Calif. Hunter
Active member
Win or Lose, Kerry Voters Are Smarter Than Bush Voters
NEW YORK--Democratic hand wringing is surrealy out of hand. No one is criticizing the
morally incongruous Kerry for running against a war he voted for while insisting that
he would have voted for it again. Party leaders have yet to consider that NAFTA,
signed into law under Clinton, may have cost them high-unemployment Ohio. No, Indiana
Senator Evan Bayh, darling of the "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council, blames
something else: the perception "in the heartland" that Democrats are a "bicoastal
cultural elite that is condescending at best and contemptuous at worst to the values
that Americans hold in their daily lives."
Firstly, living in the sticks doesn't make you more American. Rural, urban or
suburban--they're irrelevant. San Francisco's predominantly gay Castro district is
every bit as red, white and blue as the Texas panhandle. But if militant Christianist
Republicans from inland backwaters believe that secular liberal Democrats from the
big coastal cities look upon them with disdain, there's a reason. We do, and all the
more so after this election.
I spent my childhood in fly-over country, in a decidedly Republican town in southwest
Ohio. It was a decent place to grow up, with well-funded public schools and only the
occasional marauding serial killer to worry about. The only ethnic restaurant sold
something called "Mandarin Chinese," Midwestese for cold noodles slathered with
sugary sauce. The county had three major employers: the Air Force, Mead Paper, and
National Cash Register--and NCR was constantly laying people off. Folks were nice,
but depressingly closed-minded. "Well," they'd grimace when confronted with a new
musical genre or fashion trend, "that's different." My suburb was racially insular,
culturally bland and intellectually unstimulating. Its people were knee-jerk
conformists. Faced with the prospect of spending my life underemployed, bored and
soused, I did what anyone with a bit of ambition would do. I went to college in a big
city and stayed there.
Mine is a common story. Every day in America, hundreds of our most talented young men
and women flee the suburbs and rural communities for big cities, especially those on
the West and East Coasts. Their youthful vigor fuels these metropolises--the cultural
capitals of the blue states. These oases of liberal thinking--New York, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston--are homes to our best-educated people, most
vibrant popular culture and most innovative and productive businesses. There are
exceptions--some smart people move from cities to the countryside--but the best and
brightest gravitate to places where liberalism rules.
Maps showing Kerry's blue states appended to the "United States of Canada" separated
from Bush's red "Jesusland" are circulating by email. Though there is a religious
component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. "How
can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great
Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you
had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush.
72 percent who cast votes for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland's
Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks poll, believe
that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction or active WMD programs.
75 percent think that a Saddam-Al Qaeda link has been proven, and 20 percent say
Saddam ordered 9/11. Of course, none of this was true.
Kerry voters were less than half as idiotic: 26 percent of Democrats bought into
Bush-Cheney's WMD lies, and 30 percent into Saddam-Al Qaeda.
Would Bush's supporters have voted for him even if they had known he was a serial
liar? Perhaps their hatred of homosexuals and slutty abortion vixens would have
prompted them to make the same choice--an idiotic perversion of priorities. As things
stand, they cast their ballots relying on assumptions that were demonstrably false.
Educational achievement doesn't necessarily equal intelligence. After all, Bush holds
a Harvard MBA. Still, it bears noting that Democrats are better educated than
Republicans. You are 25 percent more likely to hold a college degree if you live in
the Democratic northeast than in the red state south. Blue state voters are 25
percent more likely, therefore, to understand the historical and cultural
ramifications of Bush's brand of bull-in-a-china-shop foreign policy.
Inland Americans face a bigger challenge than coastal "cultural elitists" when it
comes to finding high-quality news coverage. The best newspapers, which routinely win
prizes for their in-depth local and national reporting and staffers overseas, line
the coasts. So do the cable TV networks with the broadest offerings and most
independent radio stations. Bush Country makes do with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity
syndicated on one cookie-cutter AM outlet after another. Citizens of the blue states
read lackluster dailies stuffed with generic stories cut and pasted from wire
services. Given their dismal access to high-quality media, it's a minor miracle that
40 percent of Mississippians turned out for Kerry.
So our guy lost the election. Why shouldn't those of us on the coasts feel superior?
We eat better, travel more, dress better, watch cooler movies, earn better salaries,
meet more interesting people, listen to better music and know more about what's going
on in the world. If you voted for Bush, we accept that we have to share the country
with you. We're adjusting to the possibility that there may be more of you than there
are of us. But don't demand our respect. You lost it on November 2.
