Burnt Orange Report

I For One Welcome Our New Blue State Overlords

By Jim Dallas

This essay in Time contains some truths, but only once you get over the clumsy "red state-blue state" (for what it's worth, Cottle is not one of the worst offenders in this regard):

Day to day, liberals have the luxury of ignoring conservative America. Only occasionally does some red-state phenomenon like The Passion of the Christ intrude on our consciousness, and even then it's usually because of some outrage it sparks among a particular interest group on the left. Social conservatives, by contrast, cannot escape the world view of blue staters.

Every time they go to the movies or turn on the television or open their child's school books they're reminded that traditional values ain't what they used to be. (Many liberals will be horrified to hear that two-thirds of Americans think creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science classes.)

Forget aggressively raunchy shows like Sex and the City or Temptation Island. Even the mainstream megahit Friends featured a parade of bed hopping, divorce, lesbianism and out-of-wedlock births that would have raised howls of protest not so long ago.

If anything, social conservatives don't realize the full depth of blue-state America's condescension. They assume that liberals sit around all day thinking about how much smarter or more sophisticated or more enlightened they are than social conservatives.

Truth be told, most of the time liberals don't bother to think about social conservatives at all. Except at election time, when they suddenly become aware of them as some frightening, incomprehensible menace to their otherwise comfortably progressive society.

If you look at the country that way, it's only fair that conservatives have their moment in the sun. They may have won the battle, but their prospects for the broader culture war remain dim.

It took me a moment to realize what exactly my problem with that statement is, until I realized that the wording impies that only the slimmest of majorities (or zounds, perhaps even just the 48 percent who voted for Kerry!) controls culture in America. That "liberals" have complete control and whatever "conservatives" do is mere tilting at windmills.

But the thing is, American culture is just that.... American culture. It's heartily endorsed (or most of it anyway) by most Americans, not just "liberals." Cottle here seems to be playing into the far-right-wing fantasy that "blue state elitists" are oppressing "the red state masses" (both groups exist, dontchaknow, on the same metaphysical plane as angels and demons).

The reason why "red state culture" barely imposes on the rest of us isn't that we're aloof; it's that the vast majority of Americans don't care, either.

And I dare say that those elements of "red state culture" which do surface (The Passion, The "Left Behind" series, DC Talk, etc.) do so in large part because they tap into some marketable desire among "blue staters" as well. There's a little bit of Jesusland in each one of the fifty states, and among most (zounds!) Democratic voters.

And just the opposite is true. Although I'm highly skeptical, some claim that as many as 73 percent of Republicans are closet pro-choicers. And we clearly know that newly re-elected cultural warriors are (lets face it) going to be pretty ineffectual.

I suppose my main criticism is the implication that it's liberals who are responsible for all the crap on television these days. Don't look at us, America, corporate elitists are responsible for the crap on television these days.