Recently I've been hearing a great deal of prejudice floating about Kos, and I thought that it was worthwhile to speak up about it. No, I'm not speaking about prejudice towards ethnic minorities, nor towards women, nor even towards the more common anti-semitism that seems popular on the left these days. Rather, I'm speaking about bigotry towards red states. I think that such bigotry spells disaster for the left. If you read on you'll find out why.
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Since joining Kos a few months ago, I've increasingly noticed that there's a tendency to associate the South and Red States with all that is unholy in American politics. I've heard calls for a secession of the North from the South. I've heard it said again and again that Southerners and Red Staters are a bunch of ignorant, redneck, religious zealots filled with hate and prejudice. I've heard all sorts of anecdotes about hatred towards blacks in the South. And I've heard much more that I can't even recall at the moment.
I find this vexing for a number of reasons. Perhaps first I take it a bit personally. Although I've lived in the North all my life (Boston, Ohio, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Jersey), I was born in the South (Richmond, Virginia) and recently moved to Dallas to take a new academic post. Consequently, I now find myself in the uncomfortable position of being included among these attacks.
However, my own personal discomfort is not sufficient for arguing against this tendency to demonize the South among those on the left. Rather, in my experience here (which has been lifelong given that most of my family is Southern), I find these characterizations to be both inaccurate and to be tremendous miscalculations on the part of leftists now engaged in a struggle to regain power.
First the inaccuracies. No one can deny that Southern States vote Republican. However, I think it's a tremendous mistake to believe that the majority of Red Staters vote Republican on the basis of deep seated ideological principles. Before I moved to Texas (it's been about a year now) I was shaking in my shoes, convinced that I would be confronted with a bunch of redneck, Christian zealots, who secretly partook in the KKK and who wear big belt buckles, cowboy boots and hats, chew tobacco and beat the daylights out of overeducated Yankee intellectuals such as myself.
What I've found here in Dallas is something quite different. Yes, we have rednecks. Yes you'll see cowboy boots. But instead I discovered that Southerners really aren't all that different from Northerners. In listening and speaking to my students, I've found that they're mostly concerned with getting jobs, what's on television, members of the opposite sex or the same sex, clothes, and cars. The same has been true, by and large, of the working adults I've met as well. More importantly, I've discovered that while most of them would label themselves as conservatives, they generally don't know squat about politics. They know Bush is the president. They might know that DeLay is a Texas member of the House. But generally they don't have a clue as to what's going on.
Additionally, (and this is important, so listen up!), I've discovered that my neighbors and students are very reasonable people. If you lay out facts for them, they come to what I would call rational (i.e., liberal) conclusions. They don't like being taken advantage of more than anyone else. They have a sense of justice just like everyone else. And if you talk without giving labels to thinks, amazingly you'll discover that often you're able to reach consensus.
One of the stereotypes about the South is that it is far more religious than the North. Here in the South, it's said, we have these Evangelical nutcases who are still living in the fourteenth century. Yes it's true that Church plays a huge role in Southern communities. I've never seen bigger churches in my life. Some are the size of small universities. However, church doesn't serve the function that you might think. From my students I've discovered that church is primarily a social institution. That is, here in Texas we primarily have a car culture in which people work many long hours and are isolated from one another throughout the day. The function of the churches isn't so much ideological or spiritual, as it is social or communal. It's a gathering place for people or a place to meet people. Yes, people do indeed believe in God. But like any other place in America, they're religious beliefs are a hodgepodge of many different things ranging from new age spirituality to Christian redemption, and are not defined in any specific way. In other words, while you'll indeed meet some religious zealots, most have the fuzziest of beliefs.
So all of this got me thinking about my own prejudices and stereotypes. It also got me thinking about political strategy and how sometimes overthinking things can produce our own downfall. One of the occupational dangers of being a political and news junky is that you assume everyone else is informed and thereby think that people are either working from a different set of facts or are refusing to look at certain facts. This is certainly true in our dealings with the wingnuts, but I would like to suggest that the majority of Southerners are not wingnuts.
I would like to suggest that Southerners vote Republican not so much because of deep ideological commitments to Republican values, rather, many Southerners vote Republican because, well, that's what Southerners do. I know that sounds completely idiotic. I know it sounds very lame. But my experience teaches me that political parties function more as meanings or brand names in the United States, than as defined sets of policies and facts. I would wager that if we did careful polling throughout the South we would discover that most people who call themselves Republicans or conservatives are in fact liberals. I'm not the first to say this on Kos, but it's worth repeating again and again.
