Tag: blue families

Is abortion the seed or the flower of Culture Wars?

The buzz about the new book Red Families, Blue Families continues with a conservative columnist I greatly respect, Maggie Gallagher.

Maggie, author of The Abolition of Marriage and a tireless advocate of traditional western marriage, thinks the culture wars start with different views about abortion and those different views ramify in earlier marriage versus later, out-of-wedlock birth rates, etc., rather than the latter ending in controversy over abortion (the quintessential Culture War issue).

It would be interesting in this regard to test how much the “red state, blue state” differences were shaping up before Roe v. Wade, and (if reliable data is available – very unlikely), how the blue states and red states stacked up on abortion rates, legal and illegal, before the Supreme Court basically gave us one, utterly permissive national abortion law.

Globalization + the Pill = Culture Wars

A very interesting post at FPR clued me in to a Jonathan Rauch article in National Journal, which in turn discusses a new book that essentially publishes a Grand Unification Theory of the origins of “Red” and “Blue” America.

I hesitate to summarize. Read either the Front Porch Republic piece or Rauch’s for a summary instead.

What this leaves me with is a couple of intuitions, none of which I’m remotely prepared to defend to the death:

  1. I have taken some solace that “Red America” is growing demographically while “Blue America” is at NPG. This new theory makes me think that teeming Red America will continue to work for Blue America and will continue to be relatively ineffectual in carrying out any red agenda.
  2. Any red agenda is already in trouble. Red America, relatively speaking, tramples on the values they profess and which, in their pulpits, they literally preach. Why? They’re spitting into a very, very strong headwind of sexuality and lower wages, and their early marriages, plus the newish necessity of both parents working, make musical beds a far more popular game in Red American than in Blue.
  3. What happens when the Trillion Dollar Ponzi Scheme collapses? Red America knows more about the practical arts like gardening, homebuilding, etc. than Blue America knows. Will Blue America be picking Red America’s asparagus in a few Springs?