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Notes -
Good post, and I’m sympathetic with the conclusions. Part of why I think American cultural polarisation is so damaging is that both tribes desperately need each other, all the more so now given that political polarisation is on urban/rural lines rather than northern/southern or other contiguous geographical ones.
Red tribers sometimes like to portray themselves as doing the “real work” of America, while Blue tribers are sometimes wont to portray most of the US outside the major metropolitan areas as sad, economically stagnant, and in decline. Of course the truth is somewhere in the middle, with urban areas concretely dependent on rural areas for things like food and fuel, and rural areas dependent on urban areas for things like finance, communications, and media. I’d like to hope that things like your suggestions — energy strikes, police strikes, transport strikes — could help get convey that fragile interdependence to more Blue Tribe folks.
Also, I do think it’s still vitally important for the Red Tribe to maintain at least some representation in elite spaces like academia and highbrow media. Every mass movement needs its intellectuals, wonks, and diplomats, and you don’t get to ignore the realities of cognitive elite power simply by calling yourself an anti-elitist movement. Moreover, it seems to me — as an academic who’s flitted between a variety of institutions — that there’s a vast difference between 5% conservative and 10% conservative institutions. In the latter, a small set of people are comfortable being openly conservative, and can voice conservative talking points at meetings and lectures (even if they don’t get invited to as many cool parties). By contrast, in 5% institutions, conservatives basically live underground; they don’t have the critical mass to be accepted as a legitimate dissident community. So I think keeping that narrow corridor of elite conservatism open is critical for mutual understanding and acceptance.
Technology, logistics, military too! That severely understates the dependence (also, the 'rural' population of america is ~ 15% iirc, rest is urban + suburban).
Although, does a WFH stripe employee living in the woods count as 'rural' here?
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