Delusions of Adequacy

From WORLD Mag Blog, this look at the "Retro vs. Metro America" meme by author and all around Smart Guy John Sperling.

The Great Divide is billed as "a blueprint for how the Democratic Party can regain, and maintain, control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives." Mr. Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, believes that conservative voters with traditional values are a millstone around America's neck, one that suppresses excellence in education, science, and the arts, and is bent on crushing "differences in ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation," along with "public education, childcare, and other services needed by working parents." All this while coddling the rich with conspiratorial tax cuts.

Why is that important? Because with few exceptions, Mr. Sperling's "Retro America" consists of the "Red States," all those who voted for George Bush in 2000 -- and he says those citizens are a pack of hyperchurched, flat-earth bigots in need of Democratic enlightenment.

All well and good; us poor benighted Retro social and religious conservatives, with our hideously warped worldviews and our bass-ackwards agenda, will soon be brought, kicking and screaming, into the light by the urbane, educated, intelligent Metros.

That is, if they can find us first.

(If they change the picture, somebody let me know and I'll try to post the one from today, August 24, 2004. It's priceless. Oh, yes, they're so much smarter than us.)

Hat tip to World Mag Blog and commenter Jon S.