No Southerners in Obama's Cabinet

[Beet]

H. Clinton grew up in Illinois; she's only fractionally southern. Frankly I would not count her. Bill, on the other hand...

[Beet]

Despite what States says, Maryland is not really part of the south. The state's center of gravity is Baltimore, which has always shared more similarities with rust belt cities than southern cities. Besides, the state has a Catholic plurality, a true southern state, unless it's flooded with Hispanics like Texas, should have a Baptist plurality

[Beet]

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Yes, I suppose so, you're commenting on how futile it is to try and define region by culture. Point taken. Still, if Maryland is south, and Miami is south, and Southern Illinois is south, then the term 'south' has lost its meaning. It means nothing. It is just a geographic entity. No distinctive accent, heritage, or political uniformity holds it together anymore. And what kind of south is that? We need someplace to stereotype and feel superior to...

[Beet]

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True, but the reason that no one cares that there isn't a cabinet member from Iowa, or between xx degrees longitude and yy degrees latitude, and so on, is that it's purely geographical. There may not be a Cabinet member from Iowa, but there is from South Dakota, and there are from Illinois, and they are all in the Midwest. And what you're saying here is purely geographical. The reason that someone might care that there is southern representation on the cabinet is cultural. It's a cultural issue we're speaking of, not a geographical issue.

Geographically, the regions don't make any sense. New Mexico is in the south, but it is not in "the South." New England is too small to be a real subdivision. And so on and so on. Basically the regions were defined to reflect cultural stereotypes underlying them, but sometimes that means the literal definition is imperfect.

And in practice, that is how the term 'South' is used. Most people associate the South, or want to associate the South, with a particular culture, heritage, and political uniformity. It's "southern drawl, southern accent" not "bible belt drawl, bible belt accent". Neil Young didn't write the song "Bible Belt Man" he wrote "Southern Man", even though the song doesn't have a lot to do with geography. It's "Southern belle" not "Bible belt belle", and so on and so on. What I was saying without using the term Bible Belt explicitly was that the cultural South is synonymous with the Bible Belt. You are correct about the strict definition of South, but my point is that the strict definition simply doesn't incite the kind of connotations and emotions as the Bible Belt definition does, which is what comes to most people's minds when the South is brought up:

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I agree.

[Beet]

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I was being facetious there, angus. But really, feeling superior to someone else is a Republican thing, so it is no surprise that so many Northerners here feel that way. I'm sure just as many Southerners feel victimized (see Gone With the Wind, etc.), and that's a Democratic thing. So in some respects, the old order still lives.

But my point that a Democrat has emerged--for the first time in my lifetime, and probably since before my lifetime began--with no southerner on his cabinet is interesting.  Not because you are now somehow no longer allowed to feel superior to some of his cabinet members, and not because some Southerners may have had their feelings hurt (and yes, some will.  As I said, I learned first hand how fiercely territorial they can be).  But precisely because it represents a break with the former political alliances and former status quo.  Sure, bigotries will still be there.  I would like to think we're past all that.  After all, we elected a negro didn't we?  But regional and religious bigotry still exists.  And in the past weeks we have seen evidence that so does ethnic and racial bigotry.  Although the latter is less harmful because in today's climate it goes punished by ostracism.  Wouldn't you agree?  But the regional and religious bigotries coming out in this thread are quite shocking.  Not existentially, but in the fact that we somehow accept them as proper manifestations of an enlightened society.

True... and perhaps the thing I was describing in my last post is a part of the problem; the tendency to associate region automatically with culture and stereotype. The notion that all southerners are "gun-totin, redneck, bible thumpers" or that all "gun-totin, redneck bible thumpers" share the politics and persona of George W. Bush.

Really, it's interesting that the South doesn't hold more romantic appeal for leftists. After all, this is the region that gave us our first non-aristocrat President, it is home of most poors and most minorities, and spokespersons for Southern culture often label themselves for the common man more often than any other region.

[Beet]

... After all, this is the region that gave us our first non-aristocrat President ...

Who are you referring to? 

Andrew Jackson.

Huh.  I guess it must depend on your definition of 'non-aristocrat' because I don't see it. 

Surely at some point in your superior yankee education you learned at least a tiny morsel of American history.

I'll grant that Jackson came from lower circumstances than any previous President, but John Adams was hardly an aristocrat by birth.  If one is going to count Adams as an aristocrat because of how far his circumstances had risen before obtaining the office of president, then Jackson was one too, indeed he was even more of an aristocrat than John Adams had ever been.

Economically the Adamses were not in the elite, but his parents were descended from the original 'founding families' from the 1630s by blood lineage, and Congregationalist Puritans. It was surely this background that afforded him his Harvard education.

[Beet]

Let the northerners babble. Chicago is the new capital of corruption. New York has been hit by a "financial weapon of mass destruction." And the name 'Motown' is nothing but a cruel joke. Their region will be decimated in the next census... once again.