I think there has always been an East-vs.-West polarity in the US, and Rove capitalized on it (with
W, the perfect candidate to espouse it). He was able to paint Eastern and Hollywood Elites (media, law, politicians, New Yorkers, and Jews in particular with their New York brand of humor, who also seem to run Hollywood) as trying to control people's lives through government intervention. What kind of intervention? The type that wasn't Capital-C Christian in values. The Eastern Elites were going to force Christian America to accept Abortion rights, Gay Marriage, foreigners, things from France, and a debased culture led by the Hollywood Elites and their movies and cable TV programs. Also, they want to tax everyone's cigarettes to pay for it.
W, of the elite Connecticut and Maine Bush dynasty (ironic huh?), discovered a Texas accent and used his born-again background to rally Rove's Christian base which would be enough (if they all voted) to seize power without finding compromise in the political center, which was the way almost every other campaign for president was ever run. JFK won by saying Nixon was soft on communism. Clinton won with plans to roll back welfare and end big government. W didn't need any of that - just to show up, talk with an accent, and speak the coded words of the born-again (remember compassionate conservativism? a humble foreign policy?).
So where we are right now is the
white Christian anti-abortion rights and anti-gay marriage people have been put on the idea that a government which allows such things (also known as civil liberties) is being run by NY/Hollywood Elites (Jews), and an African American president, and Fox News, OReilly, Hannity, Van Sustern, the anti-immigration reform people, and the like, the anti-tax teabaggers, all find a common enemy in the Hollywood/Eastern/Jewish elites.
This has happened before. The 1920s, after an economic downturn, in Northern Europe, were eerily similar. The patriotic doctors, bankers, professors, scientists, and artists of Berlin couldn't understand why they were all of a sudden the targets of persecution when they were also responsible for the rennaisance of German culture and leadership in the sciences at the time. Think about it. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
Of course they are over-generalizations. But that does not mean the underling generalization is false.
Hi again Dr G, and thanks for your kind words.
When I responded to your initial essay I wasn't rejecting your thesis in it's entirety-- but I suspect you realize this. At the time i just wanted to call attention to your essay and not start too involved a discussion, since it has been my habit at DH oftentimes to only discuss something at greater length in the comments if it seems the commenters are interested-- which doesn't always work as I hope, but c'est la vie.
However, if I had discussed it further I think I would have followed up on your comment about how Reagan and Clinton played those particular voters for votes, and how in retrospect their anxieties were borne from living in a country experiencing long-term decline, and how, also in retrospect, many of Reagan and Clinton's policies, especially related to international trade, helped hasten that decline. But I'm probably in the minority in seeing unfettered free trade as a bad thing.
I was also thinking of tootling my own horn with respect to the media aspect by mentioning an old post of mine, "all those years ago". I would add that the other, non-me links I reference at the bottom are pretty interesting too.
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