I’ve been trying to be reasonable and conciliatory in the wake of the GOP victory, but this bit of sarcasm really encapsulates a lot of what I’ve been struggling to suppress in my own thoughts about the people who voted against their own economic self-interest in support of illusory “values.”
Yes, the article is way over the top, but it has a kernel of truth. As much whining as we Blue staters (although Virginia as a whole went Red, my piece of Northern Virginia voted Blue) have been doing lately, we haven’t really taken stock of how much better it is to live here than in the Midwest or South.
Where I live,
[ul]
[li]I can hop on the Metro to the Smithsonian museums to view magnificent art from around the world.[/li]
[li]I can go to Adams Morgan or to Arlington for terrific nightlife, or head down to DC to clubs to see artists you Red staters have not even heard of.[/li]
[li]I live in an area where I can be openly gay with no negative consequences.[/li]
[li]We have bookstores galore here. Real ones, like Politics & Prose and Kramerbooks which has a bar inside, not just the paperback rack at Wal-Mart that you lot are stuck with.[/li]
[li]The DC area has a brighter jobs outlook than the rest of the country.[/li]
[li]We have a plethora of fine restaurants featuring cuisine from every country on Earth.[/li]
[li]We have a constellation of colleges and universities.[/li]
[li]We have vibrant regional theater (oops, sorry, the-AY-tur), and road shows of Broadway productions make DC their first stop.[/li]
[li]You are stuck with a handful of big-budget movies at a crowded multiplex–if your town even has a movie theater. DC has art houses that show the newest foreign and independent films, in addition to the standard Hollywood fare shown at state-of-the art movie theatres with surround sound and stadium seating.[/li]
[li] We can buy outstanding microbrewery beers and wines from around the world.[/li]
[li]And New York City is a 3-hour train trip away–I can add the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chelsea, and Broadway to the list of assets I can tap any time I like.[/li][/ul]
Yeah, I know I’m bragging, but it seems to me that a little boasting is needed to balance out the Red state crowing over their victory. Although I believe that a second Bush administration will be bad for the country overall, it’s going to be good for me personally. I’m leaving the nonprofit sector for government contracting, which a lot more lucrative and easier than the backbreaking jobs the workers of the Red states are stuck in.
And, yeah, you pissed me off by voting for those stupid anti-gay marriage amendments, but all you’ve managed to do is to chase out educated LBGT professionals into the larger cities on both coasts. Thanks! Tell you what, Ohio–we’ll take your gay lawyers, entrepreneurs, and software engineers who could have helped renew your fractured economies, and you can keep your ministers and blue-collar jobs. Gay people have renewed decayed neighborhoods into blooming health–we’ve done wonders for the U Street and Columbia Heights neghborhoods in DC. You could have had that, too, but, oh, well. Your loss is our gain.
One of these days, the poor workers who’ve voted “values” will realize that health care, decent jobs, and clean air and water are more important values than what other people do in their bedrooms.
