I think both cleek's and russell's suggestions are necessary, but I also think the Dems have fallen seriously behind in taking the message to the people in other ways. It's a bit like their previous approach to continuing to observe obsolete norms. Talking to various constituencies on the platforms that they use is absolutely necessary. Fox, for example, is almost certainly not where Trump gained his serious advantage with young men in 2024.
Personal charisma is great, recognizing that nobody watches TV anymore so stop spending all your money there is great, understanding how to leverage social media is great.
Recruit the charismatic people, do all those things.
However.
My main criticism of the (D)'s over the last, say, 40 years is that they've neglected the areas that aren't what they see as their places of strength. Rural areas, much of the south, much of the mountain west, to some degree the industrial midwest.
When I say that, people often reply "how can you say that, their policies are much better for those folks". And in general I think that's true. But I'm not talking about *policy*. I'm talking about physical presence and local identity.
There are 50 states, 435 Congressional districts, and something north of 3,000 counties or county equivalents in the US. I don't know how many cities and towns, but a lot of those, too.
There should be a (D) candidate for every public office, in every one of those political units, in every cycle. There is not. My scientific wild-ass guess is that they're lucky if they field candidates in half of them.
There should be some kind of (D) field office in each of those political units, and the DNC and similar (D)-aligned organizations should be supporting all of them with money and people. They should *not* be telling them how to run their local organization, because the people who live in an area almost certainly know the area better than anybody in the DNC. But they should be supported with money, assistance in recruiting local candidates and volunteers, and with boots on the ground (as they say) during election cycles.
Way back when, Howard Dean developed a 50 state strategy to basically do the above. It worked well. Obama continued it at least for his first run, but since then it's kind of been abandoned.
There *is* interest in all of those places. Bernie Sanders and AOC have been holding town halls in very red places and thousands of people show up. So at least a basic level of interest is there.
My sense, or belief, is that the (D)'s as an institution have focused on the stuff they sort of know how to do - basically the easy stuff. Solicit big money from rich people in large cities, focus-group their messages to try to polish them up into something that will resonate with "regular people", lean heavily on the most reliable demographics that they are (more or less) sure to win.
It's a very top-down, center-of-power-centric approach.
They need to stop spending billions of dollars on consultants and start spending billions of dollars to establish and support *local (D) organizations* in every freaking political unit in the country. And let those organizations take the lead in identifying and understanding the issues that are significant to the people *in those places* and in explaining to those people how they benifit more from (D) policies than from (R) ones. Which, in general, they do. And also let those local folks take the lead in understanding how (D) policies do NOT benefit folks there, so they can evolve policy to address those needs.
Folks in all the places I'm talking about don't really care all that much what Chuck Schumer says. They might not even care all that much what Trump says other than to find it somewhere between annoying and entertaining.
But they will have a much harder time tuning out what their neighbor says.
The 50 state strategy, but really make it a 50 state, 435 district, 3,000 plus county, every town and city strategy. Support (D) candidates for mayor, town clerk, school board, county sheriff, tax assessor, dog catcher. State senate and house.
And, of course, federal House and Senate. But work from the bottom up.
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They'll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they'll win some. And over time, they'll win more.
Patience, persistence, and quit relying on the easy wins.
Somewhat related to the grain thing was the difference in public opinion about the war in Iowa as you went from SE (the longest settled) to the NW (still very much frontier). The last Indian raid in Iowa occurred in 1861. Eastern Iowa sent a high per-capita number of Union soldiers. The prevailing attitude in NW Iowa was that the war was a distraction and we should let the Confederacy go so the Army could get back to its real job of exterminating the Indians.
Mrs. Helkins' 5th-grade Iowa history class was... unusual.
<i>Why not a model focused on re-imagined Revolutionary War heritage and New England?</i>
Not necessarily New England, but this was more of a thing when I was a kid in the NJ suburbs of Philadelphia. My grandmother's house was decorated with plates depicting scenes from the Rev War and other such memorabilia. She had pistols and powder flasks, some of which were obvious replicas and others that may have been genuine. Her house was not at all rare in that regard.
People would display the old "Betsy Ross" flag year round, but it was everywhere around the 4th of July.
I know a few people who currently participate in Rev War reenactments, but they're NJ Loyalists (i.e. Red Coats). They tend MAGA-ish. It's kind of odd considering that they aren't on the side of the rebels. That would give them a sort of commonality with the rebels of the Confederacy. Maybe it's the authoritarianism they like (not "No Kings" but "Yes Kings").
