"Conventional" wisdom from the D.C. beltway pundocracy (read: dipshits who have no clue but have all the air time to influence the conversation) should be constantly ridiculed then perpetually ignored.
Keepin' it real:
It wasn't all that long ago that Democrats and liberals were said to be out of touch with "the real America," which was defined as encompassing the states that voted for President Bush in 2004, including the entire South. Democrats seemed to accept this definition of reality, and they struggled -- often looking ridiculous in the process -- to become fluent in NASCAR talk and to discuss religion with the inflections of a white Southern evangelicalism foreign to so many of them.
Now the conventional wisdom sees Republicans in danger of becoming merely a Southern regional party. Isn't it amazing how quickly the supposedly "real America" was transformed into a besieged conservative enclave out of touch with the rest of the country? Now religious moderates and liberals are speaking in their own tongues, and the free-thinking, down-to-earth citizens in the Rocky Mountain states are, in large numbers, fed up with right-wing ideology.
Now, before everyone gets upset and thinks that we are saying all southerners are racists: the data does not say that. But when it comes to conservative white southerners, I'm sorry to say that the evidence is clear. When all is said and done, the thing that separates them from the rest of the nation is racism. All the racial codes, the slick misdirection, even the appeals to homophobia and religion are in some sense directed at this one simple characteristic. And that characteristic is the thing that trumps all the other concerns about economic justice that Democrats persist in believing they can use to persuade white southern males to vote for them. Democrats simply cannot thread that needle.
Schaller does not "write off the south" as so many assume. Indeed, he explicitly endorses Howard Dean's 50 state strategy to build for the future and ensure that Democrats are prepared to step in where opportunities present themselves. What he is saying is it is impossible for Democrats to currently win nationally by trying to appeal to the southern conservative majority, which seems to me to be an obvious point. You can't be all things to all people.
So why, despite all appearances of actually having a national debate right now, do people keep insisting that we mount one?
Perhaps it's because the mainstream media are too timid to declare the difference between right and wrong. Imagine if journalism consisted of more than a collage of conflicting talking points. Imagine the difference it would make if more brand-name reporters broke from the bizarre straitjacket of "balance," which equates fairness with putting all disputants on equal epistemological footing, no matter how deceitful or moronic they may be.
There's a market for news that weighs counterclaims and assesses truth value. It just hasn't kept up with demand. No wonder Jon Stewart has such a loyal audience: He has a point of view, and it's rooted in the reality-based — not the ideology-based — world.
A small airplane apparently took a nose-dive into a tank of raw sewage near Gilroy on Monday afternoon.
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