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Welcome to the Homeland: A Journey to the Rural Heart of America's Conservative Revolution

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Brian Mann provides the historical background to show why the vote of the urban masses ("metros') can't prevail against a conservative rural minority ("homelanders"). The electoral colleges, two senators per state and Republican gerrymandering of congressional districts gives the exurban and rural populace a political power far greater than their population.

Mann tries to understand the homelander point of view to see if it will provide clues as to how to turn the situation around. He remains baffled at how a few non-negotiable issues (abortion, school prayer) and an unshakeable respect for authority (at least, when that authority is George W. Bush) give the homelanders a lockhold on the nation's political agenda.

The author admires the organization and focus of the rural conservatives, which enables them to get out the vote. However, he also gives examples of how, even with power in hand, conservatives will be challenged to implement their values in a larger, more progressive society -- ie, even if abortion is banned, shotgun weddings are unlikely to make a comeback.

This is a thoughtful account. It illimunates the current political standoff as well as the difficulties in moving beyond it.

National election returns emphasize Red states versus Blue states with Red states seemingly swamping Blue states, but, as this book demonstrates, the political divide in the US is really one of rural and outer suburbs versus large cities and inner suburbs. It is the rural conservatives which the author refers to as "homelanders," who were decisive in reelecting George Bush in 2004; urbanites are called "metros." As the author clearly delineates, there is a huge cultural divide between these two main groupings that transcends state boundaries. In this book, it is the author's intent to understand "homelanders," which includes his brother, a staunch mid-western conservative. He, more often than not, takes his brother's views as exemplary of the entire conservative bloc. The homelander-metro divide is insightful, however one has the sense that homelanders are not well captured, especially their rationalizations.

The power of rural conservatives is derived from several factors. They are mostly white and are highly religious, identifying with so-called traditional values and disdaining modern acceptance of gay, gender, freedom of expression, and lifestyle developments. Their homogeneity is reflected in their bloc voting for conservative candidates. Constitutional structure gives rural states disproportionate voting power, both in the Electoral College and in the Senate, well beyond population numbers. Additionally, the redrawing of districts throughout the country has diluted urban voting strength by interspersing rural voters. Because the rural conservative bloc is so monolithic, it now dictates to the Republican Party on some matters, like immigration and Supreme Court justices, much to the chagrin of more moderate members of the party. However, the author shows that demographic trends do not favor rural conservatives, who are older and are dying. More liberal urban populations are swelling, especially with the influx of immigrants.

A major attempt of the author is to show that rural conservatives are not simply ignorant reactionaries, especially because his brother is in that group. Here, the book takes a rather unconvincing turn. Despite liberty being a fundamental tenet in America, rural conservatives seem inclined to support restricting freedoms concerning gays and women, speech, and religion. Rights for partners, abortion, flag-burning, media content, prayer in school, posting of religious symbols in public, gun control, etc are all issues where rural conservatives oppose urban dwellers and are at odds with developments over the last half century. The author is unwilling to squarely face their bigotry, intolerance, and willingness to coercively impose their views.

Furthermore, rural conservatives refuse to see that their alliance with the big-business wing of the Republican Party is fundamentally contradictory. Big businesses are not moral entities. Their main "value" is to enhance profits, which can have profoundly negative consequences for family and community values. It is big business that owns the media companies that produce content offensive to traditionalists; it is big business that has gratuitously shipped jobs out of the country and shut down manufacturing plants where many rural residents worked; furthermore, big business does not support a moral agenda of being anti-gay and pro-religion. The author makes a brief reference to populism, but doesn't capture the fact that the populists, that is, rural farmers, of the 1880s and 90s opposed corporate machinations that harmed them and supported government ownership of utilities and railroads, which is hardly in accordance with the current litany of conservatives demonizing Big Government. An inconvenient fact, as the author points out, is the huge farm subsidies that the government grants to these same anti-government conservatives.

To get at the authenticity of rural conservative thought, the author really should have discussed right-wing propaganda and its impact on rural conservatives. There is no doubt that televised images of the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement greatly alarmed rural dwellers in the 1960s and 70s. But that was merely the starting point for right-wing media and think tanks to associate un-American ideas and behavior with cities, Democrats, and any non-traditionalists. Character assassination of those leading a metro lifestyle, especially if a Democrat, has reach crescendo proportions completely obliterating any room for substantive dialog - one need only have witnessed the vicious attacks on John Kerry concerning his lifestyle. The fact that corporate executives lead the same lifestyle as other urban elites goes unexamined. It is a hypocritical conceit that virtue resides alone in rural people. As the author shows, drug usage is endemic in rural communities, as is divorce.

The author insists that the rural conservative bloc be taken seriously. Perhaps some need a wakeup call on the homelander agenda of curtailing freedoms and introducing their religion into others' lives. The author does not persuade that homelanders are different, yet thoughtful. They seem reactionary and highly susceptible to manipulation. They have clearly suspended sound judgment concerning those for whom they vote, mostly looking for declarations of morality and faith. It appears that homelanders are willing to accept belligerent, inept government that caters to the business class while maintaining a façade of morality. Contrary to this author, Thomas Frank in What's the Matter with Kansas? had it right. Rural conservative have been duped, somewhat willingly, and support a government-business alliance with a healthy dose of restricting freedoms. That's what fascism is all about.

I read the book about 7 times. Well, it felt like 7 times because the author keeps saying the same thing again and again.

This would have been more appropriate as a long magazine article than a book.

Want to know what the book is about?

Christians are dangerous
Christians are bad
Folks outside of the cities don't know what is good for them.
Metros do.
It is not democracy if it doesn't give results the author likes.

Repeat over and over and over and over and over and zzzzz...

You can read the entire book online using Amazon's Search Inside to read chapter 2.

John Henry
(Originally from up the road from Glens falls)

I found this book to be very helpful in understanding the rural conservative mindset.

As a liberal metro, I also found the book to be encouraging. What the author does not explicitly discuss, but is implicit in his research, is that the rural conservative Homelander mindset *will* eventually lose.

Their political power is largely based upon the anti-democratic (in the sense of 1 person = 1 vote) structures built into the Constitution.

For example, very rural Alaska, with a population equal to 1/3 of California's San Fernando Valley, gets the same number of Senators as California does.

Furthermore, the metro Republican willingness to "play to the base" and the Homelander's willingness to be manipulated by the metro GOP has enhance their power.

But as the urban 'metro' islands continue to grow, the xenophobic homophobic racist sexist culture of the Homelanders will continue to grow more irrelevant.

The Homelanders can, do and will fight this trend, but much like the Confederate South, they are outnumbered, outgunned, and on the wrong side of history.

Mann's book is like one of LBJ's commission reports that were released between 1964 and 1968. Mann's evidence does not support his distinction between "metros" and "homelanders". He is blinded by his limited personal experiences in the U.S. and his status as a reporter for public radio. His evidence does support the distinction between capitalist who favor a free market economy and socialists who favor a centrally planned economy. However, he appears to be completely ignorant of the relationship between economics and politics. Like most public radio reports, his distinction sounds good in theory but it will not work in practice. You can learn as much and have more fun by listening to the songs of Woody Gutherie.