12.17
A “Civil” Cold War?
I know something about Adam Nossiter that you don’t. He’s been wanting to write this story for a long time. It’s pretty apparent from the tone of the piece and from his past work that he’s the New York Times’ embedded journalist in the South in the ongoing civil cold war. Obviously I’m being humorous, but this is one issue that never gets openly discussed. The animosity between the North-East liberal elites and the South-East conservatives has been an ongoing theme of American society almost since our country’s inception. It’s at times like these that it flares up the most, but it’s always brewing under the surface. Let’s dive into this juicy piece and find out what Mr. Nossiter thinks about the South:
VERNON, Ala. – Fear of the politician with the unusual name and look did not end with last Tuesday’s vote in this rural red swatch where buck heads and rifles hang on the wall. This corner of the Deep South still resonates with negative feelings about the race of President-elect Barack Obama.
What may have ended on Election Day, though, is the centrality of the South to national politics. By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama – supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush – voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say.
So, not only are southerners xenophobes that fear black people as “unusual”, we are also irrelevant. The first part of that is just too stupid to respond to. The south is the most racially integrated part of the country and has been forever. I’ve talked about that before and won’t waste my time with it again. It’s the idea that the south is irrelevant to national politics that intrigues me the most. In one way I agree with him. Barack Obama didn’t need the deep south this time around to win, and there wasn’t really a viable southern candidate in the running. But, besides the fact that one race doesn’t make a trend, there is another factor to consider. The south puts it’s money where it’s mouth is when it comes to politics. We take it seriously. I think this has a lot to do with the way the south has been treated historically by the Federal government. There are still lots of hard feelings.
A famous quote by Robert E. Lee has him saying that if he’d known the hell that Lincoln was going to subject the South to during reconstruction, he’d never have surrendered at Appomatox. The South was brutalized during that time at the hands of the Feds. Old trauma lingers, and thinking history won’t repeat itself is a fool’s dream. The South, therefore, has always been wary to give up it’s control to a centralized government. That’s why people like Barack Obama gain no traction in the deep south. It has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with his perceived policy of having his hand all up in our pockets. We’ve had experience with Illinois lawyers turned President before and the results were barbaric. But that’s not to say the whole south voted solidly as a block this time around though:
One reason for that is that the South is no longer a solid voting bloc. Along the Atlantic Coast, parts of the “suburban South,” notably Virginia and North Carolina, made history last week in breaking from their Confederate past and supporting Mr. Obama. Those states have experienced an influx of better educated and more prosperous voters in recent years, pointing them in a different political direction than states farther west, like Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and Appalachian sections of Kentucky and Tennessee.
So now, Mr. Nossiter says that if you are a southerner who voted for McCain you are stupid. Again, that’s bigotry and I’ll let it pass for what it is. He mentioned Virginia and North Carolina breaking from their “Confederate” past by voting Obama. Of course, he’s right, but the confederacy they broke from was not what he thinks. They didn’t break from racism as he implies. What they broke from are the political principles that the Confederate States of America built it’s new country on. Things like zero tarrifs, the line-item veto, the power for states to impeach federal judges, the banning of tax money for private industry, legislative restrictions on spending, etc. These things were ratified into the Confederate constitution and set the tone for what the south wanted in a responsible federal government. The south got over race long ago, it’s these greater principles of freedom and liberty from central tyranny that the “civil cold war” is ultimately about in this modern era.
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