---

The invisible ethnic group
Paul Greenberg

October 29, 2004


With the presidential election only days away and the land awash in
analyses and predictions and polls and enough statistics to make the head
swirl, it occurs to me that ethnicity remains the great subterranean
factor in every great American political divide. Its influence isn't
always emphasized, but it's obvious once you've noticed it.

In graduate school I once came across a map showing the heaviest
concentrations of German population in the Midwest. Those dark splotches
on the map coincided almost exactly with congressional districts whose
representatives took the isolationist line on key votes leading up to the
American entry into the Second World War.

You could almost see the light bulb come on above my head: These folks
weren't isolationist because of pacifist leanings or any abstract belief
about avoiding entangling alliances. They just knew darned well which side
America would join, again, if this country got involved in the approaching
world war. And they didn't want to be back in the position of fighting
their own kin. (Would you?) Their opinion might have been entirely
different if it had been the Spanish-American War that was looming at the
time.

In Louisiana, the Long dynasty (first Huey, then Earl) always tried to
pick a candidate for lieutenant governor with a French surname. But the
most ethnically balanced ticket I've ever encountered was a classic GOP
slate in a New York municipal election back in the 1960s. It was
positively musical: Lefkowitz, Fino, and Gilhooley! I still can't get that
jingle out of my head. An ethnic triple dip! The ticket lost, but the
music remained. And isn't that what counts?

I can remember being amused the first time (was it in the '50s?) that I
learned the Republican Party had an Ethnic Division. It was a charming
conceit - as if only others had an ethnic identity.

Back then, the GOP was trying to cultivate voters with roots in Eastern
Europe - like the large blocs of Poles in Chicago and other big Northern
cities. It was a time when Congress routinely passed Captive Nations
resolutions and nobody except maybe John Foster Dulles actually believed
in a rollback of Soviet power, let alone its collapse.

The big secret of this year's presidential election, and maybe of the
South's shift to the GOP column over the years, is another ethnic group:
the Scots-Irish. It goes by other names of varying respectability: the
Southern yeomanry, Reagan Democrats, the redneck vote, or, in Howard
Dean's awkward phrase, the guys with Confederate flags on their pick-ups.
And gun racks in the back.

Just who are the Scotch-Irish? They're the descendants of the great wave
of immigration, hundreds of thousands strong, from northern Britain who
settled first in Ireland and then came to America in Colonial times;
sometimes they're called the Ulster Scots. They're more easily described
than defined. Like any ethnic group, they may seem like a mass of
contradictions when viewed from the outside, but from the inside all their
various traits cohere:

Deeply attached to family, they're also intensely individualistic.
Hard-fighting and hard-drinking, they can be hard-praying folk, too. Loyal
to a fault, they can also be instinctively rebellious. They were the great
strength of the Confederacy in the Civil War, and they made up a good part
of the Union armies, too. They first settled along the Appalachian
mountain range from Pennsylvania to Georgia, and even in some frontier
areas of New England in colonial times - Vermont and New Hampshire.

Then they spread south and west with the country itself, settling in the
uplands across the South. And to this day, the part of the Constitution
that calls forth their deepest attachment remains the Second Amendment,
the right to bear arms. And their agrarian roots remained strong long
after they'd become urbanized.

Much of the mysterious charm of George W. Bush in these latitudes may
come not from any specific political stance but his ability to reflect the
cultural values of the Scots-Irish in America, who are scarcely confined
to the South. They can be found spread across the Midwest as far north as
Pennsylvania's hills and hollows. And wherever Arkies and Okies migrated
during the Great Depression - from Detroit to California. Yet they remain
the invisible American ethnic group.

You'll find the cultural diaspora of the Scots-Irish wherever country
music is popular, which covers a lot of territory. It's a key political
constituency. Which is why both presidential campaigns might have found a
good sociologist more useful this year than any number of the usual
political analysts who fill their staffs.

The most perceptive piece about ethnic politics I've seen this election
year appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week. It was written by
James Webb, the author of "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped
America," and it began:

To an outsider, George W. Bush's political demeanor seems little more
than stumbling tautology. He utters his campaign message in clipped
phrases, filled with bravado and repeated references to God, and to
resoluteness of purpose. But to a trained eye and ear these performances
have the deliberate balance of a country singer at the Grand Ole Opry. . .

The Bush campaign proceeds outward from a familiar mantra: strong
leadership, success in war, neighbor helping neighbor, family values, and
belief in God. Contrary to many analyses, these issues reach much farther
than the oft-discussed Christian Right. The president will not win
re-election without carrying the votes of the Scots-Irish, along with
those others who make up the 'Jacksonian' political culture that has
migrated toward the values of this ethnic group.