From the standpoint of political Strategy two points follow from these observations: First and foremost, stop demonizing Southerners and Red States! One stereotype that I have observed to be true is that Southerners have a tremendous amount of pride in their heritage, history, and where they come from. All of this Red State/Blue State talk on Kos only serves the function of demonizing the South, attacking that pride, and pushing potential converts away. So stop it! We can't change things without the South, so it's high time we listened to Dean's advice and reach out to those guys that drive pickup trucks. It's my view that Kossacks should make a concerted effort to end this sort of bigotry and that we should respond sternly and critically to anyone who spouts these sorts of prejudices. It's not in our best interests to alienate Southerners. Moreover, when we do alienate Southerners we only reinforce their stereotypes of liberals as elitist, stuck up, bigots who "just don't get it." Please have a little respect for those in the South. They aren't irrational, neandrathals!
Second, and from a strategic point of view, we need to understand that politics is as much a battle of meaning as it is a battle of facts. We need to take back the meanings of terms such as "liberal" and "democrat", and need to transform the meaning of terms such as "republican" and conservative." The people we should be addressing ourselves to are the swing voters. Unfortunately, most swing voters vote based on the meanings of terms, and not the facts regarding policy and what's actually taken place. My suspicion is that most voters are far more concerned with raising their kids, paying their bills, eating, playing with whatever new toys they've bought, American Idol, Survivor, cars, houses, their marriages, their affairs, etc., then they are with carefully keeping up with the news. This means that when they enter the polling booth their decisions are based primarily on the connotative sense of "republican" or "democrat" in their unconscious thought, and whatever vague news they've picked up from a few minutes of headline news everyday.
I love the left because I think the left is the side of knowledge, reason, truth, and justice. However, if we focus on facts and policy alone we'll never reach all of these masses who have only the most rudimentary political knowledge. This entails that we must engage in a concerted war of meaning and "myth" making, creating a grid through which voting decisions might be made.
The myth-making ingredient is especially important. I know this will rub many the wrong way, but one of the keys to forming communities can be found in the collective stories we tell. Think back to the Eighties and how angry people were when historians began revealing the Christopher Columbus wasn't such a swell guy. If people got so angry then it's because the story of Columbus served to legitimate us being here. If Columbus was a jerk then that entails that we aren't justified in being here (in the minds of some anyway). The left hasn't done a very good job of creating founding myths, and we've suffered for this reason. On the right they have the whole "America was founded as a Christian nation narrative". Why not revive the Enlightenment, the age of reason, and the revolutionary ideals of liberty advocated by the founding fathers to ground our policies and positions? If we can appeal to the historical imagination perhaps we can begin swaying some minds to the south.
*Update [2005-7-11 14:8:7 by Philoguy]:* I am overwhelmed by the response that I've gotten from this diary, though a bit troubled by what I think are essentially misunderstandings. First, let me comment on what I am *not* saying. I am *not* suggesting that all liberals are bigoted towards the South. I've noticed a lot of bigotry towards the South on Kos, but I definitely wouldn't make universal generalizations such as this. Second, I am *not* saying that all Southerners are really progressive or that there are no problems in the South. I would agree that there are very serious problems in the South. Third, I am *not* suggesting that my anecdotal stories of my own experience here are in any way conclusive proofs or demonstrations, though I have been impressed by the maps of "purple" America which seem to fly in the face of conventional wisdom.
My comments in this post grow from my understanding and knowledge of the dynamics of group identification, coupled with an understanding of the functioning of rhetoric, framing, meaning-making, etc. My points are entirely directed at practical political questions of political strategies for winning the U.S. back to liberal control. My suggestion is very simple: /we need to make a concerted effort to separate the signifier or word "Southern" from the set of issues that we as liberals are fighting for./ The statements that I was criticizing equate "Southern" with "bigoted", "sexist", "ignorant", "religiously oppressive", "inbred", etc. The purple map demonstrates that there are many progressively minded Southerners. However, we must never forget that potential voters here in the South are identified with the term "Southern" such that if we attack that term we are attacking these potential voters. /It is right and proper to fight against hatred, racism, imperialism, sexism, economic inequality, the abusive exercise of privilege, religious oppression, and so on./ Moreover, I fully agree that these are all serious problems in the South and was in no way trying to imply that they aren't realities. My simple point is that if we're going to fight these things we should *directly* attack these problems (which are endemic throughout the United States) and that the additional signifier or word "Southern" is not only superfluous, but downright contrary to our aims of winning back power in the United States and promiting liberal principles of equality, justice, tolerance, etc. I ask myself /why would I want to listen to a person who thinks that I'm nothing but an inbred hick and who takes my heritage and treats it as a four letter word?/ I think we should think carefully about that question when we think about ways of winning back the South and persuading Southerners that they've been duped by Republicans and conservatives. In no way was I trying to suggest that there aren't real problems in the South or real issues that need to be fought against. But can't we do that without slandering the South at the same time? Isn't there a way to fight phenomena such as racism, hatred, sexism, and religious intolerance without dragging the word "South" through the mud?
From the perspective of political rhetoric or framing (which aims to produce group identifications in keeping with a groups aims) I fail to see how this could in any way be an unreasonable point to make.