# Where is the conservative outrage on McCain/Palin's geographic warfare? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922 "2008-10-21T18:36:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/61 "2008-10-21T21:22:02Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Because “loving one’s country” doesn’t really have measurable metrics. > > “Valuing education” suggests … getting education. That’s a pretty big inference. I could just as validly say that courage or patriotism means serving your country in uniform. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/62 "2008-10-21T21:23:15Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I saw the Police in concert in 1983. Twice, in fact – once in DC, once in Pittscurgh. Their opening band was the Go-Gos. > > Belinda Carlisle told the Pittsburgh crowd they were the best audience they’d played for, > > And then the next night in DC, she said the same thing. > > Now, it’s possible she truly meant that the Pittsburghers were the tour highlights up 'til that night, and then DC topped even that standard the next night. > > I find it infinitely more likely that she just said that at every concert, though. > > And I didn’t feel she meant to “inextricably contain the connotation” that everywhere else had audiences that sucked. > > But to the extent that Palin meant, seriously, that other places were anti-American, fake American, or otherwise undesirable, I agree it’s a negative message and should not be applauded. I don’t get that sense from what she said, but if it’s what she meant, I condemn it. > > Except for, oddly enough, Pittsburgh, because that city really does suck. 😃 I’d argue that the reaction of the audience is important, though. When a band or artist proclaims this gig is the best one they’ve done, the audience is great, tip the waitress etc., as you point out you’re not expecting them to mean it. When Belinda Carlisle calls Pittsburgh the greatest audience, it isn’t on the expectation that the audience are going to take that to heart, and that newspaper articles will be written the next day talking about how her audience preferences have now been made known for all time. She knows it’s crap, the audience (generally) knows its crap, but it’s said anyway because it’s a nice deception. To the contrary, I think it would not be unfair to suggest that the comments made in this case were not being made as a polite fiction, but to appeal to those people who genuinely believe in such sentiments. That the sentiments may indeed be as false as those espoused by Carlisle, but the expection is that the audience will take up those views, assume them to be true, and be greatly impressed or flattered. I think that’s a pretty significant difference; it’s not just whether the person concerned means it or not, but whether the audience believes them or not, and the person’s view on the audience’s credularity. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/63 "2008-10-21T21:23:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Because “loving one’s country” doesn’t really have measurable metrics. > > “Valuing education” suggests … getting education. I disagree. “Loving one’s country” is frequently and convincingly reduced to wearing flag-pin lapels, supporting questionable legislation, enduring the TSA, and being uncomfortable with Muslims in prominent national offices. You “love your country” if your political preferences are consistent with a set of rules handed down by the self-proclaimed arbiters of such things. We all know who they are. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/64 "2008-10-21T21:24:46Z")
I think the analogy between Palin’s comments and Wall St/Main St is false. Because an individual can be in both Streets; Maeglin may spend his days doing the bidding of Wall Street; but he goes home at night (presumably) and becomes a member of Main Street. But an individual can’t be included in both pro-America small town, and anti-America big city. It was an inherently divisive comment. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/65 "2008-10-21T21:28:45Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > I think the analogy between Palin’s comments and Wall St/Main St is false. Because an individual can be in both Streets; Maeglin may spend his days doing the bidding of Wall Street; but he goes home at night (presumably) and becomes a member of Main Street. > > But an individual can’t be included in both pro-America small town, and anti-America big city. It was an inherently divisive comment. They weren’t meant to be equivalent. That aside, my main street _is_ Wall Street. Finance delivers one quarter of the payroll in this city. When people get laid off and bonuses stop getting paid, my town finds itself billions of dollars in the hole. Everyone from the shoeshine guy to my coffee stand guy to local restaurants go out of business. Matters are so serious that our mayor is challenging term limits laws so he can stay in the game for another term. This isn’t just a corporate implosion: this is having a material affect on the place where I live. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/66 "2008-10-21T21:32:08Z")
