AOL Journals guru John Scalzi linked to this post in the Anne's Life Journal by hawnsmith. She's using the Howard Dean/Confederate flag story to toss out a standard piece of Southern Republican whining:
<< Howard Dean termed us as folks who have a Confederate flag on our trucks. It is so condescending and that is the heart of the problem. It's all condescending! They want our votes, but they throw around terms like "Bible Belt," "The Billy Vote," "Coon Hounds and guns." They sneer at our support of republican Presidents and tell us we are naive. They toss off the court battle over the Ten Commandments as reactionary and they bash us because we don't have the politically correct attitude towards abortions and gay marriage. >>
First, to say the obvious: It's clear from this and other posts that hawnsmith is much closer to the Republicans than the Democrats politically. She's whining about Dean's remark as being condescending to Southerners. But it's the Republican Party that has actively cozied up to the neo-Confederate crowd, not the Democrats.
Trent Lott, Bob Barr, Mississippi's Governor-elect Haley Barbour, have all been willing to publicly associate themselves with the racist, anti-Semitic "Council of Conservative Citizens." If Dean's remark represents condescension, what does it mean that the Republicans think the way to court Southern white votes is to publicly kiss up to racial hate groups?
For what it's worth, the term "Bible Belt" has been in use for decades, and is often used descriptively with no negative connotation. I've never heard a politician use the other two terms she mentioned. I have no idea what a "Billy Vote" would be.
I especially like the complaint that the Democrats "sneer at our support of republican Presidents and tell us we are naive." Uh, two-party system, Democrats and Republicans, different parties. You expect the Democrats to stop "condescending" to you by - encouraging you to vote Republican?!? The Democrats may be a little slow at times. But most of them aren't quite that out of it!
3 comments:
Bruce, I think you missed my point, but you demonstrated it magnificently. BTY, "Billy (Carter) vote."
Oops, that's "BTW"
Thanks for responding, Hawnsmith. Maybe you'll elaborate on the point in a Journal post. I would have guessed "Billlly vote" meant "hillbilly." But I haven't heard politicians use it. I thought Dean's comment was not so much condenscending as clueless. The people who decorate their pickups with Confederate flags generally vote for the same candidates as the country-club Republicans, even though the latter would regard a Confederate flag on the car as way too low-class for them. - Bruce
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