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The Left Assaults the Heartland

By Don Feder
FrontPageMagazine.com
November 12, 2004

Liberals took their historic defeat in the 2004 elections quite well.
They could have reacted with bitterness, rancor and hysteria. Instead
they were gracious, and engaged in thoughtful introspection.

I’m kidding.

Actually, liberals behaved predictably. They’ve spent the past week
sneering at red-state residents – remarking on the alleged poverty,
stupidity and plain gullibility of Bush country (combined with
neo-Marxist cant about how capitalists use faith appeals to control
the masses).

The more intrepid among them are talking about emigrating to Canada.
The more delusional are toying with the idea of secession.

Reuters tells us that the day after the election, hits on the Canadian
government’s immigration website increased six-fold – almost double
the previous record high.

Leftists should feel right at home in our socialistic, gun-banning,
gay-marrying, speech-suppressing, multicultural-worshiping neighbor to
the north. If we could exchange our liberals for their conservatives,
it would be perfect.

On the "McLaughlin Group," (November 7) MSNBC political analyst
Lawrence O’Donnell said there will be "a serious discussion of
secession over the next 20 years." Since most of our military comes
from red states, who do the blues imagine will defend them? The
French? The Aspen Institute? An elite force of yoga instructors?

Liberals have concocted a fantasy version of America, where all of the
nation’s brain-power and productivity reside in the blue states, while
red America is a land of trailer parks, country-music bars,
tractor-pulls and Klan rallies. (Quick, someone tell the Texans with
their oil reserves, cattle and industrial output that they’re a
virtual wasteland.)

There may be more money in New York and California than in Oklahoma
and Indiana. But most of the people in the blue states who’ve created
that wealth voted for Bush. According to exit polls, Bush got 63% of
the vote of those with incomes of $200,000 and up.

And the cops, firefighters and physicians who keep the cultural
elitists safe and well? They voted for Bush too. Likewise the farmers
who keep them fed and the contractors and construction workers who
build their homes, offices and roads.

Who will patrol the streets of an independent Blue America? Mental
health professionals who specialize in conflict resolution? Defense
attorneys? Who’ll perform open-heart surgery – holistic healers?

Despite the wealth of Wall Street, and mansions in Beverly Hills, Blue
America is rife with urban decay, illegal immigrants, poverty, crime,
taxes and gargantuan government. California is bankrupt. New Jersey is
chronically corrupt. Try finding an English-speaking cabbie in New
York.

Taxes are so high in Kerry’s home state that there’s an ongoing
middle-class flight. (Massachusetts lost more than 79,000 residents in
the past 12 years.) Factories move from Michigan and Pennsylvania to
Tennessee and South Carolina, not in the opposition direction.

Overtaxed, government-heavy, welfare-friendly, de-industrializing – no
wonder the left thinks Blue America is nirvana.

A constant refrain runs through the liberal post-election rant – "They
so stupid." Red state residents are portrayed as slack-jawed
knuckle-draggers, ignorant, superstitious yokels inflamed by wily
politicians and pernicious preachers.

ABC News correspondent Carole Simpson said this year’s election
results reflected the triumph of the "stupid."

Bush campaigned by "pandering to people’s fears, petty interests and
prejudices," shrilled Newsweek columnist Sheryl McCarthy. "How can
59,054,087 people be so dumb?" asked a headline in the London tabloid,
The Daily Mirror.

In case you’ve missed the message, novelist Jane Smiley drove it home
– with a sledge hammer -- in a slate.com column of November 4th.

"The good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the
ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not," Smiley declared,
adding, "The election results reflect the decision of the right wing
to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry."

Warming to her theme, Smiley inveighs on the MSN website, "Jimmy
Carter … asked Americans to take responsibility for their profligate
ways, and promptly lost to Ronald Reagan, who told them once again
that they could do anything they wanted."

And you thought it had something to do with stagflation, a little jerk
in a cardigan, the Tehran hostage crisis and the global advance of
Soviet communism – fool that you are!

"The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above
all, do not want to be told what to do – they prefer to be ignorant.
As a result, they are virtually unteachable," Smiley sneers.