The phrasing “…these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America…” rules out any attempt to benignly interpret the phrase as mere puffery. It explicitly declares that the “pockets” of “real America” are islands surrounded by a sea of fake un-America. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/67 "2008-10-21T21:48:51Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > It is an insult to city dwellers. It is a special insult to New Yorkers who actually took a terrorist hit. Try telling them 9/12 they weren’t patriotic. Yeah, back then, “we [were] all New Yorkers” for about a month there, until the Yankees made the Series. 😉 So call this kind of rhetoric all the names it deserves, but as far as I’m concerned - having been born in the city and raised in the suburbs before I moved back here - taking it really seriously, getting outraged, calling it treason… that isn’t necessary. Sarah Vowell was right on, but I think New Yorkers are accustomed to dismissing this kind of provincial palaver. > [@](#): > > They will do anything to win. So it’s only fitting that this is part of the reason they’re going to lose. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/68 "2008-10-21T22:08:50Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It is vaguely reminiscent, although from the other perspective, of the flap over people in economically depressed areas who cling to God and guns. The differences are that Obama said that only once, in a semi-private setting, his supporters all distances themselves from that remark, and he wasn’t demonizing them but arguing that they are misdirecting their resentments (towards gun-grabbers and secularists). But the irony here is that what Sarah Palin et al are in effect saying is that people who don’t cling to guns and religion are not Real Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/69 "2008-10-21T22:12:21Z")
Meanwhile, [Palin has apologized for the remarks](http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/21/palin.sitroom/index.html), saying she didn’t mean to suggest anyone was unpatriotic without saying what she actually meant, which is a classic feature of the non-apology apology. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/70 "2008-10-21T22:14:25Z")
> [@LilShieste](#): > > The difference is that you can be “second best”, or something other than “the best”, without necessarily being “the worst”. The implication of calling one group of people “true americans” is that the other group consists of “fake americans”. This is an especially apt analysis when the McCain also explicitly using campaign rhetoric that talks about anti-Americans, liberals and terrorists all in the same breath. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/71 "2008-10-22T01:07:13Z")
McCain said today that Western Pennsylvania is “the most patriotic, most God-loving, most patriotic part of America [sic].” ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/72 "2008-10-22T01:21:36Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > McCain said today that Western Pennsylvania is “the most patriotic, most God-loving, most patriotic part of America [sic].” And tomorrow he’ll say that southern Indiana (or wherever) is. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/73 "2008-10-22T01:25:32Z")
> [@Captain Carrot](#): > > And tomorrow he’ll say that southern Indiana (or wherever) is. Maybe. But he won’t ever say it in Miami, or Cleveland, or Philadelphia. There is a line between meaningless praise of the place you are—“We love you Cleveland!”—and intentionally divisive rhetoric intended to paint parts of the country, other Americans, as unpatriotic, evil, fake Americans. I think McCain/Palin have clearly crossed that line. Partly, as others have suggested, by the mere context of their remarks (the context of their wider culture war narrative and the political context generally). And partly by their content. Perhaps not in any particular comment, but in the sum total of this rhetorical strategy they’ve employed and only employ when they are in particular regions. False divisions are harmful. They engender hate. We could use a lot less hate. . ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/74 "2008-10-22T01:33:40Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Maybe. But he won’t ever say it in Miami, or Cleveland, or Philadelphia. Not to mention San Francisco. This is exactly why I don’t treat these comments as “just playing the crowd”. They _really are_ selective, implying that the speaker actually believes the statement _to some extent_. And while I might not care whether or not Palin/McCain/whoever thinks my city is the greatest one around, I certainly do care if they think I’m actually less american than some other american. