Right Bloody Hell

At Samizdata, Brian Micklethwait links Terry Teachout on "The Big Sort":

"But the change in the political landscape goes deeper than that. Today, a voter's decision to support one candidate over another may well have little to do with that candidate's positions on specific issues. It is, rather, an ideological fashion statement, a declaration that one is a certain kind of person, whose tastes on a wide variety of cultural matters can be reliably inferred from his political preferences - and vice-versa. 'If you drive a Volvo and do yoga, you are pretty much a Democrat,' said Ken Mehlman, who managed President Bush's 2004 presidential campaign. 'If you drive a Lincoln or a BMW and you own a gun, you're voting for Bush.'

The now-familiar phrases 'latte liberal' and 'NASCAR conservative' are expressions of this development. .."

You should read both articles.

This is the comment that I left at Samizdata:

I find it almost absurd that "The United States" is a single nation. I traveled a lot as a kid -- Dad being in the Air Force -- and even more as an adult: thirty-one years of rock-show touring means I've seen just about every nook and cranny in fifty states. From here to there and everywhere in this country, the cultural differences among American geographies are often as vivid as anything in Europe, possibly excepting for the language but that's often very remarkable in this context, too.

Think about "The United States". These days, you hear politicians and other mouthy twits rattling on about "unity". Of course, this is part & parcel of the entire socialist theme, but it also has a most unfortunate aspect in its standing in the American political heritage. It's a long-bone in our political lexicon. What's grievously unfortunate is that the only thing about American politics that "united" this country was dying lip-service (known as "the Constitution") to the ideals originally set forth in the Declaration of Independence. It was the essential idea of freedom that was the object of the "union" -- no matter how badly it was served, ever after.

No socialist idea was ever a part of that, and this is the ghastly perversion of the concept of "union" that we face now: the socialists have something in mind that is simply not American. When they talk about "unity", they are not talking about agreement on fidelity to the idea of freedom. They're talking about a hive.

But the word "union" has such a grand American ring to it, doesn't it?

The "sort" is inevitable, I think. This is because of the political dynamics of collectivism. As every individual life becomes more and more subject to cannibal-pot ethics, it becomes more and more necessary to get into the political fight, for sheer survival. In the very nature of things, this means herding: join a gang or get thrown to one.

The essential political conflict of our time is between collectivism and individualism. Very few people can see the thing in those truest terms, and this is why most individuals' practical politics can't be distinguished to precisely one or the other of those two sides: the nice lady who wants free meds doesn't know "socialism" from a tuna sandwich, and the gun-toting farmer usually has only the dimmest concepts of "rights" or the implications of his stand on weapons. They don't know the fullest context or implications of their politics. However, the power of principles does not diminish from ignorance.

Very roughly, the "sort" is taking place along the individualist/collectivist divide. It has all kinds of distortions (for instance: instinctive individualists joining pressure groups -- e.g., NRA) compounded by cultural geography, etc., but I say that what you're really seeing is the last stand of the American idea.

I've said it before: all politics in my country now is dress rehearsal for civil war.

Or: "Politics is war by other means."

The socialists might eventually achieve the "unity" they want. It's going to be right bloody hell -- one way or another -- in doing it.