“Pleb” or maybe “Plebianist”?
And of course Palin, talking about how she likes to visit the “pro-America areas” of the country.
All this shit brings this (in)famous picture to mind.
Lowest common denominator ? Rabble ? Bottom of the barrel ? Losers ?
Populist?
That is choice.
This is the pit, so I’ll say I am mother fucking sick of having my patriotism questioned every election. Especially by power-mad yahoos - and I mean that in the most Swifitan sense - like these. I am a real American. I pay my taxes, I vote, and I have never sold the Constitution down the river just so I could stay in office. I usually disagree with conservatives, but I know many honorable ones IRL and on this board. Of course, none of them are professional politicians.
Back to the Northern VA versus the Rest of VA split (“NoVA vs. RoVA”). When I moved to NoVA 19 years ago, it was the City of Alexandria, Arlington County, and parts of Fairfax County. Now it’s expanded to all of Fairfax, and the neighboring counties of Loudon, Prince William, and parts of Faquier and Stafford. NoVA’s economy is driving the expansion, and in a few years NoVA will probably include Richmond - it’s already at least halfway there.
My point is that, whether VA goes Dem in this election or not, in not too many years RoVA will be NoVA, and pols with something to sell will have to come up with a new line of bullshit.
“Inverted snob” or “reverse snob”:
I think these work better than “populist”, because a populist is just someone who supports or identifies with ordinary people, while a reverse snob explicitly looks down on people categorized as some kind of elite.
Wait, there’s a New Mexico?! What happened to the Old Mexico? Did some gigantic lizard come and destroy it irreparably?!.. Oh wait, that was Tokyo, and it wasn’t real, sorry…
But yea, as for the comment about NoVa not being real Virginia, it was an attack on Liberals, because people who think differently than you aren’t real americans, they’re all terrorists and should be waterboarded until they give up the names of their parents and liberal universities, or something… We can’t have intelligent debate in a country based on multiple cultures and multiple values, it’s think like a conservative protestant or be wrong!
Low-brow? No-brow?
I can promise you that Richmond will never be a part of NoVA. I have lived in Richmond for my entire adult life and can tell you that the vast majority of Richmonders despise Northern VA with a passion. Richmond contains many people from other rural parts of the state who come here for work. It is still a mostly conservative city (all of the Richmond suburb counties, with the majority of the “Richmond” population will go for Mccain, while Richmond City may go for Obama).
Almost everyone I know loves living in Richmond as well, it has all the amenities of a big city, but a laid back attitude among the population and a friendliness to its residents. NoVA is seen as a traffic-congested, high cost of living hell where your soul goes to die. I recently turned down a job paying $140k base with $35k signing bonus just outside of DC, to keep my current $60K a year job in Richmond, and it was a no-brainer. Everyone I know who has moved up there from Richmond due to what they thought were great high paying job offers have either moved back or hate it. The people I know who love NoVA are almost always from there originally or transplants from Philly, NYC, etc.
It would not surprise me to see VA go for Obama this year, going democratic for the 1st time since 1964 which would be almost entirely due to the votes from NoVA and the Tidewater area.
This is a picture I like to show smug yankees when they get on their high horse about Southern racism.
Please note that I don’t care about the Civil War.
Obama’s campaign really ought to publicize these remarks more. Nancy (Idliketoputa) Pfootinherass is essentially answering the question that Chris Mathews put to Michele Bachman the other day: Can you tell us who these anti-Americans are? Her answer is: the people who live in urban areas, who live less than fifty miles from each coast, the people who hold college degrees, people whose coloring is off-white or worse, people who believe in religions other than traditional Christianity-- dead giveaways like that.
She–and Palin and Bachman, all speaking openly for McCain–have IDed themselves as dividers, not uniters, again more or less openly. This should be a major theme of Obama’s campaign over the next few weeks.
I like Richmond, too. I did not mean to imply that NoVA assimilating RoVA into the Traffic Jam Collective™ is a good thing - it isn’t. It is a trend that’s continuing. Housing prices in Fairfax are insane and out of reach, so people move south and west to Loudon and Prince William. That drives housing prices to insane levels so people move south and west … lather, rinse, repeat.
In my bloviating, I did not consider limiting factors: a booming economy, cheap transportation, and the willingness of people to sit in cars/trains/buses/van pools (or combinations of them!) for indefinite periods of time.
For Dopers outside of the Greater DC Metropolitan Area parking lot, the job decision Nothar made was not only a good choice for his sanity, but (without running the numbers) I’m sure it was economically rational as well. I like NoVA - there are a lot of services and things to do, and the Fairfax County schools are great - but it is not affordable, and travel usually stinks on ice. My office is a 30 minute drive from my house. Or, at random times, two hours. :rolleyes: No wonder my soul died. 
Back to the McCain campaign - I think this City/Suburban = Fake Americans and Rural = Real Americans crap may not work in an environment when everyone is on shaky economic ground. Also, since most of the population is in the cities and suburbs, a candidate does not want to only have rural support if he wants to win.
We’ll see how it comes together two weeks from Tuesday.
Try the world.
I had international students tell me in college that they felt weird going to a school in New York because “the whole state is one big city.”
When I explained that if they just drove about five miles away from campus and then they’re be nothing but trees and farmland for hours they looked at me like I was making it up.
According to this Washington Post online article Obama said on the campaing trail today in North Carolina “There are no real or fake parts of this country. We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this country. We all love this country, no matter where we live or where we come from.”
Thank you! That is how you appeal to people who might vote for you.
Yeah, Rochester’s possibly the least weirdly-laid-out city I’ve seen: Inner city core surrounded by high-density residential surrounded by suburbs surrounded by farmland.
The Powell endorsement of Obama is being debated elsewhere, and I don’t mean to inject that debate into this thread. I did, however, especially like one of Powell’s statements:
I’m really glad he said that. It will, of course, fall on deaf ears for the most part. But it was nice to hear someone say it.
Demagogue: a person, esp. an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.
I was born in Northeastern New Jersey, and I’d have to say that that statement is perfectly accurate.
May I steal a paraphrased version of this?