what many folks -- including many liberals & leftists as well as conservatives -- think of as 'red America' is increasingly the product of a nationalized culture industry (e.g., Fox News, pop evangelicalism) and not the cultural issue of a rustic lifeworld that stands in opposition to market & state
Reposted from
CMF
RE: 'why small-town red America believes what it believes' discourse again, it's worth noting that the political trajectory of white rural America is as much a function of the top-down nationalization of media & political worldview formation as the bottom-up consequences of broad economic changes
Comments
display cultural signifiers not out of anything organic, but because that's what has been SOLD TO THEM as what "country folk/ real Americans should do."
You can add Nashville and Bro Country (aka - "pop music in cowboy hats") to this list.
truck ownership is annoying and expensive
Guys had trucks and listened to country music, but we also recycled and listened to hip hop. We wore Nike and Airwalk, not cowboy boots.
Then Bush v Gore, September 11, and Fox News took over.
Homophobia was still there, and it's moderately better, but that's because people have openly gay family now.
But I'm sure they'd tell me, someone who attends devoutly, that I'm not a Christian because I'm a "lib."
Maybe I was too young and it was always there.
It just feels far more culturally clique-ish than when I was a kid.
Again, maybe I just missed it though.
Not that limited is better, it's just different.
I'm convinced that this is because fellowship requires you to speak your beliefs out loud, and the things they believe are so shameful they can only say them online
I feel this
Its why our local pol will cite to the epoch times but we struggle to find mayoral candidates
Why people will talk about "chiraq" but we are on our 3rd school superintendant and second city manager in so many years
Its local optics shielding for uniform national identity
The GOP has been manufacturing resentment for decades. It is purposeful and coordinated. It has worked so well that they don't even need to campaign on policy anymore.
"Murdoch’s role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia"
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html
"MSM" too:
Helps to remember white kids were still going to "private" school in places like AL to avoid desegregation even into the 90s.
National media, movements, and international events are throwing gas on the fire again.
National media, movements, and international events are throwing gas on the fire again.
National media, movements, and international events are throwing gas on the fire again.
National media, movements, and international events will give them a path to an autocratic "Unitary Executive."
It's very hard to see when you're surrounded by those narratives.