John Kerry understands that he needs to appeal to Scots-Irish values,
which explains all that posturing with shotguns whenever he touches down
in the South or small-town Midwest. If there's a membership card in the
Scots-Irish ethnic group, it's a hunting license.

Senator Kerry knows what issues he needs to address to win over this
ethnic group - and the many Americans who have adopted its values, its
music and its sports over the years. (Note the popularity of stock-car
racing.) But he can't change his Brahmin ways any more than he can his
accent. He tries, bless his heart, but he doesn't really connect. A
stranger in a strange land, he's got the words but not the music.

©2004 Tribune Media Services
Read Greenberg's biography

--
ErikP

Ladebokens hjemmesider:
http://ladeboken.tripod.com/index.htm
Spesialfeltprogrammet:
http://spesialfelt.tripod.com/index.htm

---

Beklager!

Feil gruppe! Uten tvil feil gruppe!!!!

--
ErikP - i dekning, skjevlende med tanke på hva mon das Netz-polizei finner
på!


Ladebokens hjemmesider:
http://ladeboken.tripod.com/index.htm
Spesialfeltprogrammet:
http://spesialfelt.tripod.com/index.htm


ERIK PRESTMO <erikprestmo@c2i.net> skrev i
news:y0Ojd.4117$HA5.500665@juliett.dax.net
> The invisible ethnic group
> Paul Greenberg
>
> October 29, 2004
>
>
> With the presidential election only days away and the land awash in
> analyses and predictions and polls and enough statistics to make the head
> swirl, it occurs to me that ethnicity remains the great subterranean
> factor in every great American political divide. Its influence isn't
> always emphasized, but it's obvious once you've noticed it.
>
> In graduate school I once came across a map showing the heaviest
> concentrations of German population in the Midwest. Those dark splotches
> on the map coincided almost exactly with congressional districts whose
> representatives took the isolationist line on key votes leading up to the
> American entry into the Second World War.
>
> You could almost see the light bulb come on above my head: These folks
> weren't isolationist because of pacifist leanings or any abstract belief
> about avoiding entangling alliances. They just knew darned well which side
> America would join, again, if this country got involved in the approaching
> world war. And they didn't want to be back in the position of fighting
> their own kin. (Would you?) Their opinion might have been entirely
> different if it had been the Spanish-American War that was looming at the
> time.
>
> In Louisiana, the Long dynasty (first Huey, then Earl) always tried to
> pick a candidate for lieutenant governor with a French surname. But the
> most ethnically balanced ticket I've ever encountered was a classic GOP
> slate in a New York municipal election back in the 1960s. It was
> positively musical: Lefkowitz, Fino, and Gilhooley! I still can't get that
> jingle out of my head. An ethnic triple dip! The ticket lost, but the
> music remained. And isn't that what counts?
>
> I can remember being amused the first time (was it in the '50s?) that I
> learned the Republican Party had an Ethnic Division. It was a charming
> conceit - as if only others had an ethnic identity.
>
> Back then, the GOP was trying to cultivate voters with roots in Eastern
> Europe - like the large blocs of Poles in Chicago and other big Northern
> cities. It was a time when Congress routinely passed Captive Nations
> resolutions and nobody except maybe John Foster Dulles actually believed
> in a rollback of Soviet power, let alone its collapse.
>
> The big secret of this year's presidential election, and maybe of the
> South's shift to the GOP column over the years, is another ethnic group:
> the Scots-Irish. It goes by other names of varying respectability: the
> Southern yeomanry, Reagan Democrats, the redneck vote, or, in Howard
> Dean's awkward phrase, the guys with Confederate flags on their pick-ups.
> And gun racks in the back.
>
> Just who are the Scotch-Irish? They're the descendants of the great wave
> of immigration, hundreds of thousands strong, from northern Britain who