I visited Gettysburg a few summers ago. Seeing the American flag there seemed to signal something completely different from what it does when I see it flapping around from the back of pickup truck where I live - pride in the Union that defeated the Confederacy rather than obnoxious faux-patriotic MAGAism.
You would think that charisma would be an obvious criterion for success in contemporary electoral politics, but somewhat oddly, that’s less often the case than it would appear.
IMO, this is it.
Trump is exceptionally charismatic. his message curdles my soul, so i can't even stand to watch the guy on SNL imitate him. but he speaks and acts in a way that, if you are at all open to his message, you will find him charming.
it's why he can flout political norms and why his shamelessness works. people are willing to ignore his fuckups because they like him and think he's on their side.
2020 Biden was charismatic, in his way. but that Biden wasn't available in 2024.
Harris is not charismatic, but Walz is. and it's a shame they shut down his best attack: "weird". they should have made that the entire campaign, IMO. it's silly and fun, it's 100% accurate, it doesn't need a chart to explain, and it was a powerful counter to Trump's charisma. alas.
This may be the oddest picture I've ever taken: it's the Spourne Parclose, containing the tomb of John Ponder, in St Peter and St Paul's Church, Lavenham.
Speaking to novakant's point, I've been looking for clips from the New York mayoral debate and I'm really surprised that I don't see any. These should be things that would think my algorithm would serve up, and I'm seeing nothing. Here's the whole debate, at 2 hours, it is probably not something folks are going to sit thru, but I think Mamdani really ate Cuomo's lunch, so I'm wondering why the attention machine hasn't fed me any of those soundbites.
How do you get coverage, online or otherwise, for the other side of that story?
Good question. My feeling is that much of the media is being played by the savviest manipulators of the news cycle. Trump gets way too much air time for what amounts to disinformation, so do Netanyahu and the IDF, Farage and previously Johnson.
Michael's point about grain reminds me that it was countered by the King Cotton argument, where mills wouldn't be able to run without the cotton from the South, so that was the counter-argument to the necessity of having wheat to import and led to friction between the US and Great Britain when the Union blockaded the South. In the end, because Great Britain then sought cotton from other sources, like India, Egypt and (peek at Gemini) Brazil. I think we are seeing a replay of this with Chinese rare earths and US soybeans.
There is an interesting debate in the literature as to whether the Cotton vs Wheat was simply a cover for pro and anti slavery views. The more things change...
Trump goes online and runs his mouth (fingers?) about make coal great again. The MSM covers his orders to keep a big coal-fired power plant in Michigan running. How do you get coverage, online or otherwise, for the other side of that story? (1) The Dept of the Interior tried to auction rights to 167M tons of coal on federal lands in Montana last week. The only bid was for $185,000 -- yes, less than a penny per ton -- and was rejected. As a result, the follow-on auction for land in Wyoming was postponed indefinitely. (2) The LA Dept of Water and Power announced they would retire their last coal-fired generation in Utah next month, as scheduled. (3) My little local power authority has days like the one shown in this figure.
I don't know why they run the trucks-in-the-mountains ads in the rest of the country. In the 11-state contiguous western states, the vast majority of the population lives in urban/suburban areas but can drive to the mountains in less than an hour.
I've long said that the proper picture to represent the modern West should look like this. In this case San Francisco, and the snow is rarer in Las Vegas and Phoenix, but it still happens occasionally even there. Now that the Census Bureau has admitted it's the 21st century and we can do density based on actual built area rather than county area, the western region is very narrowly denser than the Northeast, and both are much denser than the Midwest and South.
Chris Hayes might be right: "I think we increasingly live in a postgaffe, even a postscandal society." Or he might be wrong.
But I say this much is true: "electability" ain't what it used to be. John Kerry was more "electable" than Howard Dean. Hillary Clinton was more "electable" than Barack Obama. Then she was more "electable" than Bernie Sanders. Was "electability" what got He, Trump nominated in 2016? Not by the pundits' definition of "electability", I think.
It encourages me that Democratic office holders have started to use (some of) George Carlin's seven words. Some Americans may still be priggish enough to hold it against them, but a lot more Americans use all seven of those words in everyday conversation.
Alas, everyday conversation is seldom about politics. Maybe it's different in "swing" states, but here in MA we libruls seldom "talk politics" with friends and neighbors who might be MAGAts. So they (and we, I suppose) only get information and hear opinions from "the media" -- mass or social, but mainly personally selected. Sticking to conversation about the weather or the local sportsball team is The American Way, I guess.
