Can Progressives cross the sectional divide?
Came across a newblog today by old friend who has some choice things to say about the back and forth over the slew of secessionist petitions that have surfaced in the wake of Mitt Romney's ignominious defeat.
Nuttiness is often a lot of fun, particularly if the person exhibiting the nutty behavior realizes that they are behaving in a nutty fashion. It’s fun, therapeutic, and is often a good way to blow off steam. But it’s probably not a good thing for nutiness to become an operating principle in politics.
Hard to argue with that! Unless you're a member of the GOP.
Unfortunately, not all the nuttiness is confined to the RW.
Inevitably, when the secession talk starts, a few progressives respond with “go ahead and secede!!”, often accompanied by the customary depiction of southern whites as ignorant rednecks.
I can see how this could be fun for both the people circulating the secession petitions, and the progressives who are ridiculing them.
Yep, nothing like a pointless, vitriolic slanging match for a bit of good clean fun! There's a downside though:
... we progressives aren’t going to convince white southerners that they would benefit from our policy proposals if our response is to stereotype them as ignorant bumpkins.
This would seem so patently obvious as to not require stating. Yet the South, particularly the white south, has always occupied a peculiar place in the national id, so it's hardly surprising that it continues to be viewed through that distorting lens.
Of course, one might be forgiven for thinking that those who lay claim to being progressive might be expected to take a less stereotypical view.
And as for progressives, you are supposed to be the segment of the political spectrum which most values inclusion and diversity. Act like it. I’m a white, southern, Georgia progressive Democrat. If I didn’t believe that Democratic values, and progressive values, were universal, I’d find some other way to spend my time. White southerners are not the uniformly racist neanderthals some of you seem to think we are. If the progressive movement writes off any part of the population, and fails to try and convince them that our ideas and our values are the ones to move the nation forward, we might as well just retire to the forums on Poltico, or Wonkette, and be done with it.
Amen.