Many readers responded to my post on coastal contempt by saying, in essence, "They do it too!" There are two answers to that. The first is that if you understand there is a difference between black and white racial resentments, then you should understand that there is a difference between comments by a powerful elite, and comments by a less powerful group, even a majority. (See, say, the Malay/Chinese disputes).
The second is that here's an area where controlling the media hurts us. When they make cracks, they make them in private, where we can't hear them. When we do it, we often do it in public, right there on the television or in national print media. So they are more aware of, and resentful of, coastal condescension than vice versa. I mean, I know there are people out there who think I'm a pitiful childless, soulless atheist latte-sipping liberal spinster. Occasionally they wander into my comments. But mostly, their contempt is a cottage industry. We're exporting on an industrial scale.
This asymmetry gives us a lot of power to set agendas--but it's also why urban liberals are, in my experience, more politically parochial than their rural counterparts. At least the rural regionalist bigots are aware that there is another point of view--it's on the news every night. A good Manhattan liberal, unless they hail from the hinterlands, never needs listen to anyone he disagrees with.
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Megan, that's exactly it. But more than just no need to listen to anyone he disagrees with, most Manhattan liberals need never even meet such a person. Not only is getting out of the city a gigantic pain, but it's a large enough internal world that the few dozen or hundred people he sees on anything like a regular basis need not differ one whit from him ideologically. \
The city as a whole may be more "diverse" than a small town, but the size of each grouping within that diversity is so large that you could fit several small towns, with all the diversity that they do in fact contain, within a single, homogenous urban grouping.
"A good Manhattan liberal, unless they hail from the hinterlands, never needs listen to anyone he disagrees with."
Senseless, truly. Beyond ridiculous. Who the hell is Dumbya Bush, and how much exposure does he get?
The hinterland viewpoint is as omnipresent as it can get. "San Francisco values," "Moral Majority," blah blah blah. Rudy freaking Giuliani was the MAYOR of NYC.
The points you're pushing here are simply not true.
I don't know if there's anything to agree with in this post.
" understand that there is a difference between comments by a powerful elite, and comments by a less powerful group, even a majority."
When you're talking white/black, its about who has the advantage, who controls who. It's hardly clear that the middle of america is either controlled or is at some disadvantage to the coasts in any meaningful sense. The comparison is completely illogical.
"The second is that here's an area where controlling the media hurts us. When they make cracks, they make them in private, where we can't hear them."
That may have been true 50 years ago, but with cable, the internet, the rise of Fox News, and the increasingly "he says/she says" media coverage of the other news networks, this is completely untrue now. And even Hollywood isn't monolithic here - think of Sweet Home Alabama, for instance.
"At least the rural regionalist bigots are aware that there is another point of view--it's on the news every night. A good Manhattan liberal, unless they hail from the hinterlands, never needs listen to anyone he disagrees with."
This is, of course, crap. Your midlander conservative watches Fox News and thinks Obama is a muslim and Saddam is behind 9/11. Your northeasterner has to watch NPR and a few select news shows from MSNBC to avoid the "balance" of "he said/she said."
OK, a good point, but latte-sippers aren't the only ones on the airways, and if someone in Manhatten wanted to listen to a voice from another world view they merely had to turn to CSPAN. And you are right. They should have. That they didn't is a product and function of their blinkered view of the world.
And vice versa. Do you have any idea how many channels Rev Hagee is on? And not just in the US?
You actually might be hearing too much of the media you want to hear, and be hearing the things on that media that others object too. But you might not be hearing enough of the media that is carrying messages that you might object to.
The trouble with being in the choir is that you don't hear what the other choir is singing.
WOw, this is turning into total BS. Comparing this potentially bogus (given the dispersion of people throughout the countries urban/non urban centers) to 'racisim/white resentment' is an overreach. It's starting to smack of an attempt to back out of hole one dug for oneself. Lame.
You are so right, Megan. Those sarcastic, vitriolic comments about East Coast elites being traitorous arugula-eaters and gay-marriage-supporters are only heard in private, obscure gatherings such as . . . the Republican National Convention.
And all the people making those cracks are so powerless, so helpless. Why oh why won't someone give people like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and the Republicans in Congress a voice in the national debate, so they can hold their own against the all-powerful liberal bloggers and sociology professors from Columbia University who obviously control the world?
You're not pitiful!
Please don't set yourself up like that. There are plenty of people who will take potshots without doing it yourself.
Young, idealistic, educated, but somewhat naive, maybe. Nothing wrong with that.
MLJ, thinking that Rudy Giuliani represents mainstream American thinking made me laugh out loud. He is fun to hear and I respect much of his actions, but I doubt that anyone considers Rudy as representative of Middle America.
On second thought, the racism/white resentment thing might be valid after all. I mean, it's pretty clear that left-cost elitists want to force conservatives to act like liberals and do all sorts of liberally-value stuff. Whereas conservatives have no interest in imposing their morals and values as requirements on others.
Oh, wait.
I'm going to respond to this post by saying, in essence, "they do it too". Rush Limbaugh (et al) has an industrial scale audience too, and obviously at least enough of the culture produced out there filters back that the coastal elite can make fun of it.
Really though, I think my problem with Megan's analysis is that while you can point to Elites and Plebes, Coastals and Flyovers, City-slickers and Shit-kickers, Ivys and Land-granters; even if you can cleanly separate each pairing they leak across dimensions an awful lot, and the jokes and rhetoric blur even further. Seeing an uneducated working class city born Coastal Plebe New Yorker and a flyover-country Elite professional class Land Grant College grad farmboy looking down at each other isn't easily explained by one dichotomy.
Concession: I think Megan is pretty close in judging direction of the imbalance but quite off in magnitude.
Actually, I'd be completely in favor of Megan banning comments entirely. I think she writes well enough on her own without the hoi-polloi giving their two bits all the time, and I'm more than satisfied to give up my voice on her forum if it means neither she nor I have to put up with the standard quality of comments around here anymore.
This post could be shorter:
"They do it too!" is a pretty poor defense of just about any behavior, especially when "they" are a group of people that you ostensibly don't want to be like.
zootfenster writes: "MLJ, thinking that Rudy Giuliani represents mainstream American thinking made me laugh out loud. He is fun to hear and I respect much of his actions, but I doubt that anyone considers Rudy as representative of Middle America."
