Thursday November 8 2012
Daniel Henninger has discovered our concept of The New Civil War in his column today.
The Republicans' self-inflicted wounds, however, pale against the willingness of an American president to use his office to blow up the country itself. That, too, has a price. Drill down inside the details of that electoral map and its votes, and you find a nation severely divided.
With every election, the southern and central states drift further from the coastal sophisticates obsessed with social issues, and from the heavily unionized industrial states around the Great Lakes. But open up those Obama states and you'll discover divisions: Their big-vote city centers sit like blue moats of minorities and comfy singles who are surrounded by red counties of married couples trying to cope. California's passage of Proposition 30, which jacks up state taxes to subsidize the moats, is a harbinger. More red voters (and companies) will move out, deepening the divide.
There's that famous saying: Is this a great country or what? With the way Barack Obama achieved his re-election, that's a good question: Or what?
Our point is that three maps are all the same
the original Map of the North South CIvil War States
The Map of the Southern Right to Work versus northern Union Shop States
The Red Republican Blue Democrat voting map.
It was a nasty divisive campaign, and nothing suggests any of that will change. We have written extensively about this to prepare you for a hurrican of negative social mood ahead. During the campaign the President referred to his opponent in four letter terms. Romeny was accused of being a felon and not paying taxes for ten years. This was all false but no one ever pulled back who made the accusations. No matter what you think politically, this is a negative for what lies ahead.
Biases are socio economic, cultural and geographic. In my blue state we have fewer (but vocal) reds who abhor the cities yet control the land, crops and water. Guess who wins when food distribution gets tight? What 4 letter word did Obama use that Romney did not? Liar perhaps?
Posted by: Susan Templeton | November 08, 2012 at 12:41 PM
Fromn Dick Morris who was quite wrong on the toucome. I expect the rhetoric to get ocnsiderably worse, which was my point, not to take political sides. The fact that a negative campaign was a winner says a lot bout the mood of the country.
By focusing on the negative, Obama sacrificed first his personal popularity and then his dignity and presidentiality. No longer was he the hope and the change. He became nothing more than a nasty partisan, throwing epithets at his rival. A president does not let himself be quoted as saying that his opponent is a “bullsh–ter” or that voting is the best “revenge.” Even his dress was wrong. Instead of appearing in a dark suit, he dressed in an open-neck white shirt, trying to be everyman but succeeding only in not looking like a president.
Posted by: Dennis Elam | November 08, 2012 at 02:02 PM