There is a mystique about the West that's every bit as bullshit ad the mystique about the South and similar in some ways. There's the erasing of historical crimes against humanity, the faux claims to independence, and the strange definition of masculinity which includes 'strength" but not brains. The Southern version has more faux morality. Both have BS about being victimized by outside elites. The West version has A LOT of pity party about not being represented when in fact they are over-represented in government.
I guess my question is: Why is that kind of bullshit the model? Why not a model focused on re-imagined Revolutionary War heritage and New England?
>why is it Southern rural culture which is the model?
is that actually true, though?
if you look at truck commercials, there's a lot more "driving around in the mountains" than there is "driving around the giant flatness of MS" or "hauling groceries in the valleys of WV". and cowboys are more west than deep south. here in NC, people in the country are growing soybeans and cotton, raising pigs and chickens, not riding around on horses roping cattle.
a mythical south (which includes TX and parts of the midwest) might be the model. but the actual south isn't the same thing.
Re: the Lost Cause myth. Along with that is the faux rebelliousness. I mean the guys with the confederate flag on their hat, pickup or window which they say doesn't stand for racism because it is an expression of independence, being opposed to excessive government etc. It's often a self-image thing; "I'm not a follower! I'm not conventional! I'm a free person doing things my way!" Around where I live it goes with long hair, a beard, and sometimes a meth addiction. It doesn't necessarily go with rightwing politics since some of those guys are too dysfunctional to be political. (And sometimes they are felons).
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West?
The South put enormous effort into creating the whole Lost Cause myth, and as part of that emphasized lots of cultural signals: the accent, the cuisine, the whole "southern hospitality" thing. Outside of some cities, the Midwest "accent" is all about not being able to tell where someone is from. The Mountain West is even more so. Southern fried chicken. BBQ. Grits. Greens. Black-eyed peas. All sorts of Cajun. Wash day beans. Buttermilk biscuits. Cornbread as a routine thing.
I was thinking the other day about that weird time when all of a sudden a subset of the national culture was into CB radio, complete with radios, handles, etc. Making excuses to contact each other just so they could say, “Ten four, good buddy!”
I had a most serious crush on Kris Kristofferson, long before Convoy, (and put up with unacceptable behaviour from one of my tutors at law school - e.g. looking at my chest rather than my face while talking to me - because of his resemblance to KK) but I do wonder if that film also did something to make the whole scene attractive to women, and to men because it was attractive to women. Of course, it was presumably a big thing already for the movie to get made...
I was thinking the other day about that weird time when all of a sudden a subset of the national culture was into CB radio, complete with radios, handles, etc. Making excuses to contact each other just so they could say, "Ten four, good buddy!" When I was in college and working in a restaurant, I had the experience of waitressing a get-together of wannabe Burt Reynolds guys and their wives (who went by handles like "Sugar Cookie"). They stiffed me on the tips, BTW.
And a few years later, the sudden sprouting of TX accents and line-dancing.
Both were inspired by movies that glorified an image of southern living.
Of course I, too, was a local manifestation of a media-driven subculture, so I'm not claiming any kind of immunity or superiority to herd instinct. I'd like to believe that my subculture had better values and retains those values even if the outward manifestations have faded.
But this is all an aside. Yes, it appears that the "Southern Strategy" has gone national, at least in rural areas.
BTW I live in a red rural area, complete with flag festooned pickup trucks and local wackos in city government, but over six hundred people turned up for our No Kings Day event and the majority of people who drove past were supportive with honks and waves.
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West? They all have significant rural populations, too.
>And it’s very much rooted in a franchised version of a white Southern rural reality.
indeed.
and there is a similar franchised version of urban reality: every small city in the US eventually ends up with a version of things that started or were popularized in the very large cities (NYC especially, but also LA, ATL, etc). all of the hipster trends, food trends, drink trends, aesthetic trends, music, art, even ways of speaking and thinking get copied. go into any small- or medium-sized city in the US and you will find the same kinds of stores and styles, with people talking about similar things in similar ways.
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Politics thread”
I think both cleek's and russell's suggestions are necessary, but I also think the Dems have fallen seriously behind in taking the message to the people in other ways. It's a bit like their previous approach to continuing to observe obsolete norms. Talking to various constituencies on the platforms that they use is absolutely necessary. Fox, for example, is almost certainly not where Trump gained his serious advantage with young men in 2024.