The goobers at the RNC sure lapped up the serving of swill he gave them. But what Megan said went beyond what you're suggesting. She said, "A good Manhattan liberal, unless they hail from the hinterlands, never needs listen to anyone he disagrees with." A good Manhattan liberal wouldn't disagree with Rudy on anything? Seriously?
Like I said, senseless.
You know, Ryan, this may not have occurred to you, but you can, you know, not read the comments if they are a negative experience for you. Just save yourself the pain, man.
Aside: turning off comments would be unlikely to change above the fold content much as the author would still be subjected to a lot of the feedback through other blogs, email, etc., even if the rest of us missed out on it.
Ryan Davidson writes: "I'm more than satisfied to give up my voice on her forum if it means neither she nor I have to put up with the standard quality of comments around here anymore."
Aw, go buy a puppy.
Those sarcastic, vitriolic comments about East Coast elites being traitorous arugula-eaters and gay-marriage-supporters are only heard in private, obscure gatherings such as . . . the Republican National Convention.
The best example you could come up with for "coastal elites" being exposed to red-state values is an event that occurs for three days every four years and is watched mainly by Republicans?
Not too convincing.
"A good Manhattan liberal, unless they hail from the hinterlands, never needs listen to anyone he disagrees with."
Senseless, truly. Beyond ridiculous. Who the hell is Dumbya Bush, and how much exposure does he get?
Not sure if you live in NYC, MLJ, but I do, and I can tell you daily interactions among Manhattanites (and Brooklynites as well) are the way Megan describes. In my experience here - in my office, in my book group, in casual meetings with friends - the assumption is that you vote Democratic, and will therefore have no problem with someone in the group trashing Republicans. (I'm an Independent who voted for Gore and Kerry, and I plan to vote for Obama, but I know several intelligent, well-read, non-bigoted Republicans, and I find this abuse of them offensive and myopic.) Some exposure to W. in the news is not enough offset the attitudes and assumptions I experience daily, especially when that exposure comes through coastal media like the New York Times.
I don't know if the "coastal elite" is necessarily more powerful. Wealthier? Perhaps. But the flyover country has plenty of voice and power - if they didn't, Bush would not be in the White House right now.
In addition, the scale of comments does not really compare. Obama's comment about rural voters clinging to guns and religion was met with a hailstorm, even though it wasn't meant to be insulting. During the RNC, Republican politicians repeatedly made derogatory comments about San Francisco, and coastal liberals, and the superiority of the "small town values".
Josh Lyle writes: "You know, Ryan, this may not have occurred to you, but you can, you know, not read the comments if they are a negative experience for you. Just save yourself the pain, man. "
And Paxil and Prozac are still available if the poor guy still can't cope.
How funny is it that his response to a piece where Megan is talking about "never needs listen to anyone he disagrees with" is a plea to stop seeing comments he disagrees with?
I love the Manhattan bias of this post. Megan, darling, you ever been to Queens? Bay Ridge, Brooklyn? Staten Island?
You don't have to travel far to be exposed other opinions.
even though it wasn't meant to be insulting.
I'm at a loss to understand how explaining people's votes with armchair psychologizing isn't meant to be insulting.
The best example you could come up with for "coastal elites" being exposed to red-state values is an event that occurs for three days every four years and is watched mainly by Republicans?
Not too convincing.
Uh, Dan--I also referred to Limbaugh and O'Reilly. I could also have tossed in Bill Kristol and Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity and quite a few other people who have access to the media a little more often than once every four years.
Do you seriously doubt that people who despise the "coastal elites" are having trouble getting their voices heard in 2008 America?
sprite writes: "Some exposure to W. in the news is not enough offset the attitudes and assumptions I experience daily, especially when that exposure comes through coastal media like the New York Times."
Yeah, I'm glad the New York Times never publishes any non-liberal voices.
Sheesh.
And no one in NYC has ever heard of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, or Ann Coulter.
Right.
Ryan,
You and Megan are both right. You don't have to go through Rush Limbaugh to get into grad school, but it's likely you have to go through a coastal liberal. As someone in grad school, I'm a coastal libertarian - not any kind of social conservative at all - but my non-love of Obama keeps my political views as closeted as a gay man in Mississippi.
Nice to see Justin and MoeLarry doing their best to bury any comments that might agree with Megan.
RYAN: I agree with you. With comments this lousy, kill them.
OTHERS: To those who think that the coastal elite's don't drive America, please tell me this:
1. Is 2008 America more or less Progressive than 1958 America?
2. Is 1958 America more or less Progressive than 1908 America?
3. Is 1908 America more or less Progressive than 1858 America?
4. Is 1858 America more or less Progressive than 1908 America?
5. In America, who represents the Progressive vanguard? Is it the "coastal elite" or "the heartland"?
It's pretty easy to see who has been losing, culturally and politically, for 200 years (and counting) and who has been winning.
I do agree though that it's quite ridiculous to see Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani pretending to represent the heartland. They don't. John McCain comes closer as he is, fundamentally, a military man, and military values are closer to heartland values than coastal elite values. Sarah Palin though is the real deal -- no wonder the elites are going bananas over her.
-zanon
Being from Texas and having family members in both incredibly rural TX and PA, I gotta disagree with those claiming that "equal access" to media is going to make a difference, or even that having equal media outlets that cater to your group make a difference.
Note Megan's first bit: "If you understand there is a difference between black and white racial resentments, then you should understand that there is a difference between comments by a powerful elite, and comments by a less powerful group, even a majority."
Understanding the differences between blacks and whites means, at least in part, recognizing there are societal constructs that endure that were created by white people. Business etiquette, greeting cards, even law has been dictated by a cultural elite that is normally white.
Put yourself in the shoes of a rural American. Someone who listen's to Rush. While Rush may get them fired up and is celebrity, who owns the airwaves? Who is in control of the societal constructs in the media? For that matter, who is in control of the major banks that lend them money (and where are these banks primarily located? Who is in control of Hollywood? Who controls television? What major colleges are the top ranked in the world? Whether you like it or not--conservative or liberal--the direction of the country is dictated on America's coasts--not in the heartland. And this applies to both liberal and conservative institutions.
The constructs that surround rural and small-town America were all primarily created from the coasts, and as such can be held suspect or viewed as elite. What can be counted on, what is known? Farming, small town pride, knowing your neighbor, raising animals, the PTA, etc. Stuff that small-towns created.
Megan is at least wondering about this. The knee-jerk reactions of the rest...
