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November 11, 2004
Why we NEED to demonize the South
The conventional wisdom that is stubbornly repeated after every election loss is here again. Democrats are elitist, out-of-touch east coasters. If they were to stop looking down on southerners, and run southern candidates, they would win.
By that logic, Republicans should be hemorrhaging even worse from their routine demonization of blue-starters as effete latte drinkers. They don't. They benefit from it. They could never have become the majority party otherwise.
And as long as we remain too afraid to strike out against the part of the country that already hates us, we will always lose.
First off, our dislike of the South is not why they don't vote for us. It is the other way around. The South has been the most conservative part of America for virtually its entire history. Whether we were fighting a war against them or assiduously courting them, their attitude never changed. Even in those periods when they voted for progressives - William Jennings Bryan, or Franklin Roosevelt - they did so only under the implicit understanding that the racist policies they had at the time would be respected. Under the New Deal, they benefited hugely from spending while paying little in taxes. To this day, they get more subsidies, more defense contracts, and privileged treatment from both parties. The Democratic Party is guilty of many sins, but genuine anti-Southernism isn't it.
But that needs to change.
It is important to remember the power of propaganda. Republicans run on a carefully crafted myth - that of the soulless, atheistic, socialist, decadent Manhattanite, wealthy and prosperous. The limousine liberal who gives away other people's money, who lets criminals go free, sells our country out to Islamists (and before them, to communists) and splays sexual perversions on television.
This myth has little basis in reality, but that does nothing to diminish its effectiveness. It provides Republicans with a ready-made, permanent target. It is an image they can pull out with just a few code words, and channel decades' worth of cultural frustrations and resentments virtually on command.
The image of the Northeastern/Hollywood limousine liberal is a galvanizer for conservatives. It gives their supporters something to demonize, something to strike back against. In Orwell's novel 1984, it was Goldstein - the phantom enemy who is constantly denounced, constantly hunted down, hated by the populace, but never actually captured or defeated.
In contrast, liberals do not have such a resonant, archetypal portrait of their enemy. We denounce conservatives on an issue basis, or (as in the case of Bush) an individual personality level. But we haven't reached the point of sensing our enemy on a gut, intuitively emotional, rather than intellectual, level.
Only a relatively small, intellectual part of the population is capable of getting excited over ideas in their pure form. For most people, ideology isn't a set of ideas, it is a list of friends and enemies. And it is fighting the enemy, more than defending the friend, that provides fervor to the ideological battle.
The archetype is an incredibly powerful tool for focusing emotions and drawing on universal memory and subconscious beliefs. We used to have archetypes that drove us -- the corrupt corporation, the robber baron, the cold-hearted banker. But in a post-industrial society, these don't hold the power they once did. We have nothing to replace them. Instead of fighting with our hearts, we fight with our heads. And we lose.
I content that Democratic supporters are too comfortable as Americans. They don't have the sense that an alien, hostile force, based in other parts of the country, is trying to take away their values, their institutions, their society. They don't have the sense of resentment and fear that red staters have.
A prime example is media. Believe it or not, most liberals are satisfied with the performance of CNN et al. They don't have the sense that the deck is stacked against them, as conservatives do. They don't hunt for alternative news sources. As a result, Fox finds a ready-made audience of conservatives, while liberal networks struggle.
The reason conservatives had the energy and motivation to build their huge ideological infrastructure - talk radio, Fox, right-wing journals and newsletters, think tanks - is because they were discontent with the mainstream. Never mind how conservative the mainstream has always been - they wanted more. So they built their echo chambers. Before long, their ideas ruled the post. Ours, lacking the same force, have withered.
Most American liberals don't feel that kind of urgency. We are less minded to open our checkbooks for the Center for American Progress or Air America. And part of that reason is we don't have somebody to despise or resent - an archetype.
The anti-southern posts that flooded liberal blogs after the election point out an archetype that is there for the taking, and much more grounded in fact than the conservative archetypes. The Southern fundamentalist Christian, drawing from his racist past, ready to tear down the Constitution and impose a rigid, puritanical theoracy at home and a jingoistic imperialism abroad.
Imagine an America where California and New York are jeered at as communist, where all schools are run by churches, where children are taught creation "science" and that Columbus discovered America. Imagine a country where elderly people starve without pensions, where people die when turned away from hospitals for lack of money, where gay people are beaten and imprisoned, where jobs disappear and hope dies, where women die from illegal abortions, where thousands are killed from guns bought in corner stores.
If secular-minded people, including libertarians, truly felt this danger, truly regarded right-wing regions as threats to our country, we would be the ones bragging of high turnout and winning elections. We would have the energy, not they.
Ask yourself: in your heart of hearts, which feels better: to struggle to win over a few southern conservatives, or to put those bastards in their place? Which energizes you more?
And what would motivate your apathetic neighbor, who voted for Kerry but donated no money and did not volunteer?
Posted by Tyrone at November 11, 2004 02:22 AM
Comments
Interesting thoughts. I agree that we need to start fighting fire with fire --just so long as we don't descend to neo-con tactics such as outright lying. We can keep the moral high ground while taking back the framing of the debate and the language that neo-cons currently use to propagandize America. And maybe a common foe (whose evil qualities are as well-known as the Republican take on us) would help people focus.
Posted by: Ryan at February 12, 2005 10:41 AM