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Monday, May 10, 2004

The Flyover Counties

I just stumbled again onto a map representing county-by-county election 2000 returns. I am struck once again by its intriguing similarity to maps representing population densities in the United States generally. This is no shock -- we all know that Gore actually won the popular vote.

But it is interesting to notice how differently conservatives and liberals seem to read the lessons of the map. For me, the county by county map suddenly illuminates islands of modernity across America, where the state by state maps suggest a vast benighted continent bookended by the enlightened coasts. The county by county map looks more like the America I actually live in -- a country with oases of bright generous progressive people everywhere. This map, which actually denotes more than just a stark Red or Blue, but registers the intensity with which counties supported which candidate paints this picture even more forcefully.

Progressives should stop writing off vast regions of America in their imaginations -- and if they must persist in this, it is better to speak of Flyover Counties than Flyover States. (I imagine many of the inveteratedly Red Counties have no choice but to be Flyover Counties anyway -- lacking airports, or much else, except possibly gophers.) And definitely progressives must firmly repudiate conservatives who like to paint us as writing off all but the coastal cities. There are good people across America and we owe it to them to affirm their participation in the project to make America a better place for everyone.

Anyway, as I said, I am struck by how differently conservatives seem to read the significance of the county by county map. Here is the commentary offered at the actual site where I stumbled upon the map: "When you look at where Gore won his votes, and where Bush won his, well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words! Notice who won the most heavily-poulated areas. That's one of the reasons why we have the Electoral College - to prevent mob rule. The other reason is to give less-populated states a say in the election." Once again, you have conservatives celebrating the disenfranchisement of Americans as a battle against mob rule. Once again, you have conservatives suggesting that unless rural states have a stunningly disproportionately loud "say" in the running of the country, somehow they have been silenced.

It is very familiar to hear the claim that the country is evenly divided. We have to be careful not to drift into easy acceptance of this framing of trends. For one thing, it isn't clear that the many disaffected citizens who don't vote at all are divided evenly in this way -- certainly most of them would benefit palpably by electing progressives and centrists to office rather than social conservatives. But in any case, progressives are not confined to the coasts but are interspersed throughout the country. And wherever the progressives are one notices that there are the cities where Americans live, there are the Universities where the future is made, there are the thriving centers of commerce that drive the prosperity of the entire nation. The county by county map does not show a conservative nation lorded over by elite enclaves, it shows a modern urban cosmopolitan civilization whose politics have been hijacked by the feudal agenda of scattered small-minded mean-spirited hayseeds stuck in the nineteenth century and pining after the End of Days.

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