I think talking about who does it more, and who has more power is sort of silly. How about we focus on the merits of each position? I mean, maybe I am guilty of contempt, but when the other side wants to teach creationism in scince classes, generally derides science as almost a kind of conspiracy against them, who believe Obama is a radical muslim, and that the war in Iraq was blessed by God, maybe some contempt is justified.
Add me to the list of comment killers.
Zanon, the response to your list of questions isn't as obvious as you seem to think. For example, in 1958, the US had many "liberal Republicans" (including for example the Bush family at that time) who were staunch advocates of birth control, international institutions like the UN, teaching evolution only in schools, separating church and state, raising the minimum wage, providing health care to all, etc. Now 90% of Republican politicians would be afraid to advocate those positions. At least the Republican party, and the millions of people it represents has become quite a bit LESS progressive in a variety of ways since 1958.
And to the extent that the country as a whole is "more progressive" today--for example, by being more tolerant of interracial and same-sex relationships--that's not necessarily proof that "coastal elites" rule the country. All kinds of social, economic, and other forces influence the attitudes, beliefs, and values people have.
Between 1928 and 1932 millions of voters decided to dump the laissez-faire Republicans and vote for a Democrat. That progressive shift wasn't due to some fiat by the coastal elites. It was caused by events and historical forces, like the Depression.
Megan, I'm no longer sure what you're arguing here.
Yes, some prejudice and misunderstanding exists on both sides. Yes, people in San Francisco make jokes about rednecks and people in Kansas make jokes about Californians.
However, as far as I can see one political party has chosen to embrace a message of "they look down on you" and the other party hasn't. I think that's important.
If you're simply trying to point out the fact of prejudice everyone agrees with that. If you're trying to claim that "coastal elites" are more prejudiced than "middle americans" I think you have a big epistemological challenge ahead of you that you've already more or less identified: as a writer for the Atlanic-freakin'-Monthly you likely overstate the importance of the media you're a part of and are not well placed to impartially survey the landscape. How does your circulation compare to Oprah's viewership? How does your reader's income compare to that of the WSJ? In what way are the staff and readers of the Atlantic "elite"? You can probably agree that you're not in the best position to adjudicate between which color state is most put upon by media or culture.
But mainly if you're trying to claim that Republican party's embrace of red vs blue "they don't like you" tribalism is appropriate given the greater burden they are under from blue state prejudice I hope you'll come right out and say so. I think the question is not whether people in Kansas are more or less put upon than those in Maryland but whether those divisions should be ginned up by political operatives in order to gain power.
I’m still against closing the comments section but would favor Megan (or the intern) following up on her previous promise/threat to delete off-topic trolling, personal attacks and profanity as well as banning some of the repeat offenders.
MS,
Who are you fighting against, straw men?
You don't have to go through Rush Limbaugh to get into grad school, but it's likely you have to go through a coastal liberal.
It all depends on your major, and where you go to grad school.
KARL: I'm not saying that the Republican party has not changed from becoming more Progressive to less Progressive. After all, it was the Republicans who fought for the Abolition of Slavery -- a Progressive cause if there ever was one.
I'm talking about the US as a whole. I'm not sure if you agree that the US *is* more Progressive overall "for example, by being more tolerant of interracial and same-sex relationships" but if it is, and I think you think it is (because it's pretty obvious it is), then isn't it interesting that all the different "kinds of social, economic, and other forces influence the attitudes, beliefs, and values people have" have all pushed the US in one direction. Through all manner of "events and historical forces".
A more Progressive direction. For two centuries. And counting.
If 200 years of steadily increasing Progressiveness does not demonstrate that the US is driven by Progressives, I'm not sure what would.
-zanon
Zanon/Geoff,
You make similar points about the general direction of the country being directed by the coasts. Ok, maybe that is true. But isn't some sort of conspiracy or malign intent to flip of the rednecks. In any country, not just US, where do new ideas generally get generated? Where are most country's power centers usually located? In big cities. Where are most big cities located in the US? The coasts. This is simply a product of geography. Big cities have usually been the drivers of growth, culture and society in almost every country throught history.
What country do you live in, Ms. McArdle? As one of the "good Manhattan liberals" that you slander, I've heard nothing for the last 8 years but crap that I disagree with. There's been no escaping it. And do I need to point out that Rudy Giuliani was our mayor? This is ridiculous!
And I'm hardly a powerful elite. However, your condescension of people who live on the coasts is showing. Is there a way to make your point without being so condescending yourself?
And to the delusional Geoff, who thinks that the direction of this country is dictated on American coasts. Trust me, if that were the case then we wouldn't be in the mess we're in right now.
I'll close with some wonderful words on this topic by Ms. McArdle's colleague, Ta-Nehisi Coates:
"What we have is a kind of bullying--ugly demagoguery in the robe of righteous principle. The fact of the matter is that the problem isn't whether liberals or conservatives condescend, it's who they condescend to. This is a numbers game--there are simply more white people then blacks, thus the market for righteous outrage and umbrage is bigger in white America. Ditto for the gays. This is why we can agree that the Manhattanite who disses NASCAR having never seen it is condescending. But the exurban church-goer--armed with no evidence--who says two men marrying is an abomination is "traditional." This despite the fact that both views are ultimately rooted in ignorance, and ultimately seek to employ that ignorance to define someone else. Condescension happens, no doubt. But it's a lazy, weak, and ultimately dishonest, thinking that sees the white working class (to the extent that such a thing exists) only as targets of condescension, and everyone else as authors of victimology."
Yeah, I'm glad the New York Times never publishes any non-liberal voices.
Sheesh.
And no one in NYC has ever heard of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, or Ann Coulter.
Right.
It's not about awareness that there are people who disagree with you, it's about exposure to their point of view on a daily basis. The NYT does have a couple of conservative voices on its op-ed page. Its news, however, is written with more of a liberal slant. This is hardly surprising given is major audience. However, it sets the tone for much news coverage in the rest of the country, because it can afford to field more reporters in a greater variety of locations than smaller, more local papers.
For the record, I am aware that Ann Coulter, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh exist. But I've never seen or heard the first two, and I heard Rush for half an hour once 15 years ago. So what is my real exposure to their conservative viewpoints? Zero.
MS has a good point. The story of the Maccabees is basically the story of the rubes rising up to reclaim the temple (and the country) from the effete, foreigner-enamored, cosmopolitan urbanites who had abandoned the religion of their fathers.
There really is nothing new under the sun.
Zanon, I know you didn't say the Republican party had become less progressive. I said that. And I mentioned it because you have made a blanket statement that "the US as a whole" has become more progressive in the last 50 years. My point is that this is at least questionable, in that the Republican party is a pretty big part of "the US as a whole" and it has moved toward the right--toward beind less progressive.
