Robert Seeberger wrote > David Brin wrote : >> >> In any event, the map MEANS something, Robert. > >Shades of Close Encounters!!!!! ><G> > > >> Look >> at it. Whatever your dreams and mine, about a >> tolerant America that is united in joyful, moderate >> disagreement, look at it. > >Due to the nature of the 2 party system, the map will look like this >for every election. >I also notice that you seem to ignore the midwest and most of the >western states in your argument below.
Robert is up to something here... Midwest and West don't match Brin's idea... The map of Republican-voting states has three main parts. South, West, and some of the rural parts of the Midwest. In the old days before the Civil War, the Midwest was in general terms against the slavocrats. Lincoln came from Illinois, after all. And the Republican party was founded in Michigan. The Far West barely existed at that time, apart from Oregon and California. Few people. For the few people there, it was more or less tepidly in the side of the Union. So the maps don't fully match. Bad for Brin's idea? Although the map MEANS something... or it looks like that. People like Ashcroft are in some ways neo-confederates (not same as neocons...) Their presence in power must have an explanation more plausible than direct Satanic influence :-) I take a hint from Brin, when he mentioned the Hoosiers - I have a few Hoosier friends myself... Indiana firmly votes for Bush this time. Curiously enough, Indiana has been a place of strong neo-confederate sentiment for a long while. That can't be explained based on old history alone. Before the war it was a free state; during the war, it was firmly inside the Union. Another similar case is West Virginia - strongly enough for the Union to refuse secesion. And a place of neo-confederate sentiment *after* the war was finished. It matters more what people think now than then. Not surprising. This argument can help to understand *some* of the inroads of Bush inside the Midwest. But I don't think it helps to understand the Far West. Or Iowa. Or Utah. I doubt neo-confederates are or were any strong up there in the plains and mountains. Although the Klan had some presence there during its brief days of almost mainstream expansion, around the 1920s. Hmmm... I'm sure Brin will try to grab onto this correlation... I think what's going on with Bush's Republicans is a new electoral alliance, involving certainly neoconfederates as one of its elements. A weird element in many ways. Remember those Dixiecrats? It was not such a long time ago... Ruben _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
