Interesting take on the basic partisan political divide. Goes back to 1607 in Jamestown Colony.

[SarahM32]

The article is titled How the Old South vs North Conflict Is Related To The Basic Political Conflict and Division In America.

It's difficult to sum up this article because it begins with the following:

"Just as The Second World War was about the conflict over what is basically or relatively right as opposed to what was terribly wrong, so have many other conflicts and wars – like the American Civil War (1861-1865).

That Civil War was more than a century in the making, and its repercussions have been felt ever since — not simply for the next hundred years and particularly in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s when there was terribly violent suppression of people seeking equal rights and Civil Rights for African Americans. Its repercussions are felt even today, though most Americans are not aware of it.

Most Americans are not aware of that because there are some Americans who would like to forget the past, or create a revisionist history of the past to justify themselves or make themselves feel better. And, for example, there are some Americans who have been trying very hard to mislead people about the real cause of the Civil War, just as they are trying to mislead people about The Intent of the Founding Fathers Regarding Religion, and about their intent regarding Jeffersonian Democracy."

But it also suggests that the roots of the basic political divide in America grew from the seeds planted by rich British Aristocrats in the original Jamestown Colony in 1607, who became the first slave owners in 1619.

It suggests that the American Civil War was about right vs wrong. It even has videos and soundtracks of CSNY's "Southern Man" recorded in 1971 and the Southern rock band, Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" performed in 1973 to illustrate that the battle fought in the 1860s was still being fought in the 1960s and 1970s. And it very clearly illustrates, without saying a word, how Lynyrd Skynyrd's defiance in clinging to the Confederate Flag as a symbol of "Southern Freedom and Liberty" was so blatantly wrong, and so misleading.

However, the article emphasizes that: "It's not about 'dredging up things best forgotten.' It's not about the people of certain states against the people of certain others states. It's not about politics. It's about right against wrong, and about truth prevailing over misguided, divisive beliefs, with the expectation that upon reflection misguided people will realize how and why they have been mistaken and misled."

While recognizing that the "South" has risen in some very good ways in the last 30 years, the article does not shy away from stating that the "restoring of Southern Pride" has in some ways been not good -- (as the recent display of the Confederate Flag by the Tea Party in Texas so obviously demonstrated).
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[Tansy_Gold]

1. If you're really interested in understanding the foundations of the political divide

I highly recommend Kevin Phillips' "The Cousins' Wars."

[SarahM32]

4. Tansy, about The Cousins' Wars:

I think The Cousins’ Wars makes a fairly good point in suggesting that the English Civil War, the American Revolution and the American Civil War were instrumental in leading to the dominance of White Anglo Saxon Protestant Americans.

However, its conclusions, I think, are perhaps a bit too narrow in suggesting how the current powers that be were established by political alliances between the English-speaking “cousin” groups that sometimes became rather strange bed fellows who took a unique two-track path toward world leadership.

The author concludes that one “cousin” group was and is aristocratic and the other was and is more egalitarian and democratic. That, I think, is true in certain ways. And it does describe or would explain why Republicans and Democrats (even though they appear to fight and actually do fight regularly) are actually in cahoots as “Republicrats,” as Ralph Nader calls them. So, in that sense, I agree.

However, I agree more with the author of the article I cited, because in several other of his articles he discusses that the differences between the right and the left today in America are not that much different than the difference between the Hamiltonian Federalists and the Jeffersonian Democratic Republicans back in 1800.

He also discusses the differences between Roosevelt New Deal Democrats and Reaganites in distinguishing between the two very opposite mentalities and attitudes. And he's quite clear in his judgment of who is right and who is wrong in that respect. As he says, the proof is in the pudding.
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[AnotherMcIntosh]

2. As said somewhat more concisely by the author:

Since the greatest refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism and the greatest refuge of a hypocrites is religiosity, it is not surprising that was the case in Jamestown, and it is not surprising that is the case now in certain circles not only in the South, but in many different areas in America.

That element of the American culture is expressed by those who think they are superior, whether their sense of superiority is based on religion or race or original nationality or culture or political ideology. And that is why it has always been expressed by the greediest of the wealthiest few who resent anyone telling them how to operate their profit-making enterprises.

[SarahM32]

3. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you so much.

That is what I should have quoted above everything else.