I think the most reasonable thing to say is that the country today is more progressive in some ways than it was 50 years ago, less progressive in other ways. After all, the US is a huge complicated place, and even defining what is "progressive" is somewhat non-obvious.
As to your last point, that the country has been getting more and more progressive steadily over the last 200 years--now we're really into vague territory. What defined "progressive" in 1800? In 1840? In 1880? Was it the same things as in 1940, 1980, or 2008? Not really.
Obviously the country has changed a lot over the last 200 years. As a self-proclaimed progressive, I like some of the changes, dislike others. (For example we now have a huge expensive standing army, which I'm not thrilled about.) It's just not factually correct to imagine that every change we have gone through in the last 200 years was designed to please--much less driven by--"progressives.")
While I'm thinking about it, I'll propose an alternative theory:
Theory under consideration: Blue state elites control the media and use it to express and broadcast their distaste for middle america. Therefore, middle america is upset. We know this because when we talk to Ivy League graduates who work at the Atlantic they are snotty, have never even been to Nebraska and make unfunny jokes about Baptists while out drinking microbrews with us. Excepting Penn grads, of course.
Alternative theory: Media is diverse and not under any one groups "control", there is a whole world out there from NPR to EIB, Good Morning America to Oprah to the 700 Club, magazines, newspapers, internet and on and on. People hear the media they are comfortable with. Middle america is flourishing, comfortable and well served by our culture just as the coasts are. Ivy league graduates, especially young ones, are often insufferable and if you spend too much time with them (either in person or reading N+1) they'll drive you batty. McCain campaign staffers have decided that to win an election they hope to spread distrust and fear to motivate voters and win an election.
I know which theory I'd get behind.
W-e-l-l, the real reason why the "but they do it too!" claims are off-base is that it's a tu quoque logical fallacy that A) does not address the main point of the wrongness of the act--in this case, values-discrimination between regional demographics--and B) leaves itself open for criticism by attacking the other side's guilt of the same crime.
But you're basically right Megan (nice blog by the way) to point out the power elements involved here. The urban vs. rural, patricians vs. plebians, management vs. labor struggles, of which their opposed values are part of (and even derived from) their economic circumstances, have been around since the first city.
Where the conflict comes to loggerheads, however, is when power shifts away from the "urban elite," almost always the center of national political and financial administration, toward the diffuse rural and suburban social spheres. Being ruled by the Many (presumably) means having their small-town values thrust on the national center--that's a problem!
Of course it's also a problem for the Many to be ruled by the urban elites for the same reason, which is where much of the "get the guv'mint outta ma backyard" sentiment comes from.
Just by looking at the presidences of the post-WW2 era we can see how this has played out, and the only way the urban liberal side has won since FDR is to run a candidate who appeals chiefly to the small-town, small-c conservative.
Sheesh, didn't these guys learn anything from Bill Clinton?
MS: The heartland does not have issues with the Coastal Elite because it envies their Oceanside views. It has issues with the Coastal Elite because the Coastal Elite keeps forcing their big ideas on them! If the Coastal Elite kept their big ideas to themselves, the heartland would not care.
There is no conspiracy or malign intent where Progressives flip off the non-Progressives. It is just a fact that Progressives have been winning over the past 200 years, and non-Progressives have been losing. Their geographic dispersion may be a matter of accident or fate, but it is irrelevant.
Non-Progressives know they have been losing. They aren't thrilled about it, and they certainly have no idea how to stop it (the Republicans really are the Washington Generals of the political world). I certainly don't see this changing any time soon, nor am I confident that a change would be a good thing.
It is not clear, from this comment thread at least, that Progressives know that they have been winning, and winning so completely.
-zanon
As a gay man in NYC, I'm confronted with thoughts and opinions of rural middle America on a daily basis. They don't whisper in secret. They spew their venom right out in the open. Why should people like me be forced to tolerate their intolerance and respect their disrespecting of me?
Zanon: If you think the entire US is more tolerant of same-sex couples, then I suggest you head on over to a rural middle American town and hold hands or kiss someone of the same sex in public. Let's see how tolerant people are. It's people in big urban centers that are more tolerant. The other folks would much prefer we just die of AIDS.
McCain campaign staffers have decided that to win an election they hope to spread distrust and fear to motivate voters and win an election.
How can they motivate voters unless those voters perceive their message to be at least somewhat true? I mean, Obama could go give a speech right now on how McCain wants to impose a 1-child policy on the nation--not likely to go over well with fecund exurbanites--but his attempt at spreading distrust and fear would fail pretty miserably.
I'd like to tell a story.
Some of my acquaintances - embarrassingly hipsterish, though not too bright recent pilgrims to Los Angeles - were recently hosting a 4th of July party. Now of course, having subscriptions to Adbusters, almost every Chomsky polemic in their bookcase, and nary any actual literature, this was undoubtedly an "ironic" 4th of July party. The hostess was wearing a shirt emblazoned with a hammer and sickle, and the theme was "white trash" - everyone was given hilariously gauche NASCAR beer cups. Though I timidly interjected, "I am indeed a NASCAR fan without any intended irony". And since I hail from urban North Jersey, the constant aping of Southern twang to humorous effect was nothing new to me - in affluent Manhattan and elsewhere, it has become the 21st century's socially acceptable version of the Stepin Fetchit caricature - and there is a less popular Italian American version that hit me where it hurt when I traveled East of the Hudson.
But when a friend (incidentally, a Black friend) brought his girlfriend from Kentucky, no one seemed to curb his or her imitations, mockery, jokes, or constant references to "red states that are so backwards" the same manner in which one would curtail similar mimicry of hip hop slang in the presence of said Black friend. Even when this poor girl was visibly uncomfortable, the smug remarks about mullets, (which, by the way are infinitely more popular in Continental Europe than they are here for all those alleged cosmopolitans) fake accents, and "ironic" music (country of course) never ceased, unless of course someone was launching into a diatribe regarding jingoism or some such noise.
I suppose my point in what Megan is saying is absolutely correct. But these people are so clueless, that even when the target of their private mockery is present, no concession of common courtesy is made. I hate to echo the most cliched criticism, but if that isn't "out of touch, I don't know what is.
And by the way, she's dating a Black guy. That's not the best case for "backwards".
