With a nod to Thomas Frank's methodology in What's the Matter with Kansas?:
County in which Obama did best in 2008: Prince George County, Maryland. Population 846,000. 62% African-American with the highest median income of any majority-black county. Suburban DC, with easy access to all of the DC area amenities and attractions. Primary employers: National Archives, NASA Goddard Space Center, and University of Maryland.
County in which McCain did best in 2008: King County, Texas. Population 400. Three hours from Lubbock. Median income 30% below national average. Primary economic activity: raising cattle. Entertainment and cultural activities: tending meth labs, committing suicide.
It's your call – where would you rather live, the reddest of the red or the bluest of the blue? Would you prefer San Francisco values (*winkwink* GET IT? That's where the homogays live and they're out to recruit your kids!) or Wasilla Main Street values? A vacation in Boston or in Topeka? Job-hunting in Milwaukee or in Mobile? Would you rather live under what Newt Gingrich calls "gay and secular fascism" or the fascism of the Colorado Springs all-stars?
Garrison Keillor said it very well a few years ago when noting that:
The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco, Texas. There may be a reason for this.
online pharmacy buy furosemide online cheap pharmacybuy forzest online mb2dental.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/jpg/forzest.html no prescriptionCreative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous. Creativity is a key to economic progress.
All of the five counties in which McCain earned his largest victories are in rural Texas. His largest wins at the state level were in Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Alabama. These are shitty places. They may be pretty (except for Oklahoma and Alabama) or nice to visit/transit on vacation. They may have the odd nice city here or there – Birmingham and Boise spring to mind.
But what they do not have in the larger sense is the kind of climate that encourages any kind of openness or progress. They have the kind of ass-backwards religion-as-politics ideology that is making vast swaths of this nation look like Dogpatch.
Consider this your teaser for Summer 2009, when Ed visits King County, Texas and gives the world an essay in pictures.
j says:
My favorite factoid about King county from Wikipedia is that "as of the census of 2000, there were 356 people" and "the racial makeup of the county was 94.10% white". I suppose, then, they have 335.0 white people. Highly precise measurements indeed!
Indira says:
Awww, Topeka isn't that bad :) Also note that in the places you mentioned, the majority of people are whites. Generally speaking, the fewer the minorities, the less open and progressive the community.
You can call me, 'Sir' says:
(*winkwink* GET IT? That’s where the homogays live and they’re out to recruit your kids!)
HA!
That is all.
Nate says:
I'd take teh gays over rednecks anyday.
John says:
Dismissing the straw man argument of comparing extremes to reach a conclusion about the average…i have to ask: Really? The gist of this seems to be, "live in an urban area and work is science or education and you're a happy and enlightened person. live in a rural area and work in agriculture and you're an intolerant, racist, backward idiot." Isn't that exactly the type of pigeon-holing that the left so often accuses the right of perpetrating, just flipped on its head?
J. Dryden says:
John, I think you're engaging in a little reductium ad absurdum, there. I think the point is that rural areas tend to be culturally (and vocationally) homogenized, while urban areas tend to be culturally diverse. One set of circumstances *requires* open-mindedness–because if you're, say, a racist, you're going to have a *really* lousy time of it if you live in San Diego–and the other does not. Since all human beings incline towards a clannish, atavistic "fuck everyone who ain't like me and my genetic proximities", the rural areas of the country allow this universal tendency to exist much more easily than the urban areas.
Fairness requires the urbanites to recognize that the rural areas of the country are more than a little important, since we'd starve without them, but fairness also requires that just because urbanites don't live in an agricultural setting that resembles that of the 18th-century paradigm of our country's origins, it doesn't make the rural inhabitants "real Americans." Regionalism of any sort is usually a foolish thing, true, but the defensive pride of rural areas is, given the degree to which they consistently support candidates who will ensure that their living conditions continue to be miserable (a misery somewhat inescapable by the fact that farmland has to be isolated, so let's remember that these people are really taking one for the team!), a bit absurd. Mind you, the conclusion we should probably take from Ed's point is that King County sucks, and thank God we don't have to live there, AND-ALSO-IN ADDITION, thank God someone else is willing to, because frankly, I enjoy the beef thay produce there. Enough to put up with an occasion ration of "God Bless Us and Up Yours, Queermos" bullshit.
Of course, if the divide continues to grow, we're all in danger of degenerating into Morlocks and Eloi, and I worry, because I know I'm not a Morlock.
Ed says:
No, don't worry, the urban areas in Oklahoma/Utah/etc blow as well.
My point is much more about homogeneity and the illusion of rurality-as-authenticity. Anyone who prefers Lubbock Values to San Francisco Values is free to do so. Unfortunately the right has decided that the former are virtuous and the latter are the deserving target of derision. For me, there are a number of manifestly unappealing aspects of Lubbock Values, and I think a lot of people would come to that conclusion if they considered Lubbock v San Francisco as opposed to a one-sided, glib slander about San Francisco Values in a vacuum.
John says:
J Dryden — Mostly agreed, except for that part about urban areas requiring open-mindedness. It may attract open-minded people and as a result have a higher concentration that other areas…but nothing more.
Ed – Perhaps I misread the original post. As a criticism of the idiotic "real American" stuff Palin was so fond of repeating…I totally agree with you…so long as you don't stray off into the counter-argument of "no, it's YOUR values that suck and OURS that rock!"…
Nick says:
Hey, Utah went from being the number one most Republican state to the number three in this election. We're getting better! And I must defend Salt Lake City, I love it here. I just hate the suburbs, and small towns like Parowan, Nephi, and pretty much any town that takes its name directly from the Book of Mormon.
[/local pride]
As far as the economic innovation point that you and Keillor make, I think while it's in some ways tied to the openness of thought in cities, it has more to do with economic diversity. If you live in a little rural town whose main industry is cattle farming, you're not going to be able to get a lot of experience working with software companies, no matter how open-minded your neighbors are. If you want that kind of experience and training, you'll have to either go to college (generally in at least somewhat urban areas) or find a part of the country with a lot of that particular industry.