(no subject)

[sraun]

(What's going on here? This is what, my 4th post today?)

brithistorian pointed out this article from The Stranger - The Urban Archipelago. It's a possible strategy for the Democrats to pursue. There are parts of it I like, and parts of it that scare me.

One of the two maps on the first page is really scary - it's blue/red map on a county-by-county basis.

Comments

[selenite.livejournal.com]

One of these maps might be more comforting:
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/election/

[allyra.livejournal.com]

Interesting reading. The pissed-off liberal in me says, "Hell yeah, let's do it!" The bleeding-heart liberal in me says, "Ack, what a horrible way to think!"

Damn Republicans, they've even divided me against myself!

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the strategy. Frankly, I think an urban-centric strategy, and active identification/promulgation of "urban values", is probably the best way for the Democratic Party to advance itself.

However, the article as a whole is a hateful, intolerant, bigoted screed. I'd rather the banner of Tolerance and Inclusiveness be used to further the ideals of, well, tolerance and inclusiveness. And the author of this article seems quite insistent on throwing out those ideals and wrapping the banner around a politics of hate.

I find it all rather similar to the worst of the current Republican regime: my desire is for the banner of Freedom and Liberty to be used to further the ideals of actual freedom and liberty--ideals which the current self-appointed wavers of that banner seem (to me, anyway) to have discarded for reasons ranging from fear through short-sighted pragmatism to rampant opportunism.

I realize others will see the situation differently than I do, of course....

[gingerwood.livejournal.com]

While I can agree with many of the points, the way he makes them makes me want want to ask him to please stop being on my side.

I found this passage particularly offensive
They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers.

[sraun]

{chuckle}

If you haven't read tygerr's reply yet, do come back and do so!

[sraun]

I agree with you pretty much completely. Like I said, there are parts I like and parts I dislike - I like your description of it as "a hateful, intolerant, bigoted screed".

[allyra.livejournal.com]

Since the other Scott suggested I come back and read your comment, I thought I'd post a reply to it! I absolutely agree with you...except that there is an angry part of me that responds, "Hell yeah!" to the hateful, intolerant, bigoted screed. I am at this point so angry, so disillusioned, so feeling the need the *hurt those bastards back* that something that ugly actually makes me want to cheer.

It's a sad thing, because it's everything I want to stand against.

As I said in my original reply...those damn Republican have me divided against myself now. And I really hate it.

[allyra.livejournal.com]

Done. ;)

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

Well, of course it is. I think it's a very revealing one, in a lot of ways.

But don't bother the writer with the facts -- he apparently thinks, for example, that being inside a Standard Metropolitan Area makes somebody urban, and that increasing property taxes in cities will lead to Erewhon, rather than, say, Bridgeport.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

The rural area I grew up in (90-100 miles north of New York City) now usually votes reliably Democratic -- though the mayor of New Paltz, and some other elected officials, are Greens. Gays and lesbians from NYC and the close-in suburbs are moving there, I understand -- partly because it's an area where they feel safe. (Also because houses can be as cheap as $300,0000.)

And Vermont -- which is primarily rural by most standards -- also isn't exactly a reliable source of conservative Republican votes.

NYC mostly votes Democratic (though the last two mayors have been Republicans). The suburbs mostly vote Republican. That much, at least, fits the stereotypes.

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

I blame John Ashcroft.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I think an urban-centric strategy, and active identification/promulgation of "urban values", is probably the best way for the Democratic Party to advance itself.

"Urban-centric" in that article seems to be coming down on the side of the childless versus those with kids whenever possible. Possibly a good way to win a few elections, but guaranteed to doom the party in a generation.

Spewage

[sunlizzard.livejournal.com]

This article is the sort of spewage up with which I will not put. Not only was it offensive beyond belief (not to mention being, as Pilot so well opined, a "hateful, intolerant, bigoted screed"), but it is also selfish, elitist, narcissistic, self-congratulating and smug, and absolutely dripping with assumptions, stereotypes and outright lies.

I quite sincerely hope its author finds himself choking on a chicken [1] bone, stumbles out onto his downtown Seattle condo balcony [2] and trips. Well, whoops! At that point, I'll be cheering for the gravity.....

[1] (fookin' free range chicken, doubtless)

[2] (about 17 stories up, that should do it)