Sigh, I am not delusional. I'm a big city social liberal, don't get ruffled, ok? I'm from Dallas. We're actually pretty liberal down here, we're not all card-carrying members of the KKK.
I think there's a disconnect here--that I'm going to try to address. First off, my comment was meant to describe why--no matter liberal or conservative--the heartland views that control centers originate from the coasts. And to your point, MS, you are correct, that's the way it's always been and there's really no problem with that. But if they feel left our or disengaged or distrustful, there's your major reason. Notice they "cling" to what they know and what they've created, what's indicative of their culture. Manhattan is an alien world and culture to someone who grew up on the farm.
Second, I dare say we would be in the mess we are now with or with "southern-conservative" influence. Where was Bush educated? He went to prep school in Andover and then went on to Yale. He may say he's Texan, but he certainly wasn't educated here--nor did he grow up here.
Hell most, if not all the neocons are coastal intelligentsia. I can't believe I'm having this argument.
For that matter--where are the banks located that promoted the current real-estate crisis? While Bear had a Dallas office, its base was in New York. Where's the fed located? For better or worse, the centers of power are located at our coasts. Our elite--both conservative and liberal--seek to be educated there and major business is conducted from there. Fashion is dictated from there. The stock market is centered where?
I say all this not to say one side is more right than the other, but merely to point out where the rudder of the country lies. Should a farmer or small-town individual be running America? No. But to claim there's no power differential and then blame every woe on the middle of America who vote in Republicans I think is a little off-base.
By the way, does Alaska count as coastal now? ;)
I have several friends who, while not considering themselves Republicans or conservative, do not like the 'liberalization' of America. For instance, one friend is fighting mad that her grandchild's school can not have the time honored Christmas cards and parties. Another is angry that laws are put in place that could get you arrested for simply spanking your child. Another is furious that her county courthouse can no longer show the commandments. Each person has their own tipping point. But all are a result of laws being changed by 'outside' people that prevent residents here from living as they have in the past and want to continue into the future.
I don't have the answer to this, just noting a symptom.
I don't know if there's anything to agree with in this post. -- Justin
There isn't.
"Tom Brokaw dropped out of The University of Iowa, where he says he majored in "beer and co-eds" before receiving his B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion in 1962."
"The son of a business executive, [Brian] Williams was raised in a middle class Irish Catholic home. In his childhood his family moved from his birth place, Elmira, New York, to Middletown, New Jersey. He graduated from Mater Dei High School, a Roman Catholic high school in the New Monmouth section of Middletown...After high school, he attended Brookdale Community College, before transferring to George Washington University, and then to The Catholic University of America.[6] He did not graduate, instead taking an internship with the administration of President Jimmy Carter. He now calls leaving college one of his "great regrets.""
"[Katie] Couric attended Arlington, Virginia public schools: Jamestown Elementary, Williamsburg Junior High,[5] and Yorktown High School, in Arlington Virginia.... She enrolled at the University of Virginia in 1975, majored in English and History,[5] and was a Delta Delta Delta sorority sister."
"[Bob] Schieffer was born in Austin, Texas and grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. He is an alumnus of North Side High School, Texas Christian University and of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. The journalism school at TCU was later named after him. After graduating, he served in the U.S. Air Force as a captain and information officer."
Ah, the media elite, holding middle America in contempt, unaware, in most cases, that it even exists.
Charlie Gibson, it's true, went to Sidwell Friends and Princeton. And George Stephanopoulos may seem like a normal person, having grown up in Cleveland, but he actually attended Columbia, where he was taught the secret media elite handshake.
Average Joe America is now a white male, living in the suburbs making about $32,000 a year in an office job and either married or divorced.
No, I don't think coastal elites can relate to him. At the same time, he does not think too much or comment to his friends too much about those elites. His time is consumed with getting on with life, although he may well feel an uneasy resentment toward them.
Where I do hear comments about those elites are among the brighter, better educated and more successful people in mid America. They really don't resent the coastals so much because their lives are good. They are not interested in hope and change because their lives are good. They do think coastal elites are just of themselves and therefore full of cr*p. They are not interested in remaking America because it has treated them well, and they know it.
Why is it that latte is almost never unaccompanied by some version of the word "sip" in political discussion? No one seems to use that word with any sort of frequency about other beverages...even other forms of coffee.
KARL: It seems you are in the camp of Progressives who would disagree that, from 1808 to 2008, the US has become more Progressive as a whole.
There is always more work to be done, isn't there?
As for you asking what defined a Progressive earlier in time, Wikipedia is always standing by:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism
With the exception of Prohibition (a step too far even for the mighty Progressive juggernaut) I cannot think of a single entry where the US is less Progressive in 1808 than it is in 2008.
Here's the list of Progressive ideas from Wikipedia. You tell me where the US (and the world for that matter) is 1808 to 2008:
Democracy
Freedom
Positive liberty
Women's suffrage
Economic progressivism
Economic intervention
Mixed economy
Social justice
Worker rights
Welfare of Society
Social progressivism
Conservation ethic
Efficiency Movement (Professional government administration, centralization of decision making)
Techno-progressivism
-zanon
marcus pretty much nails its. megan is describing her social circle and not by any means all of new york or the coasts.
Beer guzzling, perhaps?
Or maybe chugging?
"McCain campaign staffers have decided that to win an election they hope to spread distrust and fear to motivate voters and win an election."
Excuse me but, duh. Of course the strategy vs. Obama was always going to be attacking his "other-ness" while promoting a "war hero" and a "I'm just like you!" ticket. I mean McCain+Palin may as well be Everyone's Oldest Male Relative+Everyone's Wife/BFF.
Again, where is Bill Clinton when the Democrats need him? Oh right, they turned his wife down. Oops.
I'm at a loss to understand how explaining people's votes with armchair psychologizing isn't meant to be insulting.
Rob, analyzing why people do things is not insulting. You surely recognize that psychological motives have a lot to do with the way people vote. Everyone except me, that is.
Am I missing something? Has there been a threat to close down comments because some commenters disagree with Meagan and point out flaws in her posts? Is that the new definition of trolling?
I don't know if the "coastal elite" is necessarily more powerful. Wealthier? Perhaps. But the flyover country has plenty of voice and power - if they didn't, Bush would not be in the White House right now.
In terms of political power the balance is pretty even. In terms of *cultural* power, though, the "coastal elites" are entirely dominant, controlling everything from film and radio to news media. Even right-leaning outfits like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News still focus on the big coastal cities.