"
Personal charisma is great, recognizing that nobody watches TV anymore so stop spending all your money there is great, understanding how to leverage social media is great.
Recruit the charismatic people, do all those things.
However.
My main criticism of the (D)'s over the last, say, 40 years is that they've neglected the areas that aren't what they see as their places of strength. Rural areas, much of the south, much of the mountain west, to some degree the industrial midwest.
When I say that, people often reply "how can you say that, their policies are much better for those folks". And in general I think that's true. But I'm not talking about *policy*. I'm talking about physical presence and local identity.
There are 50 states, 435 Congressional districts, and something north of 3,000 counties or county equivalents in the US. I don't know how many cities and towns, but a lot of those, too.
There should be a (D) candidate for every public office, in every one of those political units, in every cycle. There is not. My scientific wild-ass guess is that they're lucky if they field candidates in half of them.
There should be some kind of (D) field office in each of those political units, and the DNC and similar (D)-aligned organizations should be supporting all of them with money and people. They should *not* be telling them how to run their local organization, because the people who live in an area almost certainly know the area better than anybody in the DNC. But they should be supported with money, assistance in recruiting local candidates and volunteers, and with boots on the ground (as they say) during election cycles.
Way back when, Howard Dean developed a 50 state strategy to basically do the above. It worked well. Obama continued it at least for his first run, but since then it's kind of been abandoned.
There *is* interest in all of those places. Bernie Sanders and AOC have been holding town halls in very red places and thousands of people show up. So at least a basic level of interest is there.
My sense, or belief, is that the (D)'s as an institution have focused on the stuff they sort of know how to do - basically the easy stuff. Solicit big money from rich people in large cities, focus-group their messages to try to polish them up into something that will resonate with "regular people", lean heavily on the most reliable demographics that they are (more or less) sure to win.
It's a very top-down, center-of-power-centric approach.
They need to stop spending billions of dollars on consultants and start spending billions of dollars to establish and support *local (D) organizations* in every freaking political unit in the country. And let those organizations take the lead in identifying and understanding the issues that are significant to the people *in those places* and in explaining to those people how they benifit more from (D) policies than from (R) ones. Which, in general, they do. And also let those local folks take the lead in understanding how (D) policies do NOT benefit folks there, so they can evolve policy to address those needs.
Folks in all the places I'm talking about don't really care all that much what Chuck Schumer says. They might not even care all that much what Trump says other than to find it somewhere between annoying and entertaining.
But they will have a much harder time tuning out what their neighbor says.
The 50 state strategy, but really make it a 50 state, 435 district, 3,000 plus county, every town and city strategy. Support (D) candidates for mayor, town clerk, school board, county sheriff, tax assessor, dog catcher. State senate and house.
And, of course, federal House and Senate. But work from the bottom up.
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They'll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they'll win some. And over time, they'll win more.
Patience, persistence, and quit relying on the easy wins.
On “The South shall writhe again”
Somewhat related to the grain thing was the difference in public opinion about the war in Iowa as you went from SE (the longest settled) to the NW (still very much frontier). The last Indian raid in Iowa occurred in 1861. Eastern Iowa sent a high per-capita number of Union soldiers. The prevailing attitude in NW Iowa was that the war was a distraction and we should let the Confederacy go so the Army could get back to its real job of exterminating the Indians.
Mrs. Helkins' 5th-grade Iowa history class was... unusual.
"
<i>Why not a model focused on re-imagined Revolutionary War heritage and New England?</i>
Not necessarily New England, but this was more of a thing when I was a kid in the NJ suburbs of Philadelphia. My grandmother's house was decorated with plates depicting scenes from the Rev War and other such memorabilia. She had pistols and powder flasks, some of which were obvious replicas and others that may have been genuine. Her house was not at all rare in that regard.
People would display the old "Betsy Ross" flag year round, but it was everywhere around the 4th of July.
I know a few people who currently participate in Rev War reenactments, but they're NJ Loyalists (i.e. Red Coats). They tend MAGA-ish. It's kind of odd considering that they aren't on the side of the rebels. That would give them a sort of commonality with the rebels of the Confederacy. Maybe it's the authoritarianism they like (not "No Kings" but "Yes Kings").
I visited Gettysburg a few summers ago. Seeing the American flag there seemed to signal something completely different from what it does when I see it flapping around from the back of pickup truck where I live - pride in the Union that defeated the Confederacy rather than obnoxious faux-patriotic MAGAism.
