Speaking as an Appalachian farmer of Scots-Irish extraction, in the northern Appalachians, you've got a lot of things right here, but some parts are still wrong-headed. Probably one of the most important things wrong is suggesting that Bush and Cheney in Iraq were an "aberration", not the normal way the US does war. You say, correctly, "Wilson, FDR, and Johnson were all dyed in the wool liberals" - but Bush is also a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. One of his biggest policy successes in his term was pressuring banks to give cheap mortgages to Hispanics with bad credit - and by the end of his term there was a mortgage crisis, of course. All his actual policies are like this. At that time, "Republican" meant that you didn't like drugs or abortion and didn't believe in Globowarmo, not that you weren't a liberal. Even now, the Trump and Bush wings of the party are at odds. Sure, at the time, we supported Bush because that's just the way things were - my family voted for him, but we knew it was 'lesser of two evils', and we didn't get fooled again.
Well, there's a lot more I could say about the subject, but that's all I feel like getting into now. Hope it's food for thought.
By the way... *I* discuss Russia and Ukraine with everyone at any chance I get, and I get more engagement than you'd think. Fighting for independence against a hostile government that wants to replace your entire culture... resonates with us.
Driving from Upstate New York down to Manhattan, it’s always funny to see a plethora of American and Blue Lives Matter flags transmogrify into Ukrainian, Pride and Black Lives Matter flags. You’ll even see elite outposts like Ithaca brandishing Ukrainian/Pride signifiers. Patriotism is now Republican-coded, so I guess this is their deflection.
Also on the point of the commercial nature of the Ukrainian flag, I find it hilarious that Visa’s logo literally is the Ukrainian flag with the word “Visa” inserted into the middle. On top of that a crazy amount of tech companies have been putting the Ukrainian flag in their logo for the last year and a half.
As a ( formerly) long haired Scot-Welsh redneck from Canada, I'd suggest you learn why we're called that. It has everything to do with rebelling against wage slave coal oligarchs working people to death. We're much like slavs. Keeping us dirt poor ensured a steady supply of cannon fodder just to survive & get an education. Redneck is not an insult to those who understand the history of the label.
They’ve been casually calling us Nazis for 40 years. Now they fund actual Nazis in actual Europe and still call us Nazis whether we sympathize with Russia or not. It’s not just the South or Appalachia, but those megaregions are overly representative of the types of population that our homegrown globalist technocrats despise. Funny enough a lot those small towns you mention are breathing new life from transplants fleeing hostile jurisdictions in the North and on the coasts. And from retirees trying to live out the remainder of their days in a place resembling the America they remember from their youth.
Speaking as an Appalachian farmer of Scots-Irish extraction, in the northern Appalachians, you've got a lot of things right here, but some parts are still wrong-headed. Probably one of the most important things wrong is suggesting that Bush and Cheney in Iraq were an "aberration", not the normal way the US does war. You say, correctly, "Wilson, FDR, and Johnson were all dyed in the wool liberals" - but Bush is also a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. One of his biggest policy successes in his term was pressuring banks to give cheap mortgages to Hispanics with bad credit - and by the end of his term there was a mortgage crisis, of course. All his actual policies are like this. At that time, "Republican" meant that you didn't like drugs or abortion and didn't believe in Globowarmo, not that you weren't a liberal. Even now, the Trump and Bush wings of the party are at odds. Sure, at the time, we supported Bush because that's just the way things were - my family voted for him, but we knew it was 'lesser of two evils', and we didn't get fooled again.
Well, there's a lot more I could say about the subject, but that's all I feel like getting into now. Hope it's food for thought.
By the way... *I* discuss Russia and Ukraine with everyone at any chance I get, and I get more engagement than you'd think. Fighting for independence against a hostile government that wants to replace your entire culture... resonates with us.
Only the ones already in the military will be doing the dying. They have a huge recruitment problem with the rednecks Abe military family legacies.
The others who will be doing the dying are illegal immigrants for a shot at citizenship. Why do you think many of the 1.5M military aged men?
Driving from Upstate New York down to Manhattan, it’s always funny to see a plethora of American and Blue Lives Matter flags transmogrify into Ukrainian, Pride and Black Lives Matter flags. You’ll even see elite outposts like Ithaca brandishing Ukrainian/Pride signifiers. Patriotism is now Republican-coded, so I guess this is their deflection.
Also on the point of the commercial nature of the Ukrainian flag, I find it hilarious that Visa’s logo literally is the Ukrainian flag with the word “Visa” inserted into the middle. On top of that a crazy amount of tech companies have been putting the Ukrainian flag in their logo for the last year and a half.
Grant was not a Southerner. He was a Yankee. And also an alcoholic though. The name you are looking for is Robert E Lee.
As a ( formerly) long haired Scot-Welsh redneck from Canada, I'd suggest you learn why we're called that. It has everything to do with rebelling against wage slave coal oligarchs working people to death. We're much like slavs. Keeping us dirt poor ensured a steady supply of cannon fodder just to survive & get an education. Redneck is not an insult to those who understand the history of the label.
They’ve been casually calling us Nazis for 40 years. Now they fund actual Nazis in actual Europe and still call us Nazis whether we sympathize with Russia or not. It’s not just the South or Appalachia, but those megaregions are overly representative of the types of population that our homegrown globalist technocrats despise. Funny enough a lot those small towns you mention are breathing new life from transplants fleeing hostile jurisdictions in the North and on the coasts. And from retirees trying to live out the remainder of their days in a place resembling the America they remember from their youth.
Just came to say thanks for this amazing article!))
Here is a clip I love of UFC fighter Bryce Mitchell, a true southerner, responding to Ukraine War in 2023: https://youtu.be/nXSfmu1azlU
Jim Morrison in ' The End': "Father, I want to kill you."
Your well-written article is exceptional because of my ignorance. Enjoyably educational because it's an angle, as a foreigner, I didn't know.
Great writing