Even though a Kansas conservative has as much of a political voice as a Manhattan liberal -- more, even, since there are fewer people per Senator in Kansas -- he might not feel that he has the same same in the direction America is taking, because almost everything he sees and hears comes out of the coasts.
Zanon,
The wikipedia definition refers to the Progressive movement of roughly 1880-1915. An important movement in US political history, but I'm not sure why you choose this as THE yardstick for measuring every social, economic, and political trend of the last 200 years.
Let me turn the tables for a moment. I take it you are NOT a "progressive." Does that mean you wish the US could be the same as it was (socially, economically, and politically) as it was in 1808?
And if so, do you think that is how most of the people in the "heartland" who dislike the "coastal elites" feel?
If so, we probably don't have much to talk about, because the gulf between our positions is so huge.
Rob, analyzing why people do things is not insulting
Suggesting that someone's beliefs or votes stem from psychological dysfunction--rather than, say, the application of reason to the question--is rude. It might be correct, but it's still rude.
I believe you favor gun control. I could put this down to your irrational phobia of weapons, your distaste for the inferiority of rural culture, your desire to punish opponents of gay marriage, and penchant for magical thinking, the latter probably related to your immersion in a Confucian-influenced society. I might even be right.
Or, I could assume you have good reasons for thinking as you do, and argue with those reasons.
As for folks who think Megan should ban comments, Don't read the comments. Go away and hang out on one of the airtight bubble blogs where everyone agrees with you and you can find validation for all your opinions and beliefs. Don't come here. That way you won't be annoyed and we won't be annoyed by you. I enjoy the comments section. Why the hell should we quit commenting just because a few nimrods are offended by what we say? I'm sure the same nimrods consider themselves passionate believers in free speech. Dumbasses.
What angers me the most - and I'm suprised by how angry I am, cause this stuff doesn't usually bother me - is the outpouring of scorn and condescenion and hatred and vile, vile character assassination issuing from all corners of the media against Palin. I've just read yet another hysterical rant by yet another hysterical "feminist" stating that Palin's greatest sin is pretending to be a woman.
Because, you see, if you are opposed to abortion, you're not really a woman.
And some group in Canada is afraid that Bristol Palin's decision not to abort her baby may influence other women to forego abortions, and that is supposedly "dangerous" to women's choices. Apparently, pro-choice means you choose abortion. I've always been pro-choice and I had no idea that's what I was supporting. I thought choice meant....choice.
I was stunned by the instant, widespread, cultlike adoration of Barack Obama, but I'm more stunned by the absolutely insane hatred and paranoia inspired by Sarah Palin.
The media are the only coastal elites who really bug me, because they are in my face day after day and by slanting their coverage and making no attempt to hide their bias, by giving Obama kid glove treatment, refusing to investigate any stories that seem remotely unfavorable to him, explaining and excusing his every mistake, advancing and repeating every vile rumor about Sarah Palin and rooting about like pigs in mud in the hopes of discovering something, anything, that will validate their hatred of her and so swing the odds back to their declared favorite, are trying to manipulate a US election.
They are interfering in the process - if there were no Internet, if the media were as powerful today as it was ten years ago, if they were still the gatekeepers of all information, the US people would have no reliable information on which to make their choices. None. We'd be dependent on the media to tell us what they want us to know - and only what they want us to know.
That infuriates me, and it appalls me. And if McCain wins - and his chances go up every day that some tool in the media writes another "how dare that white trash freak think she has a right to run for VP" oped - I will take an obscene delight in the media meltdown we will witness. It's going to be hideous, and it's going to be fun.
"Even though a Kansas conservative has as much of a political voice as a Manhattan liberal -- more, even, since there are fewer people per Senator in Kansas -- he might not feel that he has the same same in the direction America is taking, because almost everything he sees and hears comes out of the coasts."
If that Kansas conservative doesn't feel he has a voice in the direction America is taking, it's largely because there's been a deliberatly effort over several decades to make him feel that way by Republican politicians and conservative pundits. You can't talk about the resentments of the "Heartland" vs. the condescension of the "Coastal Elites" without considering how much those attitudes are enflamed and propagated by economic, social and political thought leaders.
Mike
Stubby,
I would love to see two or three specific examples of someone "in the media"--not a random blogger or commenter on some website--writing anything about Palin equivalent to "how dare that white trash freak think she has a right to run for VP."
I have read a lot of people in the media (columnists, pundits, etc.) praising her, as well as some criticizing her on policy grounds. I have yet to read anyone describing her as anything like a "white trash freak."
On the other hand, it's clear that the McCain campaign is happy to treat any policy criticism of Palin as if it is tantamount to calling her a "white trash freak." Great head fake!
...queue the thread shift to Palin.
Another quick point: I think we're also confusing "caters to" with "run by" when we're talking about media vs. midwestern sentiment.
Rupert Murdoch, educated in Oxford and born in Australia, hardly qualifies as a midwestern/southern elite. He merely capitalizes on their demographic. I would argue your OReilly's and Hannity's and Rushes do the same--often at the request of the suits.
Sarah Palin is against everything women have worked to achieve over the last 100 years.
I'm betting she'd be willing to stand up for the 19th Amendment. But hey, I'm a delusional wingnut, so what do I know?
I think that plenty of East Coast media types, esp. women, count themselves lucky to have escaped their small hometowns,where they would have been held captive by the local cretins, bound to the drudgery of husbands, kids and carpools.
Sarah Palin stayed in her small town, and seems to have liked her life, and not hankered after the bright lights of the big city. So, even the lowliest desk aide or associate producer, struggling to pay rent and compete with the other sharks in the tank, has to look at her and wonder just exactly they're doing with their lives.
Greg comments that coastal elites have no "hope" for "change" because their lives are good already, etc. I assume in using the Obama buzzwords, he is attempting to evoke the current conflicts rather than more broad, timeless ones.
I might add that within the urban cultural centers I have witnessed, there is a tremendous amount of bandying about for hope and change, but for the sake of the more nuanced phenomenon of noblesse oblige and that sting of guilt the perpetually affluent often feel. What the middle and lower classes have is hope for change as well, but not the variety preached by the upper classes necessarily. You see, we have actually been forced to use public utilities that most of the upper classes have never even seen in action, and witnessed first hand the iniquities of the welfare system, and what it does to a community. It never occurs to liberals that the lower classes might vote for politicians who tell us they want to privatize because that resonates with our experiences of the public sector and we actually know what competition means. They instead seem to think that we must be categorically ignorant of concrete economic realities, when in fact many of these voters - men and women I grew up with - contractors, plumbers, electricians, and the like had hands on economic experience, and knew the real benefits of the market.
