Struggle Began Immediately

1790 Began A Clash to control Federal Institutions:
Congress, White House, Courts, Military.
The aim was to control America's developing
Democratic Federalist Capitalist Republic.
They wanted their own parochial image of
an appropriate nation of United States.
 

This clash between shifting coalitions
was headed by of Two Ethno Regional Nations,
the Deep South vs. Yankeedom.
Each sought alliances with similar minded nations.
In actuality, most other nations
would split in the direction of self interest.

1840 began the most lasting alliance,
between the Left Coast and Yankeedom.
They hoped to direct the nations
toward their Crusading Utopian Agenda
to be supported by efficient government.

Yankeedom Alliance
Wins After the Civil War

1877 - 1897
These two nations dominated the federal
government with the tacit assistance of their
Civil War Allies in the Midlands and their
colonial minions in the Far West.

A Wall of Tariffs Protected their Infant Industries
at the Expense of Deep South.
Much of the resulting revenue surplus went to finance
Civil War Pensions for the
 Veterans, Widows, and Children of
 Yankeedom, Midlands, and Far West.
Rebels Need Not Apply!

Tidewater and Deep Southern Oligarchic
 were limited when Congress tried to protected poor
White and Blacks voters with an1890 Force Bill.
It provided federal review and military intervention
 in disputed federal elections.
The bill was defeated by Dixie and
 its occasional ally, the New Netherland.
Their corrupt Tammany Hall Oligarchs
feared their constitutes
would be less malleable by the Force Bill.

New Netherlands Finally
Completes Costal Alliance

New Netherlands had an international econom
y which benefited from low tariffs.
With few Civil War veterans, there was little reason to
spend political capital on Civil War veterans pensions.
Eventually this complex urban center had a need for an
 effective government to help pay for massive infrastructure.
Big, high tax government was their need.
The resulting 3 nation dominated 21st Century Politics.

Editor's Note: Over time, the political landscape
can be divided into rural vs. urban with
gerrymandering becoming a refinement in our.
Time will tell if the divide can be extended
 to uneducated vs. educated.

The 2011 Elections, the Tea Party, and the American Nations

In  the current issue of the magazine, I argue that the United States really comprises eleven distinct regional cultures or nations, each with their own founding ideals, values, and intents, and that the Tea Party movement is doomed to failure in three of the most powerful of them. (For more on this thesis, don’t hesitate to read my new book.)

As I wrote in the issue, the United States is composed of multiple regions. They include:

Yankeedom, which has put great emphasis on perfecting earthly society through social engineering, individual self-denial for the common good, and the aggressive assimilation of outsiders.

The Midlands, which spawned the culture of Middle America and the Heartland, where ethnic and ideological purity have never been a priority, government has been seen as an unwelcome intrusion, and political opinion has been moderate, even apathetic.

The Deep South has been a bastion of white supremacy, aristocratic privilege, and a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was the privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. Its slave and caste systems smashed by outside intervention, it continues to fight for rollbacks of federal power, taxes on capital and the wealthy, and environmental, labor, and consumer safety protections' Reconstruction and, especially, the upheavals of the 1960s, it has been in alliance with the Deep South in an effort to undo the federal government’s ability to overrule local preferences.

Appalachia, in contrast, transplanted a culture formed in a state of near-constant warfare and upheaval, characterized by a warrior ethic and a deep commitment to personal sovereignty and individual liberty. Appalachia has shifted alliances based on whoever appeared to be the greatest threat to its freedom; since Reconstruction and, especially, the upheavals of the 1960s, it has been in alliance with the Deep South in an effort to undo the federal government’s ability to overrule local preferences.

The Tea Party agenda – reduce federal power, taxes, social services, and environmental, labor, and voting protections – may perfectly match that of the Deep Southern oligarchy, but it’s a tough sell in the sprawling nation of Yankeedom (a.k.a. Greater New England) where the freedom and wellbeing of the community have taken precedence over individual interests since the days of the early Puritans. These regions cut across state boundaries—the north of Ohio, for instance, was settled by Yankees, its middle by Midlander Quakers and Germans, and its hilly south by Appalachian Scots-Irish.

This week’s elections bolstered this argument, with Tea Party-backed initiatives having been reversed by chastening margins by Yankee voters in Maine and the Yankee-settled Western Reserve of Ohio. Mainers overturned a new law that would have ended same-day voter registration (despite the fact that its Republican backers could find no evidence of voter fraud) 60-40, chastening Tea Party-backed Gov. Paul LePage. In Ohio, all ten Yankee counties voted to overturn a new law that denied collective bargaining rights to public sector workers, in a measure that went down 61-39 statewide.

But the really interesting development in the Nov. 8 vote was that the people of Greater Appalachia appear fed up with Tea Party excesses as well, at least in so far as they infringe on workers’ labor rights or the ability of citizens to elect U.S. Senators. Thirty-nine of Ohio’s 41 Appalachian counties voted for the repeal, with a margin of 60-40, compared to 64-36 in both Yankee and Midlander Ohio.

n Kentucky – all of which lies in Appalachia – voters sided with Democratic incumbent Steve Beshear 55-35 over self-declared Tea Partier David Williams, who wanted to repeal the 17th amendment and make the selection of U.S. Senators the purview of state legislators, not voters. That Williams had defeated a more radical Tea Partier, Phil Moffett, in the GOP primary added salt to the Kentucky movements’ wounds. Democrats swept the other statewide offices as well, including the Secretary of State position sought after by another Tea Partier, Bill Johnson, who garnered less than 40 percent of the vote.

That’s not to say Appalachia has ceased to be socially conservative. On Tuesday, Mississippi voters defeated a measure that would have amended the state constitution to define “personhood” as beginning at conception by a wide margin. Conspicuous in their dissent were the state’s seven Appalachian counties: every one voted for the measure by double-digit margins, most of them by more than 20 points.

But if a large majority of voters in the Midlands and Greater Appalachia have begun to doubt the wisdom of the Tea Party’s Deep Southern platform, 2012 could be very rough going for the candidates who’ve embraced its agenda

Colin Woodard