanians tell about their state is that it has Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in the middle. Franklin County is in the Alabama part."

I wondered how Pennsylvania could be a swing state, I guess this explains it.

[Fiddlstix]

I don't like what everything is being replaced with.

Ditto

[Amelia]

I am offended when the red zone is referred to as "the fly over country."

What, you want them to drive through and possibly STOP there? ;-)

[Amelia]

But seriously, the author of this piece is referring to the Blue Zone as "upscale urban America" - I'm sorry, but a LOT of the Blue Zone was areas with a high percentage of people on welfare, not "upscale" areas.

[x]

That's true, and Brooks's bias or his desire for a cushy job made him stay in suburban Maryland, rather than inner city Washington DC.

But to give Brooks credit, one of the big changes in the 90's was that Wall Street and the rich in metropolitan areas supported the Democrats more than they had in years. Maybe it wasn't a big shift. But 5 or 10 percent can tip a county from one party to another and change the electoral map accordingly.

Poorer states like West Virginia found their way into the Republican column, and not in a GOP landslide, either. There are still plenty of Democrats in Arkansas, Kentucky, or West Virginia, and plenty of Republicans in Westchester, Upper Darby or Marin County, but that relatively small shift changes the terms of the discussion. And it was probably something you felt if you moved back and forth between media circles in the big cities, where all would vote for Gore, and ordinary people in small rural towns, who more likely than not supported Bush.

I suppose that Brooks, sitting in Suburban Maryland, noticed that the more affluent counties of the states in the area went more for Gore and the rural counties, which may have been much poorer went for Bush. He didn't want to go into decaying urban areas, or he felt that there was no change and no story there. So he chose the focus of his story accordingly.

Basically, such an article is a snapshot of a particular moment in history. It probably has lessons for the 2004 elections, but the further out one looks, the more likely it is that other factors will take over.

In the 2000 elections, there were not pressing, divisive issues in the form of immediate measures on the table. People weren't voting for this or that policy, so much as voting for an identity or a view of America. Forget what was said after the election, and look at what was said during the campaign about how close the candidates were, compared to previous elections. People weren't voting for what Bush or Gore would actually do about abortion or health care or guns, but against what they feared the opposition party would do, based on the past. They were voting for their own cultural identity and against another cultural identity.

Elections won't always be like that. Either some economic or foreign policy crisis intervenes or one candidate takes the initiative and wins or loses votes on that basis. Curiously, close elections when the candidates aren't so far apart on the issues can appear to be more divisive than landslide elections when factions really are in bitter disagreement about what course the country should take with regard to immediate and pressing questions.

[Amelia]

I like your analysis better than Brooks'. More thoughtful and thought-provoking.

[meadsjn]

"Tolerance is the virtue of a man with no convictions."
by some DWEAM (Dead White European-American Male)

[Junior]

I'm a Purple American ...