Stupid and selfish to boot! They don’t want to be told what to do.
They resist directives from Nanny State- GHQ. Who do they think they
are – Americans?

By the way, red-state residents are so selfish that they have more
children, are more likely to volunteer for military service and give
more to charity than their blue counterparts.

Compassionate, caring, blue-through-and-through Massachusetts has the
second lowest per capita charitable giving in the nation. According to
the Catalogue of Philanthropy, in 2004, the 10 states with the highest
per person giving went for Bush, and the 10 stingiest states (per
capita) voted for Kerry.

Smiley also informs us that, "Ignorance and bloodlust have a long
tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. There
used to be a kind of hand-to-hand fight on the frontier called
‘knock-down-drag-out,’ where any kind of gouging, biting, or maiming
was considered fair. The ancestors of today’s red-state voters used to
stand around cheering and betting on these fights."

Not just ignorant, selfish savages -- but sadistic too.

But of course, the Central Park Jogger rape took place in Topeka. No,
come to think of it, the gang-assault and bludgeoning of a defenseless
woman happened in Blue York City.

And the braining of Reginald Denny in the course of a race riot that
left 55 dead, was that in Montgomery, Alabama? Again, no, that was in
the other costal anchor of Blue Nation – Los Angeles. The brutal
murders of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Laci Peterson also happened in
La-La land.

By the way, if red-staters are so appallingly ignorant, then why did
Bush win the votes of 52 percent of college grads (to 46 percent for
Kerry). While it’s true that Kerry won the support of 55 percent of
those with post-graduate degrees (to 44 percent for Bush), he also won
a narrow majority of high-school dropouts – all Mensa members, no
doubt.

Liberals also resurrected one of their favorite conspiracy theories:
Republican plutocrats used appeals to ignorant, bigoted fundamentalism
to get poor, benighted Christians to vote against their class
interests – just the way they used race to the same effect, in years
past.

Another slate.com contributor knowingly observed, "’Morality’ is the
new ‘race’ – as in racism … But even as the agenda has now shifted to
the sanctity of marriage, the ends and means remain remarkably
consistent: Seduce the have-nots into a strange bedfellow-ship with
the haves through emotional tribal markers that strike at some
pre-rational sense of identity. Then they will be persuaded to vote
against their own self-interest."

Says Smiley, "The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last
seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big
capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of
the religious right in their class war against the middle class and
against the regulations that were protecting those whom they
considered to be their rightful prey – workers and consumers."

According to this bizarre theory, through an appeal to traditional
religion, the tragic but hateful masses have been seduced into voting
against the taxes and regulations that would have given them a better
life. Why? Because they’re a bunch of really dumb bunnies – drooling
idiots, when you get right down to it. (Or, as a 1994 Washington Post
story put it, religious conservatives are "poor, uneducated and easy
to command.")

There are any number of problems with this hypothesis. Big business
doesn’t give to the Christian Coalition, which is funded by small
contributors. Corporations open their coffers to the enemies of the
Christian right. In Ohio’s recent marriage amendment referendum,
business lavishly funded opponents of the ban on gay marriage.

Say what you will about George Bush, to maintain that his deep
devotion and regular professions of faith all are faked to manipulate
the little people, requires a breathtaking cynicism.

In the last election, the Christian vote wasn’t the product of
evangelicals being hoodwinked by Republicans, but the result of this
growing segment of the electorate being insulted and tormented by
Democrats. To compound their folly, now liberals are jeering at these
and other red-staters: "Hey, stupid!" (Gary Bauer says liberals have
taken to referring to Bush country as "Jesusland." I don’t think it’s
a term of affection.)

If you’re a political activist, your fondest hope is that the other
side never gets it – that it remains eternally bereft of clues. Thus,
the liberal response to their electoral donnybrook is a source of
ongoing delight for me.

In a classic scene in the movie Conan The Barbarian, the protagonist
is asked by the War Leader, "Conan, what is good?" The future governor
of California replies: "To crush your enemies and drive them before
you! To hear the lamentations of their women!"

I give you the lamentations of their women – and girlie men.

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