revenge of the red states

People have been pointing out that former slave-owning states are "red" states and the abolitionist states are "blue" states -- sending around a map meant to fan our outrage at red staters.

But let's not forget that the blue states, with the exception of the Upper MidWest are almost all states that profited from Hi Tech -- from Silicon Valley to Silicon Alley, tech revived the ailing states of Massachussetts, Oregon and Washington, which was known when I was growing up for ruined factories and angry Red Sox fans and even angrier lumberjacks (respectively).

In the 1980s and 90s, the Dems, who having traditionally represented the interests of the working people against the Republicans, began to favor the new money of telecom and hi tech -- the urban and working poor, the middle class were in effect abandoned by the one party that throughout the past century put the brakes on the accumulation of wealth by overseeing a redistribution of wealth through taxes and government programs. But both Carter and increasingly Clinton, served the interests of a new constituency -- a high tech, media, and advertising elite -- whose fortunes were carved out of silicon rather than coal, oil or railroads.

In this climate, the Dems have focused on what Kevin Phillips in his book Wealth and Democracy calls, after Jeffrey Berry in The New Liberalism postmaterialist "quality of life" interests-- Abortion rights, Gay marriage, Gays in the Military, giving up the ground of economic outrage that fueled progressive insurgencies against the Money Power - to whom? to Ralgh Nader, perhaps. Postmaterialism was according to Phillips, both "premature and exaggerated" --

Is it a case of poor red staters cutting off their noses too spite their faces? Yes, but it is revenge by any other name as well and it is fueled by a class war in which we are all held hostage to big money.