The real divide that needs bridged....

[SleepingDragon]

Another look at the electoral map is instructive. Go down one level to the county maps for each state. If you reconstruct a picture of the nation at the county level, blue states and red states disappear. The real divide is between rural and urban with suburban swing counties in the middle. The split is not between north and south or coastal states vrs flyover states.

Kerry represented urban cosmopolitan values. These are concerned with our position in the world community, tolerance for diverse cultures, and a global future.

Bush represented rural traditional values including the kind of values that Evangelical Christians are tied to. These are concerned with local community, family, and preservation of traditional values and norms.

Suburbanites are Urban sophisticates that want the best of both worlds: urban amenities in a rural setting. They cling to the values of the past but are educated, and essentially conflicted in bringing together the values of the past and the values of a global future that requires tolerance and diversity.

We need to integrate together both rual and urban values in a coherent way that can be communicated across the board.

[libbygurl]

1. Interesting and very plausible. A real divide within each state,

and explains the very close numbers in so many states, including the SOUTH!

[Dems Will Win]

4. THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION is in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x16099

[SleepingDragon]

7. Certainly we need to fight fraud, but

my guess is that when all is said and done, Democrats need a strategy that will appeal broadly in the country. I don't think it is particularly useful to construct the problem as a red state/blue state problem.

[SleepingDragon]

5. In our county the same divide exists at the precinct level...

I think this is a more useful way to view the problem. Look at any north eastern state that Kerry took and compare that to Texas. Both are made up of very red and very blue counties interspersed with white swing counties. The blues are clearly urban reds generally rural with whites being more suburban.

States in the empty corridor like ND, SD, Neb. etc are mostly red because they are predominently rural states.

[geek tragedy]

2. Dems need to point out that politics is about issues, not values.

They need to confront the hate-mongering. Instead of being mealy-mouthed on issues like gay marriage, Dems need to point out that it's a bullshit issue that the Republicans are using to screw rural and small town people.

[noiretextatique]

8. damn right...not allowing gays to get married is not going to feed you

or improve your life in any way. what about these VALUES:
truth, honesty, justice, fairness, tolerance, love?
* and the republicans talk a good game, but they don't live up to any values worth having.

[forgethell]

11. But wouldn't you agree that

values ARE at issue? If not, then why do we support, say abortion rights or gay marriage? If we would just give them up, we could move on to domestic policies and nationalrespect in the world.

Is that what you want? Because if it's an issue to us, there is absolutley no reason why it shouldn't be an issue to them.

We lost and need to regroup and rethink what is important and what is not.

[SleepingDragon]

12. Gay marriage is an issue that is important in an urban, cosmopolitan value

system. It makes sense to us but not to people who don't share or understand those values. Issues are issues because of values. If we want to rethink what is important we have to have a new way of understanding the problem. Then we can pick our fights over issues that have a chance on connecting across the divide.

[stray cat]

3. Urban versus rural values more than north versus south

nt

[nikatnyte]

6. The answer? Everybody move to the cities

Pretty soon that's where the only jobs will be anyway.

[oldlady]

9. the untouched...

I've been thinking about that too, after looking over county maps. I think that so many people are so unexposed to the things they "fear". I grew up in an all-white cow-town. I spent my adult life in a utopianly-balanced urban setting of poverty. I've been in and out of mainstream and fundamentalist Christian churches, but I've had long talks with people of many faiths. My first close group of friends in my single years here in my urban hometown were gay men.

Most of my family stayed in the little hometown. They don't think globally and are untouched by many of the issues. They all work in America's "new manufacturing" -- the prison system, the military. The womenfolk work Wal-Mart.

I'm trying to understand the difference in their experiences. Ironically, one of the most mind-expanding experiences I've had lately was a group of anti-racism white folks, who didn't work/live with persons of color, but were politically progressive. I found the politics different from my childhood hometown, but the distance (overly solicitous of persons of color who came to meetings with me & turned them off) was similar.

What a fractured place is this human life. We need some really good urban/rural exchange programs, a great PR agent to dispense real-life info, or the reverse version of "Simple Life" with Paris Hilton-- I'd suggest "Simply Clinging to Life" and I'd welcome some white, sheltered, homophobic, sheltered red-staters into my Madison, WI HUD housing complex. Somebody...shoot this treatment to Hollywood.

sigh

[SleepingDragon]

10. Touching the untouched...

The reverse version of the simple life is urban/global experiences for culturally isolated people. I've taken students to Paris who have 1. never been on an airplane and 2. never been out of their county before. This can be a very traumatic experience for an isolated individual but life changing as well.

What I think is needed though is an understanding of how this affects the political equation, how we choose our candidates and issues, and rethinking the strategy of the party, its philosophy, and its values.

We need to become more inclusive at a fundamentally different level. In order to do that we need new ways to conceptualize the problem.

[democratreformed]

13. Hey, I like what ya'll are talking about.

Perhaps we could work to implement "culture programs". We've got to do something.

Although I am a country person, I guess that I am the exception to the norm. I would not like going to live in the city, but it wouldn't hurt me to learn a few things.

[SleepingDragon]

14. A lot of people are country people and Democrats have forgotten

how to talk with them.

[SleepingDragon]

15. If we don't figure this out we will be marginalized

Josh Marshall points to the comming problem:

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2004_10_31_dish_archive.html#109950616544439177

[info being]

16. Forget "bridging". Would you "bridge" with Nazi's?

[SleepingDragon]

17. Are you implying that 55 million people are all Nazi?s

I'm just trying to get my mind around how we build a base broad enough to wrest power from the few nut-cases in control.

[rockydem]

18. good post - kick