/stream of consciousness
On “Politics thread”
You would think that charisma would be an obvious criterion for success in contemporary electoral politics, but somewhat oddly, that’s less often the case than it would appear.
IMO, this is it.
Trump is exceptionally charismatic. his message curdles my soul, so i can't even stand to watch the guy on SNL imitate him. but he speaks and acts in a way that, if you are at all open to his message, you will find him charming.
it's why he can flout political norms and why his shamelessness works. people are willing to ignore his fuckups because they like him and think he's on their side.
2020 Biden was charismatic, in his way. but that Biden wasn't available in 2024.
Harris is not charismatic, but Walz is. and it's a shame they shut down his best attack: "weird". they should have made that the entire campaign, IMO. it's silly and fun, it's 100% accurate, it doesn't need a chart to explain, and it was a powerful counter to Trump's charisma. alas.
On “The Return of the Boat Hook”
This may be the oddest picture I've ever taken: it's the Spourne Parclose, containing the tomb of John Ponder, in St Peter and St Paul's Church, Lavenham.
On “Politics thread”
Speaking to novakant's point, I've been looking for clips from the New York mayoral debate and I'm really surprised that I don't see any. These should be things that would think my algorithm would serve up, and I'm seeing nothing. Here's the whole debate, at 2 hours, it is probably not something folks are going to sit thru, but I think Mamdani really ate Cuomo's lunch, so I'm wondering why the attention machine hasn't fed me any of those soundbites.
"
How do you get coverage, online or otherwise, for the other side of that story?
Good question. My feeling is that much of the media is being played by the savviest manipulators of the news cycle. Trump gets way too much air time for what amounts to disinformation, so do Netanyahu and the IDF, Farage and previously Johnson.
On “The South shall writhe again”
Michael's point about grain reminds me that it was countered by the King Cotton argument, where mills wouldn't be able to run without the cotton from the South, so that was the counter-argument to the necessity of having wheat to import and led to friction between the US and Great Britain when the Union blockaded the South. In the end, because Great Britain then sought cotton from other sources, like India, Egypt and (peek at Gemini) Brazil. I think we are seeing a replay of this with Chinese rare earths and US soybeans.
There is an interesting debate in the literature as to whether the Cotton vs Wheat was simply a cover for pro and anti slavery views. The more things change...
On “Politics thread”
lj, thanks for lengthening the Recent Posts list, and also for sorting out my link!
"
Trump goes online and runs his mouth (fingers?) about make coal great again. The MSM covers his orders to keep a big coal-fired power plant in Michigan running. How do you get coverage, online or otherwise, for the other side of that story? (1) The Dept of the Interior tried to auction rights to 167M tons of coal on federal lands in Montana last week. The only bid was for $185,000 -- yes, less than a penny per ton -- and was rejected. As a result, the follow-on auction for land in Wyoming was postponed indefinitely. (2) The LA Dept of Water and Power announced they would retire their last coal-fired generation in Utah next month, as scheduled. (3) My little local power authority has days like the one shown in this figure.
On “The South shall writhe again”
I don't know why they run the trucks-in-the-mountains ads in the rest of the country. In the 11-state contiguous western states, the vast majority of the population lives in urban/suburban areas but can drive to the mountains in less than an hour.
I've long said that the proper picture to represent the modern West should look like this. In this case San Francisco, and the snow is rarer in Las Vegas and Phoenix, but it still happens occasionally even there. Now that the Census Bureau has admitted it's the 21st century and we can do density based on actual built area rather than county area, the western region is very narrowly denser than the Northeast, and both are much denser than the Midwest and South.
On “Politics thread”
Chris Hayes might be right: "I think we increasingly live in a postgaffe, even a postscandal society." Or he might be wrong.
But I say this much is true: "electability" ain't what it used to be. John Kerry was more "electable" than Howard Dean. Hillary Clinton was more "electable" than Barack Obama. Then she was more "electable" than Bernie Sanders. Was "electability" what got He, Trump nominated in 2016? Not by the pundits' definition of "electability", I think.
It encourages me that Democratic office holders have started to use (some of) George Carlin's seven words. Some Americans may still be priggish enough to hold it against them, but a lot more Americans use all seven of those words in everyday conversation.
Alas, everyday conversation is seldom about politics. Maybe it's different in "swing" states, but here in MA we libruls seldom "talk politics" with friends and neighbors who might be MAGAts. So they (and we, I suppose) only get information and hear opinions from "the media" -- mass or social, but mainly personally selected. Sticking to conversation about the weather or the local sportsball team is The American Way, I guess.