> settled first in Ireland and then came to America in Colonial times;
> sometimes they're called the Ulster Scots. They're more easily described
> than defined. Like any ethnic group, they may seem like a mass of
> contradictions when viewed from the outside, but from the inside all their
> various traits cohere:
>
> Deeply attached to family, they're also intensely individualistic.
> Hard-fighting and hard-drinking, they can be hard-praying folk, too. Loyal
> to a fault, they can also be instinctively rebellious. They were the great
> strength of the Confederacy in the Civil War, and they made up a good part
> of the Union armies, too. They first settled along the Appalachian
> mountain range from Pennsylvania to Georgia, and even in some frontier
> areas of New England in colonial times - Vermont and New Hampshire.
>
> Then they spread south and west with the country itself, settling in the
> uplands across the South. And to this day, the part of the Constitution
> that calls forth their deepest attachment remains the Second Amendment,
> the right to bear arms. And their agrarian roots remained strong long
> after they'd become urbanized.
>
> Much of the mysterious charm of George W. Bush in these latitudes may
> come not from any specific political stance but his ability to reflect the
> cultural values of the Scots-Irish in America, who are scarcely confined
> to the South. They can be found spread across the Midwest as far north as
> Pennsylvania's hills and hollows. And wherever Arkies and Okies migrated
> during the Great Depression - from Detroit to California. Yet they remain
> the invisible American ethnic group.
>
> You'll find the cultural diaspora of the Scots-Irish wherever country
> music is popular, which covers a lot of territory. It's a key political
> constituency. Which is why both presidential campaigns might have found a
> good sociologist more useful this year than any number of the usual
> political analysts who fill their staffs.
>
> The most perceptive piece about ethnic politics I've seen this election
> year appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week. It was written by
> James Webb, the author of "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped
> America," and it began:
>
> To an outsider, George W. Bush's political demeanor seems little more
> than stumbling tautology. He utters his campaign message in clipped
> phrases, filled with bravado and repeated references to God, and to
> resoluteness of purpose. But to a trained eye and ear these performances
> have the deliberate balance of a country singer at the Grand Ole Opry. . .
>
> The Bush campaign proceeds outward from a familiar mantra: strong
> leadership, success in war, neighbor helping neighbor, family values, and
> belief in God. Contrary to many analyses, these issues reach much farther
> than the oft-discussed Christian Right. The president will not win
> re-election without carrying the votes of the Scots-Irish, along with
> those others who make up the 'Jacksonian' political culture that has
> migrated toward the values of this ethnic group.
>
> John Kerry understands that he needs to appeal to Scots-Irish values,
> which explains all that posturing with shotguns whenever he touches down
> in the South or small-town Midwest. If there's a membership card in the
> Scots-Irish ethnic group, it's a hunting license.
>
> Senator Kerry knows what issues he needs to address to win over this
> ethnic group - and the many Americans who have adopted its values, its
> music and its sports over the years. (Note the popularity of stock-car
> racing.) But he can't change his Brahmin ways any more than he can his
> accent. He tries, bless his heart, but he doesn't really connect. A
> stranger in a strange land, he's got the words but not the music.
>
> ©2004 Tribune Media Services
> Read Greenberg's biography
>
> --
> ErikP
>
> Ladebokens hjemmesider:
> http://ladeboken.tripod.com/index.htm
> Spesialfeltprogrammet:
> http://spesialfelt.tripod.com/index.htm
>
>