NEW YORK--Democratic hand wringing is surrealy out of hand. No one is criticizing the
morally incongruous Kerry for running against a war he voted for while insisting that
he would have voted for it again. Party leaders have yet to consider that NAFTA,
signed into law under Clinton, may have cost them high-unemployment Ohio. No, Indiana
Senator Evan Bayh, darling of the "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council, blames
something else: the perception "in the heartland" that Democrats are a "bicoastal
cultural elite that is condescending at best and contemptuous at worst to the values
that Americans hold in their daily lives."
Firstly, living in the sticks doesn't make you more American. Rural, urban or
suburban--they're irrelevant. San Francisco's predominantly gay Castro district is
every bit as red, white and blue as the Texas panhandle. But if militant Christianist
Republicans from inland backwaters believe that secular liberal Democrats from the
big coastal cities look upon them with disdain, there's a reason. We do, and all the
more so after this election.
I spent my childhood in fly-over country, in a decidedly Republican town in southwest
Ohio. It was a decent place to grow up, with well-funded public schools and only the
occasional marauding serial killer to worry about. The only ethnic restaurant sold
something called "Mandarin Chinese," Midwestese for cold noodles slathered with
sugary sauce. The county had three major employers: the Air Force, Mead Paper, and
National Cash Register--and NCR was constantly laying people off. Folks were nice,
but depressingly closed-minded. "Well," they'd grimace when confronted with a new
musical genre or fashion trend, "that's different." My suburb was racially insular,
culturally bland and intellectually unstimulating. Its people were knee-jerk
conformists. Faced with the prospect of spending my life underemployed, bored and
soused, I did what anyone with a bit of ambition would do. I went to college in a big
city and stayed there.
Mine is a common story. Every day in America, hundreds of our most talented young men
and women flee the suburbs and rural communities for big cities, especially those on
the West and East Coasts. Their youthful vigor fuels these metropolises--the cultural
capitals of the blue states. These oases of liberal thinking--New York, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston--are homes to our best-educated people, most
vibrant popular culture and most innovative and productive businesses. There are
exceptions--some smart people move from cities to the countryside--but the best and
brightest gravitate to places where liberalism rules.
Maps showing Kerry's blue states appended to the "United States of Canada" separated
from Bush's red "Jesusland" are circulating by email. Though there is a religious
component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. "How
can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great
Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you
had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush.
72 percent who cast votes for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland's
Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks poll, believe
that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction or active WMD programs.
75 percent think that a Saddam-Al Qaeda link has been proven, and 20 percent say
Saddam ordered 9/11. Of course, none of this was true.
Kerry voters were less than half as idiotic: 26 percent of Democrats bought into
Bush-Cheney's WMD lies, and 30 percent into Saddam-Al Qaeda.
Would Bush's supporters have voted for him even if they had known he was a serial
liar? Perhaps their hatred of homosexuals and slutty abortion vixens would have
prompted them to make the same choice--an idiotic perversion of priorities. As things
stand, they cast their ballots relying on assumptions that were demonstrably false.
Educational achievement doesn't necessarily equal intelligence. After all, Bush holds
a Harvard MBA. Still, it bears noting that Democrats are better educated than
Republicans. You are 25 percent more likely to hold a college degree if you live in
the Democratic northeast than in the red state south. Blue state voters are 25
percent more likely, therefore, to understand the historical and cultural
ramifications of Bush's brand of bull-in-a-china-shop foreign policy.
Inland Americans face a bigger challenge than coastal "cultural elitists" when it
comes to finding high-quality news coverage. The best newspapers, which routinely win
prizes for their in-depth local and national reporting and staffers overseas, line
the coasts. So do the cable TV networks with the broadest offerings and most
independent radio stations. Bush Country makes do with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity
syndicated on one cookie-cutter AM outlet after another. Citizens of the blue states
read lackluster dailies stuffed with generic stories cut and pasted from wire
services. Given their dismal access to high-quality media, it's a minor miracle that
40 percent of Mississippians turned out for Kerry.
So our guy lost the election. Why shouldn't those of us on the coasts feel superior?
We eat better, travel more, dress better, watch cooler movies, earn better salaries,
meet more interesting people, listen to better music and know more about what's going
on in the world. If you voted for Bush, we accept that we have to share the country
with you. We're adjusting to the possibility that there may be more of you than there
are of us. But don't demand our respect. You lost it on November 2.