If this were 1918 you could bet the farm she'd be doing the same thing with women's suffrage.
How the hell is supporting a war effort the same as being against women's suffrage? Do you believe that to be a true feminist, you must lay relax and enjoy the rape of Islamists?
it was women like Sarah Palin who spoke out against the 19th Amendment
"Like" in what sense?
My favorite part of red state vs blue state is listening to people who seem to think that everyone in a specific state voted for the same candidate. They are usually the people who think their vote is a reflection of their intelligence. Forget about 49% of the people who voted the same way, everyone in that state is evil and stupid.
Stupid people are everywhere. As I type this someone in Alabama is forwarding an email that claims Obama is secretly a Muslim and a member of a racist black church while someone at an Ivy League School is looking at lolcats.
Megan,
In the relevant respects, the homogenizing tendencies of corporate media actually trend culturally conservative. A recent case in point that vanished quickly from public scrutiny nicely underscores the fact that while communicative presentation on mass media outlets may exhibit a formal corporate demeanor that seems closer in spirit to secular, urban sensibilities than to religious, rural ones, when it comes to cultural judgments (however distorted the perception upon which these judgments are made), the marginalized party is likelier than not to be perceived as complex, culturally left, and “other”— while the heartland, however different some of its mores may be, is perceived as the customer base (and as possessors of salt-of-the-earth virtue and the “real” patriotism). In other words, the broadcast media employ a “liberal” manner in making culturally conservative judgments. You are conflating process with content and thereby missing the more fundamental bias at work.
KARL: You have me pegged -- I am not a Progressive (although I do like some of the changes that the Progressive movement brought about). I am not a heartlander either.
But this post is on why heartlanders feel they are run roughshod over by "coastal elites" and my political leanings (honestly) have nothing to do with that.
I may be missing something, but I don't see where the article says Progressivism ended in 1915. Women's Suffrage was in 1920, the New Deal was in the 30s, Civil Rights in the 60s, and Gay Marriage in the oughts, so clearly Progressivism is alive and well. You yourself are a Progressive, as is Barak Obama, so I'm sure the health of the Progressive cause is not news to you.
I pick it as THE yardstick for the past 200 years because it has been THE best predictor for what the political future of America will be like.
Do I want to go back politically to 1808? What I want politically is not important, but I think that many 2008 heartlanders would like society to go back to 1958. And in 1958, they would probably have liked things to have remained as if it was 1908. In 1908, 1858 may have looked pretty good. In 1858, 1808 may have seemed like a better way to live. So a 2008 to 1808 jump is too far, but I don't think it's at all controversial to say that, for heartlanders, they would like to go back 50 years. Or at least stop going Forward socially and politically.
A current example: The vanguard of the Progressive movement today believes in extending the franchise to non-US citizens. Why discriminate against someone just because they were not born in the US? This extends to highly Progressive cities using US taxpayer money to protect illegal Honduran crack dealers from being deported. Heartlanders find this insane. But I would put money on open borders by 2058. It is where Progressivism leads, and where Progressivism leads, the US follows.
If you cannot see that the US overall has become more Progressive, steadily, over the past 200 years, and that "heartlanders" have resisted this change (and lost) but "coastal elites" have driven it (and won) then our positions are too far apart, and you shall struggle to see why the two think so little of each other.
-zanon
Zanon, let me second what you're saying here.
Look at any 50-year period in our history, and clearly progressive political change happened. Usually pretty massive changes. Progressives led fights for abolition of slavery, woman suffrage, civil rights for blacks, gay rights, womens rights, etc. There have been very few reversals of this sort of progress, and none of them have been full reversals.
The USA has become profoundly more progressive, in my lifetime. Much less the last 50 years, or 100, or whatnot. To mention but one example: I grew up without any knowledge of homosexuality. Not that it was wrong or right, or neutral: it simply did not exist. No overt examples existed in the media. Nobody talked about it. It was considered mental illness. Incorrect sex between consenting adults was punishable by law.
The progressives are winning, and always have been.
Greg comments that coastal elites have no "hope" for "change" because their lives are good already, etc.
Nope, my reference was to bright, educated, successful non-coastals, speaking in gross generalities. I also know some of the same who would fit well into the "what white people like" category. Those are urban chauvinists and elitist wannabes, and they do buy into hope and change, meaning they hate Bush and want him out.
"A good Manhattan liberal, unless they hail from the hinterlands, never needs listen to anyone he disagrees with."
Yeah, except when she turns on the news and, oh, I don't know, the President of the United States of America is speaking. Or, until recently, the majority of elected representatives. The middle state conservatives are hardly powerless. Despite the fact that coastal voters outnumber middle state voters drastically (compare the pop. of NYC to Kansas, e.g.), they've been pretty much running things for the past 28 years. Merely because the "coasts" have a monopoly on the entertainment industry (and news is entertainment) doesn't mean that the middle states are somehow powerless. Far from it.
They wield political power over the coasts like a sword. Because of middle state power, the coasts and their values are always on the defense - resorting to the Courts to vindicate our rights when they are infringed. It is the middle states that want to impose their moral code on us - not vice versa. We don't care what they do there, but they seem to care very much what we do with our genitals, our wombs, our guns, etc.
OK - so what's the point? We don't like each other - we have fundamentally different values and cultures. Our contempt is out there on TV. Their contempt is out there in the halls of government. The difference is that their contempt is backed by the full force and potential violence of the power of the state. Ours is backed up by the power to define "cool" in popular media. Which is more powerful?
LEANORD: Heck, MLK Jr himself (may he rest in peace) would have thought a guy marrying another guy was weird.
(Personally, I am fine with gay marriage. It's just unquestionably another Progressive political victory).
-zanon
That sense
The sense that she is a sincere believing Christian who takes the Bible seriously? That's a disqualification for office now?
No condescension here, none at all.
Irregardless of who thinks they can win this unwinnable argument, I find it interesting that one of the originators of Public Choice theory, James M. Buchanan, was from the hinterlands (graduated from Middle Tennessee Normal School in 1940, M.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1941, Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1948).
At least one economics author, populizer Todd Buchholz, describes Buchanan's skepticism towards public policy as an attribute of his outsider status. Having not rubbed elbows with the future policy-makers of Harvard and Yale, he was not easily impressed by the consensus policies -- the "we are all keynesians now" consensus -- of his age.