---

Shit happens!!
Hilsen
Georg


"ERIK PRESTMO" <erikprestmo@c2i.net> skrev i en meddelelse
news:RhUjd.4156$HA5.503667@juliett.dax.net...
> Beklager!
>
> Feil gruppe! Uten tvil feil gruppe!!!!
>
> --
> ErikP - i dekning, skjevlende med tanke på hva mon das Netz-polizei finner
> på!
>
>
> Ladebokens hjemmesider:
> http://ladeboken.tripod.com/index.htm
> Spesialfeltprogrammet:
> http://spesialfelt.tripod.com/index.htm
>
>
> ERIK PRESTMO <erikprestmo@c2i.net> skrev i
> news:y0Ojd.4117$HA5.500665@juliett.dax.net
> > The invisible ethnic group
> > Paul Greenberg
> >
> > October 29, 2004
> >
> >
> > With the presidential election only days away and the land awash in
> > analyses and predictions and polls and enough statistics to make the
head
> > swirl, it occurs to me that ethnicity remains the great subterranean
> > factor in every great American political divide. Its influence isn't
> > always emphasized, but it's obvious once you've noticed it.
> >
> > In graduate school I once came across a map showing the heaviest
> > concentrations of German population in the Midwest. Those dark splotches
> > on the map coincided almost exactly with congressional districts whose
> > representatives took the isolationist line on key votes leading up to
the
> > American entry into the Second World War.
> >
> > You could almost see the light bulb come on above my head: These folks
> > weren't isolationist because of pacifist leanings or any abstract belief
> > about avoiding entangling alliances. They just knew darned well which
side
> > America would join, again, if this country got involved in the
approaching
> > world war. And they didn't want to be back in the position of fighting
> > their own kin. (Would you?) Their opinion might have been entirely
> > different if it had been the Spanish-American War that was looming at
the
> > time.
> >
> > In Louisiana, the Long dynasty (first Huey, then Earl) always tried to
> > pick a candidate for lieutenant governor with a French surname. But the
> > most ethnically balanced ticket I've ever encountered was a classic GOP
> > slate in a New York municipal election back in the 1960s. It was
> > positively musical: Lefkowitz, Fino, and Gilhooley! I still can't get
that
> > jingle out of my head. An ethnic triple dip! The ticket lost, but the
> > music remained. And isn't that what counts?
> >
> > I can remember being amused the first time (was it in the '50s?) that I
> > learned the Republican Party had an Ethnic Division. It was a charming
> > conceit - as if only others had an ethnic identity.
> >
> > Back then, the GOP was trying to cultivate voters with roots in Eastern
> > Europe - like the large blocs of Poles in Chicago and other big Northern
> > cities. It was a time when Congress routinely passed Captive Nations
> > resolutions and nobody except maybe John Foster Dulles actually believed
> > in a rollback of Soviet power, let alone its collapse.
> >
> > The big secret of this year's presidential election, and maybe of the
> > South's shift to the GOP column over the years, is another ethnic group:
> > the Scots-Irish. It goes by other names of varying respectability: the
> > Southern yeomanry, Reagan Democrats, the redneck vote, or, in Howard
> > Dean's awkward phrase, the guys with Confederate flags on their
pick-ups.
> > And gun racks in the back.
> >
> > Just who are the Scotch-Irish? They're the descendants of the great
wave
> > of immigration, hundreds of thousands strong, from northern Britain who
> > settled first in Ireland and then came to America in Colonial times;
> > sometimes they're called the Ulster Scots. They're more easily described
> > than defined. Like any ethnic group, they may seem like a mass of
> > contradictions when viewed from the outside, but from the inside all
their
> > various traits cohere:
> >
> > Deeply attached to family, they're also intensely individualistic.
> > Hard-fighting and hard-drinking, they can be hard-praying folk, too.
Loyal
> > to a fault, they can also be instinctively rebellious. They were the
great
> > strength of the Confederacy in the Civil War, and they made up a good
part
> > of the Union armies, too. They first settled along the Appalachian
> > mountain range from Pennsylvania to Georgia, and even in some frontier
> > areas of New England in colonial times - Vermont and New Hampshire.
> >
> > Then they spread south and west with the country itself, settling in
the
> > uplands across the South. And to this day, the part of the Constitution
> > that calls forth their deepest attachment remains the Second Amendment,
> > the right to bear arms. And their agrarian roots remained strong long
> > after they'd become urbanized.
> >
> > Much of the mysterious charm of George W. Bush in these latitudes may
> > come not from any specific political stance but his ability to reflect
the
> > cultural values of the Scots-Irish in America, who are scarcely confined
> > to the South. They can be found spread across the Midwest as far north
as
> > Pennsylvania's hills and hollows. And wherever Arkies and Okies migrated
> > during the Great Depression - from Detroit to California. Yet they
remain
> > the invisible American ethnic group.
> >
> > You'll find the cultural diaspora of the Scots-Irish wherever country
> > music is popular, which covers a lot of territory. It's a key political
> > constituency. Which is why both presidential campaigns might have found
a
> > good sociologist more useful this year than any number of the usual
> > political analysts who fill their staffs.
> >
> > The most perceptive piece about ethnic politics I've seen this election
> > year appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week. It was written by
> > James Webb, the author of "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped
> > America," and it began:
> >
> > To an outsider, George W. Bush's political demeanor seems little more
> > than stumbling tautology. He utters his campaign message in clipped
> > phrases, filled with bravado and repeated references to God, and to
> > resoluteness of purpose. But to a trained eye and ear these performances
> > have the deliberate balance of a country singer at the Grand Ole Opry. .
..
> >
> > The Bush campaign proceeds outward from a familiar mantra: strong
> > leadership, success in war, neighbor helping neighbor, family values,
and
> > belief in God. Contrary to many analyses, these issues reach much
farther
> > than the oft-discussed Christian Right. The president will not win
> > re-election without carrying the votes of the Scots-Irish, along with
> > those others who make up the 'Jacksonian' political culture that has
> > migrated toward the values of this ethnic group.
> >
> > John Kerry understands that he needs to appeal to Scots-Irish values,
> > which explains all that posturing with shotguns whenever he touches down
> > in the South or small-town Midwest. If there's a membership card in the
> > Scots-Irish ethnic group, it's a hunting license.
> >
> > Senator Kerry knows what issues he needs to address to win over this
> > ethnic group - and the many Americans who have adopted its values, its
> > music and its sports over the years. (Note the popularity of stock-car
> > racing.) But he can't change his Brahmin ways any more than he can his
> > accent. He tries, bless his heart, but he doesn't really connect. A
> > stranger in a strange land, he's got the words but not the music.
> >
> > ©2004 Tribune Media Services
> > Read Greenberg's biography
> >
> > --
> > ErikP
> >
> > Ladebokens hjemmesider:
> > http://ladeboken.tripod.com/index.htm
> > Spesialfeltprogrammet:
> > http://spesialfelt.tripod.com/index.htm
> >
> >
>
>