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/75 "2008-10-22T13:45:00Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > The differences are that Obama said that only once, in a semi-private setting… [No, and no, respectively.](http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/11/obama-draws-fire-for-comments-on-small-town-america/) _:shrugs:_ IOKIADDI, as ever. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/76 "2008-10-22T14:05:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > _:shrugs:_ > > IOKIADDI, as ever. I seem to recall a rather large stink being made over Obama’s comments. I have seen nowhere near the groundswell of outrage against Palin over her comments as there was for Obama. So more appropriately: IOKIARDI, as ever. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/77 "2008-10-22T14:06:56Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > [No, and no, respectively.](http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/11/obama-draws-fire-for-comments-on-small-town-america/) > > _:shrugs:_ > > IOKIADDI, as ever. > > Regards, > Shodan Are you kidding? He did say it once in a small gathering of wealthy CA donors, as your linked FOX piece suggests. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/78 "2008-10-22T14:23:18Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Are you kidding? He did say it once in a small gathering of wealthy CA donors, as your linked FOX piece suggests. You might want read the cite. > [@](#): > > Obama directly addressed the growing furor Friday at a campaign stop in Indiana A campaign stop isn’t a small gathering of donors, Indiana isn’t California, and two is a different number than one. Apart from that… Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/79 "2008-10-22T14:28:19Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You might want read the cite.A campaign stop isn’t a small gathering of donors, Indiana isn’t California, and two is a different number than one. And at the campaign stop in Indiana, he did not say what he said to the CA donors. Apart from that, you’re still wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922/80 "2008-10-22T14:40:00Z")
> [@Merkwurdigliebe](#): > > You know, I’ve lived in both “pro-America” and “anti-America” and I’m pretty offended by this shit. I think it’s insulting and borderline McCarthyism. > > In the spirit of complete openness I think it’s only fair to admit that we here in the large urban areas, do look differently at those in the smaller towns and rural areas. But honestly, this is only really prevalent in the largest of cities in the us like NYC and LA and SF, etc. I doubt you find this smugness in smaller cities. But people in the cities who look at people in the countryside as unsophisticated, don’t see them as un-American. > > Now again, **I can see why it is natural for those in the countryside to feel inadequate of us big-city folks and our big-city ways.** We can sure be smug about it and snooty as hell (I try not to be). And normally this kind of stuff manifests itself through the normal **bigotry against “city-folk”** that has been caried out in real life and in film for decades. I grew up in a small town and was able to feel the palpable resistance to such folk the rare occasions that we did encounter them. I knew a guy who went up and lived in Boston and came back talking about all kinds of strange things, and he was roundly ridiculed behind his back. bolding mine. That right there is a HUGE indication, imo, of the root of this problem. I grew up in Great Falls Montana. Palin would probably feel right at home there. Then I moved to Sacramento, and all the “big-city folks” wondered where my country accent was (I didn’t have one. Never have.) Then I moved back to Montana, to a smaller town called Choteau, where Palin would probably be crowned Homecoming queen, Mayor and Queen for life on the day of her arrival. So I’ve seen both sides. And yes, there is a difference between urban larger city life, and the lifestyle of rural America. That can’t be denied. But the problem is up there, in bold print. > [@](#): > > **I can see why it is natural for those in the countryside to feel inadequate of us big-city folks and our big-city ways.** This may come as a surprise, but most small town folk don’t feel inadequate at all. They are just folk, same as someone from LA, or Chicago. Small town people are aware of the differences, sure, but they don’t feel inadequate. To think that they automatically would or do feeds into the Palin-esque thought process from the other side. Nobody (at least on this board) would be said to feel inadequate for not knowing how to strip and clean a rifle, or field dress a deer. Or knowing by heart when Deer Season opens in their county. But folks from Choteau would, and do. I’m not sure what it is I’m trying to say here, other than to point out that it’s easy to get indignant, but that the thought process of the “Two America’s” is so ingrained that it’s easy to miss if you are to close to it. Ok, off to get coffee, and see if that made sense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-the-conservative-outrage-on-mccain-palins-geographic-warfare/468922.md?page=5)