OK Megan, some good points on assymetry.
But, there's another side to the "They do it too!" response that I think you're underappreciating.
Don't you think there is a *lot* more of the attitude you are condemning around now than there was in the 90s? And still more than in the 80s, when I left small-town GA for college at one of those "elite" places.
*At least* a part of this, surely, is the steady, systematic, relentless demonization of liberals, and *especially* of intellectual liberals, by extremely smug and self-satisfied right wing voices, who are, by contrast to us mere college-professor-types, in fact actual elites in this real world. Hearing years and years of contempt, and the constant ridicule of things you hold dear (and which are objectively important, btw)-- things like freedom of thought, genuine curiosity, fidelity to truth, openness to the possibility of unconventional ideas or ways of life-- hearing that much of that for that long is enough to put people in the mood to say: "Oh yeah?!? Well you suck, too! And really, why should right-thinking people care a fig about your cultural sensitivities."
I'm not saying that it is persuasive to argue that way, but you just don't have a demonization machine with as much volume as the cultural and think-tank centered right has built without irritating people, and irritated people are not always thoughtful and nice when they speak back. Nothing is free, as you of all people should appreciate.
regards,
Lanier
Megan,
I think your conception of power is hopelessly naive. The leading republican families from the deep red states like Texas and Kansas are the true uber elite of America in terms of the sheer billions on hand. It is kind of a 1890s conception of America to think in terms of costal elites. Frig, Wal Mart? Exxon? Haliburton? The Hunts? C'mon Megan, don't play these silly games.
The sense that she is a sincere believing Christian who takes the Bible seriously? That's a disqualification for office now?
No condescension here, none at all.
Posted by Rob Lyman | September 11, 2008 4:45 PM
Belief is one thing. Using the power of the state to impose your belief on everyone else, now that's another. It's the theocracy that disqualifies her, not her personal choices. That you and the McCain campaign keep saying the it is her personal choices and not her political choices, makes you and him serial liars.
For 6 years, Republicans held both houses of Congress and the Presidency. (And they had - and still have - most of the Supreme Court nominations). And I'm not sure the right wing - with domination of talk radio, Fox News, various bestselling books - is merely a "cottage industry" in terms of promoting this condescension. It's not exactly a poor-oppressed-group thing; you're vastly overstating the power imbalance.
But more broadly, I'm not sure whatever power imbalance does exist is even relevant; it doesn't make the act of voting for Republicans based on their crass use of the culture war any better.
"McCain campaign staffers have decided that to win an election they hope to spread distrust and fear to motivate voters and win an election."
Yes...because claims that if elected, Sarah Palin is going to repeal ALL abortion, ban gay marriage, ban books, and force every school in the land to cram creationism down our throats is nothing like spreading distrust and fear to win an election.
Especially if you look at her record as GOV which is the polar opposite of those points and facts like she would have to get past a Congress run by Democrats, then get the signed laws past the courts and even take federal control of local schools to accomplish everything that is being claimed.
No, that isn't spreading fear at all.
Using the power of the state to impose your belief on everyone else, now that's another.
Examples from Palin's political life would be nice. Also, the original comment to which I responded seemed to me to be about belief, not action, although it could be read the other way.
And in any case the "coastal elites" impose their beliefs on the heartland all the time, or at least try to. That they have allegedly secular motivations doesn't make them more virtuous.
One reason the Progressives seem to win is that the temporarily winning side is redefined as progressive.
For example, in the says of the American Revolution "all men are created equal" was a progressive idea. In the days of Woodrow Wilson it wasn't. Today it is again.
In the course of the past century or two, eugenics has gone from unknown to progressive to anti-progressive.
Tobacco used to be something that was only criticized by puritanical religious fanatics. Today the anti-tobacco side is progressive.
Supporting industrial development used to be progressive. Today it isn't.
Subjecting the mentally ill to heroic attempts at cures used to be considered progressive. Then deinstitutionalization was considered progressive.
But it was women like Sarah Palin who spoke out against the 19th Amendment as against god's will and helped keep the vote from their sisters for 140 years.
Um, comsympinko, you might want to brush up on your history. Western "red" states and territories, like Wyoming and Idaho, granted women suffrage in the late nineteenth century -- much earlier than eastern "blue" states, like New York, did.
JOSEPH: I never claimed that Progressives were infallible, or that they cannot learn, or that they never made mistakes. All kinds of tactics to achieve Progressive goals have been tried over the years, some have worked, some have not. Some of the things that have not worked have even been discarded. There have even been things rolled out under the Progressive banner that are, in fact, not Progressive.
The definition I use of Progressive goals is straight from Wikipedia, and I think it is very uncontroversial.
Democracy
Freedom
Positive liberty
Women's suffrage
Economic progressivism
Economic intervention
Mixed economy
Social justice
Worker rights
Welfare of Society
Social progressivism
Conservation ethic
Efficiency Movement (Professional government administration, centralization of decision making)
Techno-progressivism
I will add, though, that I have no idea what "techno-progressivism" is.
-zanon
Megan Mcardle from a previous post about school vouchers:
"It is true, to be sure, that vouchers will not ensure that everyone gets to attend the kind of ridiculous private school that I attended, tuition $38,000 and counting."
One day Megan will post an item without leaving any hint about which of these two groups she belongs to. She would have to go back and add something more about being *actually from* Manhattan like Matthew Yglesias or some other such thing.
JOSEPH: My apologies, but I could not resist this:
"Tobacco used to be something that was only criticized by puritanical religious fanatics. Today the anti-tobacco side is progressive."
Clearly you know little of early progressive history.
-zanon
"The hinterland viewpoint is as omnipresent as it can get."
TR: Because a scion of a wealthy New England family, who happened to live in Texas, is President? Because a Cornell educated New Yorker, Ann Coulter, embraced a radically Right-wing viewpoint as alien to most of us as you. Because a few people actually from the hinterlands are on radio stations rather than in the media that most people hear or see?
How many national news stations are located in Indiana again? How many TV series are filmed, or even set, there? (The media isn't just "the news media") Or in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Virginia?
I think she is exaggerating it, but if you're in Manhattan and you want to ignore the entire state of India I think you mostly can. If you're in Indiana and you want to ignore Manhattan I think that's nearly impossible. Test it for yourself. Avoid all television or websites that mentions Indiana for one week. (If you hear "Indiana" turn it) Then the next week avoid all television or radio that mentions Manhattan. I'm skeptical avoiding Manhattan will be easier.