Understanding the South Ain't Easy

Ezra Klein takes a brief look at a DailyKos poll that finds what I've known all along: Southerners are a different breed. It's okay. I can say that. I are one. I mean, I is one. I mean, Yes ma'am, I am a southerner. I'm also fairly progressive. But I'm not so clear cut myself.

You see, I'm really somewhere in the middle. I don't believe in government "handouts," but I also don't believe in permitting growing socioeconomic inequities to continue unchecked. I believe that a woman and her doctor are the only two individuals who have the right to determine if an abortion is warranted, but I also believe that abortions are a terrible thing that society in general should try to avoid--just ask most any woman who has had one how pleasant her experience was. I'm consistently pro-life in the sense that I think we should be minimizing the need for abortions, not executing criminals, and putting in place checks on things like guns, drugs, and other "dangerous things" that pose a threat to life.

On many more similarly contentious issues, I have a foot on both sides of the line. Does this mean that I am indecisive? Not at all. It means that I see the world not as black and white, but with varying shades of gray.

No party--at least not one that stands a chance of having a candidate elected to national office--espouses all of my views. So I have to pick and choose. I have to reflect on my values and prioritize my voting issues, and do my best to select the candidate who seems to align most closely with my own positions.

Somewhere along the way, the Republicans convinced the South that they were the official party of Christians. They managed to do this quite convincingly. In fact, they were so convincing that they won election after election on the basis of moral issues, while simultaneously championing economic policies that had the effect of continuing to keep the South impoverished compared to the rest of the country. There's a fine book, What's the Matter with Kansas? that explains this paradoxical triumph.

While I believe firmly in the separation of church and state, I do not think that such a separation is especially warranted in the decision-making of each of us as individuals. I am a Christian, but it became clear to me long ago that the warped version of conservatism being peddled in America did not align well with my faith. The Jesus I know is quite radical, and as Jim Wallis has pointed out repeatedly, was quite outspoken on the issue of caring for the poor, healing the sick, and the like. The phrase "social justice" encapsulates neatly the intersection of my political and religious beliefs. So, if I must accept a party affiliation as a label, it would most likely be the religious left. If that sounds weird to you, it's merely a testament to the excellent job the right has done to brand itself as the party of the faithful.

Now, not all southerners I know are conservatives. There's my Granny, who while possessing some of the strongest faith I've ever known, has been a Democrat since the Depression and the days of FDR. Of course, when I spoke with her recently, she was quick to tell me just how "screwed up all of them are." Then there's my aunt, who has benefited enormously from several government programs, and shows her support by voting for the Democrats who championed those programs.

But there's also my wealthy uncle--also religious--who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the taste of which he has come to like quite a lot. His deeply held--but often wrongheaded--beliefs tend to stem from a lack of understanding of some of the realities that live one county--and even one causeway--over from the place he calls home. He resists the idea of having his wealth redistributed by "big government" to help "lazy" people have a better existence. I think that's fairly natural. It's also why the Bible says "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." We totally dig our stuff.

So, there you have it. Right in my own family tree, I have the full sociopolitical spectrum of the South represented. It's the "Bible Belt" so religion is prevalent, but it's also frequently subject to self-serving human interpretations. Wealth and poverty exist side-by-side and values collide in fascinating ways. What can explain the South's continued faith in the right? Is it morality-driven? I think it must be, because southerners as a whole are far too poor for their support of fiscal conservatism to make much sense at all. How can the religious left begin to reclaim the moral debate in politics? It seems that the South is the last Republican stronghold, so it makes sense that we should begin by understanding the South. Unfortunately, that ain't so easy.
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Comments

[TyneCrescent]

I lived in the south for decades, and you are correct, there is a different, if you can call it this, "mentality" that exists in that part of the country. That is the way life is as they have been taught from birth and see it. Those views have been prevalent since the War, and I guess that part of the country has refused to move on, consciously or subconsciously, after all this time. Just drive through the south and you see more confederate flags on display than you will see American flags. It is the last stronghold of those sensibilities; racism, bigotry, government distrust, and those remnants of the past still exist. For southerners, there is an unwillingness to recognize or even try to understand that perhaps some of the values they hold on to and espouse at all costs, may be to their very own detriment. The views are so ingrained in their mindset, that to even consider anything outside their comfort zone, is unfathomable.

Your honesty and openness is commendable and admirable. I'm just glad I don't live there...

[davism97]

I don't think the south ever recovered from the Civil War. They've been poor and impoverished since reconstruction.

[BlackJAC]

The South's economy was agrarian even before the Civil War, without a blue-water maritime tradition.

[wheresthebeef]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... The day is fast approaching when Abraham Lincoln's salvation of the Union is finally come to be seen as one of the biggest , most expensive and most misguided blunders in American history. The rest of the country would be far better off financially, morally and all ways otherly if he'd just let the South secede. Damn you, Abraham Lincoln!

[BlackJAC]

They'd just be begging for readmission after their policies turned them into the biggest Fifth World hellhole in history thoroughly dependent on foreign aid just to pay for the quashing of their daily food riots.

[adoantarel]

I'm not sure what being from the South has to do with what you said, because I was born in Wisconsin, raised in Southern Florida (which is not southern, my school was half-jewish), went to college in NC (which was rather Southern), and now live in NY. I agree with nearly everything you said.

i think abortions should be legal and we should make it so no one has to have one. I think you should be able to burn a flag, and that no one should do it. I think faith can influence decisions (good or bad, it does) and trying to legislate it completely out is just not possible. People shouldn't languish on government handouts, but people should get help when you get fired so a corporate exec can get a bigger bonus.

[D. Brad Wright - Huffpost Blogger]

The point is that there is some strange association wherein Southerners like to shoot themselves in the foot financially by supporting politicians who claim to support a conservative moral agenda. I think the case you make actually supports the fact that the American people are not nearly as polarized as much of the MSM would have us believe.

My personal experience has been that I was raised in a highly religious, morally conservative environment, and picked up on a lot of that as it shaped my beliefs, but I've also lived and been educated elsewhere, and that has opened my eyes to a lot of things that many of my friends and family back home just don't understand.

[JohnFromCensornati]

"that has opened my eyes to a lot of things that many of my friends and family back home just don't understand."

Do you really believe that your friends and family back home don't understand or do you believe as I do that they *refuse* to understand?

[TryToBeFlexible]

Here is my theory. For the majority of whites in the south, they would rather their own grandmother starve to death than to then a few bucks of the taxes they paid went for food stamps that might have helped out a black family. All flows from this simple example. All the rest is window dressing and dog whistles.

[bokiluis]

You might want to rewrite what you wrote because it is not legible.

[JohnFromCensornati]

It's legible. There are a few typos, but I understood it.

[BlackJAC]

I factor in the feudal mindset of the region, as the South had been Tory territory during the Revolution. The carpetbaggers swooped in after the Civil War and established themselves as the new lords of the manor, and the situation was accepted due to a culture of reflexively kowtowing to authority, especially wealthy authority.

[dpiyjrtmfr]

Except for short stints in the Mid-west and overseas I have lived in the South my whole life. I was born here, all my family is from here and I still do not understand this place.

[bokiluis]

At least you are honest, which doesn't seem to be a trait associated with southerners.

[squarefanatic]

Wow.