--TP
On “The South shall writhe again”
There is a mystique about the West that's every bit as bullshit ad the mystique about the South and similar in some ways. There's the erasing of historical crimes against humanity, the faux claims to independence, and the strange definition of masculinity which includes 'strength" but not brains. The Southern version has more faux morality. Both have BS about being victimized by outside elites. The West version has A LOT of pity party about not being represented when in fact they are over-represented in government.
I guess my question is: Why is that kind of bullshit the model? Why not a model focused on re-imagined Revolutionary War heritage and New England?
"
anyway. hi, y'all.
"
>why is it Southern rural culture which is the model?
is that actually true, though?
if you look at truck commercials, there's a lot more "driving around in the mountains" than there is "driving around the giant flatness of MS" or "hauling groceries in the valleys of WV". and cowboys are more west than deep south. here in NC, people in the country are growing soybeans and cotton, raising pigs and chickens, not riding around on horses roping cattle.
a mythical south (which includes TX and parts of the midwest) might be the model. but the actual south isn't the same thing.
"
Dukes of Hazard. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The latter especially after Ronnie died and Johnny replaced him.
Those two things did more to mainstream the Confederate battle flag as good ol’ boy freedom than anything else.
"
Yeah, the CB radio craze was a silly waste of time by people that never should have been on the airwaves.
_.__ __._ or GTFO.
"
Re: the Lost Cause myth. Along with that is the faux rebelliousness. I mean the guys with the confederate flag on their hat, pickup or window which they say doesn't stand for racism because it is an expression of independence, being opposed to excessive government etc. It's often a self-image thing; "I'm not a follower! I'm not conventional! I'm a free person doing things my way!" Around where I live it goes with long hair, a beard, and sometimes a meth addiction. It doesn't necessarily go with rightwing politics since some of those guys are too dysfunctional to be political. (And sometimes they are felons).
"
Where's my fried green tomatoes?
"
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West?
The South put enormous effort into creating the whole Lost Cause myth, and as part of that emphasized lots of cultural signals: the accent, the cuisine, the whole "southern hospitality" thing. Outside of some cities, the Midwest "accent" is all about not being able to tell where someone is from. The Mountain West is even more so. Southern fried chicken. BBQ. Grits. Greens. Black-eyed peas. All sorts of Cajun. Wash day beans. Buttermilk biscuits. Cornbread as a routine thing.
"
I was thinking the other day about that weird time when all of a sudden a subset of the national culture was into CB radio, complete with radios, handles, etc. Making excuses to contact each other just so they could say, “Ten four, good buddy!”
I had a most serious crush on Kris Kristofferson, long before Convoy, (and put up with unacceptable behaviour from one of my tutors at law school - e.g. looking at my chest rather than my face while talking to me - because of his resemblance to KK) but I do wonder if that film also did something to make the whole scene attractive to women, and to men because it was attractive to women. Of course, it was presumably a big thing already for the movie to get made...
"
I was thinking the other day about that weird time when all of a sudden a subset of the national culture was into CB radio, complete with radios, handles, etc. Making excuses to contact each other just so they could say, "Ten four, good buddy!" When I was in college and working in a restaurant, I had the experience of waitressing a get-together of wannabe Burt Reynolds guys and their wives (who went by handles like "Sugar Cookie"). They stiffed me on the tips, BTW.
And a few years later, the sudden sprouting of TX accents and line-dancing.
Both were inspired by movies that glorified an image of southern living.
Of course I, too, was a local manifestation of a media-driven subculture, so I'm not claiming any kind of immunity or superiority to herd instinct. I'd like to believe that my subculture had better values and retains those values even if the outward manifestations have faded.
But this is all an aside. Yes, it appears that the "Southern Strategy" has gone national, at least in rural areas.
BTW I live in a red rural area, complete with flag festooned pickup trucks and local wackos in city government, but over six hundred people turned up for our No Kings Day event and the majority of people who drove past were supportive with honks and waves.
"
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West? They all have significant rural populations, too.
"
>And it’s very much rooted in a franchised version of a white Southern rural reality.
indeed.
and there is a similar franchised version of urban reality: every small city in the US eventually ends up with a version of things that started or were popularized in the very large cities (NYC especially, but also LA, ATL, etc). all of the hipster trends, food trends, drink trends, aesthetic trends, music, art, even ways of speaking and thinking get copied. go into any small- or medium-sized city in the US and you will find the same kinds of stores and styles, with people talking about similar things in similar ways.
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.