The Guardian: If progressives can win in Utah, they can win anywhere

[Gasping4Truth]

Following a concert at the Salt Lake City international jazz festival in July the city's mayor, Rocky Anderson, took some musicians and visiting mayors out for dinner. Some of them had beer; Anderson paid some of the bill.

But cities like Salt Lake offer a few lessons beyond political demography. First, they show that the tendency for coastal liberals to write off as rednecks those who live in "fly-over states" is not just patronising and counterproductive - it is flawed in fact.

Second, they suggest the understanding of the US as a nation riven by a binary divide between Democrats and Republicans is in desperate need of nuance. Not that there isn't some truth to it. But because that truth is limited to the very narrow field of party allegiance rather than the broader sense of how people understand their lives and their politics. Gena Edvalson, a lesbian whose partner Jana is pregnant, says her neighbours in Salt Lake City couldn't be nicer. "They're going to have a baby shower for us," she says. "But that won't stop them from legislating the hell out of us." That is depressing (two-thirds of Utahns voted for a gay marriage ban in November). But it also suggests potential.

Which brings us to the third, and most important, lesson. If those coastal liberals decided to drop in rather than fly over once in a while they might actually learn something. Rather than duck tough issues because of the hostile political environment, progressives here have tried to reframe them in a way that resonates with potential allies. "We don't talk about gay liberation in Utah," says Anderson. "We talk about healthy families and strong communities and say that in the most intimate aspects of our lives the government ought to butt out. You have to stand up even at the risk of losing races - some things are more important than winning a race."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1583319,00.html

[Demeter]

1. You Would Have To Have Some Kind Of Mental Disconnect

to live in a state that wants to do you personal and permanent political or social harm and intentionally works hard for it, no matter how nice they are to your face. Hpocrisy, my friends, is no basis for a friendship, a job, or a society.

That is why Bush is hated. That is why those that hate Bush cannot fathom what was going through the minds of the Clinton-haters. Clinton (until recently) never did any intentional harm to any American, not even an insult. He made the voters healtier, wealthier, and safer than they had been in at least 12 and probably more like 40 years. And yet the Clinton-haters tried to destroy him, his wife, his daughter, and anyone who was a public servant in his Administration, and put this psychotic despot in charge, because "he's a nice guy" "God ordained him" "He's not Clinton".

Idiocy is no basis for a democracy, either.