"voting republican is mainstream"

[DougieZero]

I have to give credit to the right-wing pundits... they use buzzwords like "mainstream America", "middle America" and "elitist" very effectively. There was the usual gay debate on talk radio here in my hometown and the host keeps using the phrase... "What would the HEARTLAND think about this".

How come anyone left of Joe Liberman is a "communist" and the entire south voting Republican is so called mainstream... Where and how did we lose so much ground? If you are in politics, being a northerner is a bad thing? John Kerry is millionare, but so is Bush. Just because Bush wears cowboy boots on the weekend during his photo-ops dosen't make him 'regular folk'.

[aden_nak]

1. No, MARKETING makes him "Regular Folk".

[Cats Against Frist]

2. This is where the electoral college bias is a problem

The "heartland," "middle america," etc., is rural. I've always read that the electoral college favors the less populous and rural states -- coincidentally very Republican states. That big stripe of red that you see is actually extra-proportional, or something.

Add this to the fact that while I lived in Seattle, directly across the street from me was a family with three monster trucks and a semi -- every one sporting a confederate flag, in the window.

"Heartland" isn't just the country.

It is really amazing thought how, as you put it, "they've made everyone left of Joe Liberman" a communist. I think they have more media outlets to preach their hate, for one. For another, they just pick the same bull and keep repeating it OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

For another, "heartland," "middle america," etc., is code for "white, patriarchal, protestant conservative," -- I think all this stuff is thinly veiled racism, cultural supremacy and "other" denigrating. It's not a reference to a geographic region so much as a particularly cultural state of mind -- one that fears a multicultural society, equal rights, and divergent viewpoints.