2014 Midterm Elections

Rise of the paranoid South: How defending against “outsiders” brought the region together

JarretR 18 Comments
Ted Cruz (R-TX) certainly knows that he's an exceptional southerner.

Ted Cruz (R-TX) certainly knows that he’s an exceptional southerner.

My latest post is an article for Salon that explains why the American South continues to be exceptional in its own unique way.

The Civil War ended in 1865. Before the war, it was common parlance in America to speak of two regions: the “North” and the “South,” which were divided, above all else, over the issue of slavery. After the war, however, the idea of the “North” gradually disappeared from American culture, but “The South” as a regional, cultural and ideological construction has lived on.

Read the whole thing over at Salon.

The 2014 Midterms, Old People, and Entitlement: A Manifesto

JarretR 28 Comments
Old white people rally for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012.

Old white people rally for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012.

Well, the 2014 midterm elections are over, and, depending on where you stand politically, they were either a smashing vindication or a mega-blowout. Count me in the latter camp. That’s right, the Republican Party absolutely dominated, expanding their already swollen (and, thanks to their shady gerrymandering of districts), near incontestable dominance of the House and winning control of the Senate. And I couldn’t be more pissed off, and not just because I’m an unabashed liberal (and if you don’t agree with me, too bad, ’cause you’re wrong). No, there’s a bigger story regarding the outcome of the 2014 midterms that is both glaringly obvious and yet still underappreciated: the mind-blowing hypocrisy of old, white American voters.

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The Midterm Elections and the Rural-Urban Divide in U.S. History

JarretR 14 Comments
Walt Curlee, Taking Pumpkins to the Market (). The idea of a "Chick=f=lay+ section of America is really a re-tread of the old agrarian myth.

Walt Curlee, Taking Pumpkins to the Market (2012). The idea of a “Chick-fil-A Country” is really just a re-tread of the old agrarian myth.

Ah, the American press. The third estate. Delivering the hard journalistic facts to an information-starved American public. Okay, so those are the ideals that the more idealistic fools among us would wish upon U.S. journalism. Instead, we have programs like Meet the Press, now hosted by renowned Beltway fluffer Chuck Todd, who, like famed NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby, has two first names. In a recent segment in which he discussed the upcoming 2014 midterm elections, the goeteed sage decided to frame the current political narrative through the lens of that most American of institutions: fast-food. You see, Todd believes that the current liberal-conservative divide in American politics has split the country into a “Starbucks Nation” and a “Chick-Fil-A Country.”

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