LAT, Rosa Brooks: A real look at the "real" America; "less and less like GOP mythmakers' America"

[DeepModem Mom]

The 'real' America, really
America today looks less and less like the one extolled by GOP mythmakers.
Rosa Brooks
October 23, 2008

....The GOP code isn't hard to crack: There's the America that might vote for Obama (a suspect America populated by people with liberal notions, big-city ways and, no doubt, dark skin), and then there's the "real" America, where people live in small towns, believe in God and country, and are ... well ... white.

The divisive GOP rhetoric we've been hearing lately is hardly new. But with each passing year, the "real" America of GOP mythmaking bears less and less resemblance to the America most Americans live in.

About 80% of Americans live in metropolitan areas, not small towns. A third of us are ethnic and racial minorities, but that's changing: Already,nearly 45% of children under 5 are minorities. Although 88% of us believe in God, 70% think that religions other than our own are equally valid routes to truth. And while 59% of us think that wearing an American flag pin is a decent way to show patriotism, even more of us (66%) think that protesting U.S. policies we oppose is a good way to show patriotism. These days, more than half of us say we prefer the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

Given this, why do McCain, Palin and their team keep pushing the message that the America where most of the electorate lives isn't "real"?...

McCain and Palin look at America and see what they wish was there, rather than what's actually there: an America in which they'll be greeted as liberators and rightful heirs to the mantle of leadership. America, after all, has been led by white Anglo-Saxons for the last two-plus centuries and, for the last 40 years, mostly by Republicans. For that to change is almost unthinkable. And so Team McCain just edits out the inconvenient America that doesn't seem likely to vote GOP. That America's not real. It just can't be....

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks23-2008oct23,0,2845663.column

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Even those in his WASP demographic aren't voting for him

My family is ALL voting for Obama--and, with the exception of me, it is as WASPish as you come.

[av8rdave]

2. K&R GREAT article!