Dichotomies

Crooked Timber's Chris Bertram points out that the inheritors of the American dream are the Democrats. All the things that people admire about the US, and which Americans quite rightly point to as national achievements, came from states which backed John Kerry:

- The thirteen original states that brought us the Constitution voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry.
- The states that didn’t secede and which fought against slavery voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry.
- Black America which brought us in Martin Luther King, one of the greatest moral exemplars of modern times as well as the blues, jazz and soul voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry.
- California, home of the modern motion picture industry, voted for Kerry.

What'd the "red states" give us, by contrast?

• The states which seceeded from the Union to protect the "right" of men to own other men voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush.
• The states which opposed civil rights and gave us the Ku Klux Klan voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush.
• The states which voted for bigotry and rejected any legal recognition of gay couples voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush.

In short: slavery, bigotry, and hate. The contrast couldn't be any greater.

Also on Crooked Timber: Kieran Healy has some interesting maps of voter distribution. While by counties, it looks as if you can see the red/blue split from space (basically coming down to urban cosmpolitans vs rural hicks), a continuous distribution which colours counties with a mix of red and blue depending on the proportions of Republicans and Democrats shows that the picture isn't quite that clear-cut...