What do 265 million dollars, international rock stardom and an unprecedented first in American politics
amount to? A single digit lead in the polls to a 71 year old who is politically similar to the current
president, one of the most unpopular in US history. As you all know Barack Obama, along with the
majority of the press, just came back from his Europe and Mid-East tour. So far, everything has gone near picture perfect. Prime minister al-Maliki agreed with Obama's time table for withdrawal, he drew a
crowd of 200,000 in Germany and he even sunk a basketball from forty feet away while hanging out
with US troops. In Europe, the current day heartland of progressivism, he would win by a land slide. And American voters don't give a damn.
When I mentioned this to a conservative friend of mine he scoffed, and was vaguely offended at the thought that Europe should have any say in the mind of an American voter. That's right, no say
whatsoever to the candidacy of someone who may become president of such a dominant global power that accounts for 25% of the world's economy. Had I just told him the obvious truth that the US is a powerful and influential global player he would have been proud, as if this was something non-Americans should be grateful for but have no say in. He has a curious sense of isolationism that elevates self-importance by drawing respect but refusing to give any. It's almost like a trade deficit, and it too has consequences. Sadly, this person's world view is shared by many Americans, especially those who tend to be more conservative and live in small, rural and mostly blue-collar towns. What accounts for this?
If you look at the United States, you have the coasts, the urban epicenters and bastions of liberalism verses the more geographically isolated portions of the South and the Midwest, places of conservatism and religion. To turn a hasty generalization into a hastier one, if you look at Europe and the United
States as a whole you notice a similar pattern; you can think of it as a fractal. Europe is largely a more progressive and liberal land of a higher urban populace and cramped cities while the US is a spacelover's paradise of more rural dwellers and cities comprised of fewer residents and more employees who commute from subdivisions.
Thomas Frank, in his book "What's the Matter with Kansas," provides a rather romantic reason that accounts for the fierce religious and conservative radicalism that the state of Kansas (which passes the heartland test with flying colors) breeds. "Most of the state is an empty place, a featureless landscape capable of quickly convincing anyone of their cosmic insignificance," Frank notes, and adds "...it has often been compared to the Holy Land, where a similarly blank vista generated an endless stream of prophets"(page 215 paperback edition). This elevated self-importance and religious fervor, often at odds with the majority (which is usually the urban) world-view, has throughout history been bred in arid places where man is humbled, alone, insignificant and yet at the same time the preeminent force on nature and a being greatly distanced from cultural epicenters. These self-made, rugged individualists tend to have to deal with other people less, and are bred on the notion that their God and themselves come before geopolitics, economics and other wayward 'abstractions' those arrogant city dwellers like to dream up. In fact, the term pagan means "country dweller" in Latin, and was used by the uppity city-dwelling Roman Christians to refer to the rural barbarians that practiced shamanic and animistic religions. Pagans undoubtedly would have been the conservatives of their time, since pagan religions have been around since the dawn of man while Christianity was relatively new.
History has told us that people who exist in relatively isolated lands with less interaction with other people tend to be more conservative. They do not have the luxury of an ever changing infrastructure or exposure to a vibrant and free-flowing cosmopolitan culture, and so naturally, they tend to have strong impulse to resist any promise of change. After all, small towns in America haven't really changed in three decades. Change to them is a lie. Unfortunately, the prospect of change is the very fuel that drives the Obama campaign. Similarly, the United States is not very big on change either. Europe has
modernized its cities, embarked on ambitious public transportation projects, built new buildings and forged new business policies; the United States' infrastructure is crumbling, public transportation is a
myth and supply side economics is still all the rage. Now I'm not saying that rural residents and/or Americans, are in some way, shape or form fundamentally tainted and forsaken to conservatism. A
simple look at the Human Genome Project and the International HapMap Project would tell you that 'diversity' in humans is laughable at best (compared to other great apes such as Chimps). Being so
similar, how we differ can best be attributed to geographical lineage.
Obama's lead may be meager but it is solid and well earned. In the coming decades urban growth, the advent of wide-scale public transportation projects and the decrease of small town populations will be among the greatest forces ever to shape American politics.