red vs. blue

this article really resonated with me.  you should read it.

#1: i was (am?) a middle class rural white kid, and there weren't a lot of other people that fell into that category at duke when i was there.  that part of me identifies with what he's talking about in this article...and if most rural middle class whites are conservatives (which they probably are), they aren't highly represented at selective universities.

#2: this is what my conservative students tell me that they don't like about affirmative action programs in higher education - that it isn't a meritocracy and that they are the ones being excluded.  i'm very okay with higher education not being 100% a meritocracy, but then again, i think i did get into college based on merit, and maybe i'd think otherwise if i hadn't gotten accepted to my top choices and i wanted someone or something to blame.

#3: in my gut, this article makes a lot of sense to me and i like things that make sense.  particularly this line:
"Among the highly educated and liberal, meanwhile, the lack of contact with rural, working-class America generates all sorts of wild anxieties about what’s being plotted in the heartland."
ohmygod yes.  sometimes i find myself defending where i grew up and what it was like - giving the "inside scoop" on living in red america - to blue america.  i get what he's saying.  i agree with what he's saying.

#4: but sometimes i'm a little afraid of the politics of red america.  can you love red america AND be afraid of red america?  and this author?  um, i think he might be a conservative.  AND HE MAKES SENSE.  yikes.  in fact, i've found that i regularly like what he writes for the new york times - he has such a weird, comic-book-guy-from-the-simpsons meets jazzy/really-bad-professional-photographer, and i notice when i'm reading an article written by him.  so rock on ross douthat.  even if you did write a book about how the republicans can rise again.