This is a very long post, but is also one that contains many points that I view as important and very much ignored by those who seek to blame "flyover country" for the nation's problems. Those who would characterize us as a bunch of Republican corn-eating morons would do well to read this diary. Sorry if I tend to be offensive or flippant at times. That being said, let's begin:
I've read a lot online and in print, and seen a lot on TV regarding my home region and my new home state. I've seen a multitude of perspectives about the outcome of the recent elections, regarding the relationships between the "blue states" and the "red states", and I have to say, to all the arrogant blue staters who think they know what's going on out here, screw you--we're doing our best, yet we get no thanks from elsewhere for anything!!! (A LOT more on the flip: take the poll!)
In particular, and before I begin, I"d like to note that I believe the liberal spirit to be a midwestern one at root: Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck were Okies; Bob Dylan was from Minnesota; the stalwart unionist movement was forged in Chicago and St. Louis and Detroit. Significant battles were fought everywhere, but the idea of the common man, struggligh agaisnt the corporate demons is not one that originated on the coasts--it belongs in the great Midwestern, and central cities of America. It is a sensibility not easily interpreted in terms of the casual media narrative, nor in terms of the opinions I've heard about my home state (additionally, in that vein, screw you, people who said stupid nonsense about my home city during the world series)
With that out of my system, I intend to explain how liberalism is, fundamentally, a Midwestern (interpreted broadly, to mean the oft-neglected, too-easily derided area between the Appalacian mountains and the great plains that I will here on call the Midwest.
When people talk about my home, they too-easily refer to the proclivity of religion there, to how Christianity has a hold there that is unlike most other places in the nation, and this may be true. It is, however, a different Christianity than what one finds in the charactitures that one sees drawn in the news, using such figures as Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchanan (who are, it should be noted, non-Midwestern figures). In the Midwest, religion, at least from my personal experience, has been focused upon individual duty and obligation, upon social responsibility and tolerance, as per the Germans who left the havoc of the Hundred Years war to settle the region. This is not to say that it has been without predjudice, but not the rediculous extent that I have seen implied on this website. My point is that the religious tradition here has implied that peole are not disconnected cogs in the system, but rather parts of a united world that must interact and be responsible for their effects upon each other. This has expressed itself in the Populist movement--where people claimed responsiblity for each other--amongst other things.
In this brand of religious consciousness, was born modern Liberalism. To someone like William Jennings Bryan, the oppression of the Eastern Banker upon the farmer (in a time wehre family farmers farmed a significant proportion of Midwestern farmland) was not something to take lightly, much less ignore; it was something to vehemently oppose, regardless of the individual's personal stake in the outcome. In this case, people were suffering, and it was the responsibility of the state to take care of these people--regardless of the outcome from the perspective of the 19th centurly gilded machine bosses. Soon, the poulists were digested by the democratic party, when the two parties, in 1896, ran the same candidate, Bryan, for President. This candidate saw no divergence between his stances on "moral" issues and "economic" issues--he considered the poverty of the farmer to be as moral an issue as any, and took the battle to the New York bankers who would forclose on the family farm. After suffering a near defeat in 1896, the Repubilcans moved forward to attempt to adopt the Progressive label, and soon, both parties were ostensibly fighting the trusts.
The point here is that, while one may argue about the effectiveness of the progressive reforms (culminating in the suffrage of women [though one may accurately argue that there were more factors in play on this particular item], the legalization of the estate and income taxes, and the Australian ballot [fuck you Diebold]), one can see that the triggering event that gave them birth was not the democrats or the Republicans, who had lived merrily for 30 years since the Civil War, but rather, the Populists, who threatened to be a third party, and severely disrupted the American two-party system. Only by adopting the anti-monuied social consciousness of the Populists was the old system allowed to continue.
This trend continued as the reforms given by the two-party system continued to be lackluster and insufficient. The socialist party, led by Indianian Eugene V. Debs, strongly criticized the relationship between the Government and monied interests, and garnered increasibly significant respect and influence, particularly after the outbreak of the depression and World War I. This outcry was silenced by FDR's hapazard New Deal, which showed a "moderate" way of having the government intervene in private affairs. FDR's approach, however (aside from Social Security), was a hapahazard set of approaches designed to deal with immedate problems. Missourian Harry S Truman systamatized the project into his Square Deal, which was essentially the New Deal in a way that it could be made permament.
I'm getting tired now (and I could go on past Truman), but I think my point is clear (though some will certianly debate my points of fact--please do, I want to learn more): liberal sensibility comes from the Midwestern fusion of social responsiblity with moral imperative, and that at almost every social reform period in the nations history, a midwesterner has been crucially involved. The failure of the democrats to compete in the Midwest, be it Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, or Indiana is not in the nature of these states, but rather the manner in which the national democratic party refuses to convey its message in MORAL terms. On every issue, be it gay marriage, abortion, and ESPECIALLY economic issues, our issues are the moral ones, and we damn sure need to start saying it. This message will win in the Midwest, and probably (I know much less about this region) the mountain region as well. Consequently, I say fuck you to all the people from the coasts that blame all the shit that we are going through on the Midwest, the home of proud progressives from Bryan to Debs to Humphrey (who Johnson screwed ultra-badly) to Gephardt to Wellstone to Obama.
Perhaps the problem with the party doesn't lie with us; it lies with YOU.