Red America for the Blues

The University of Nebraska Press has released a book of interest (to me anyway) called Living Blue in the Red States. I find myself intrigued because it's the mirror image of a book I've been inclined to write for some time about living "red" in Blue America. It's a topic on which I think I'm well versed, being conservatively inclined but having spent my life in what are arguably America's three bluest states: Massachusetts, New York, and California. (When I was in New York, I lived in a precinct so blue that in 1996, more of my neighbors voted for Ralph Nader than for Bob Dole.)

As such, I like to think of myself as "bilingual" -- I can speak and understand the languages of both "blue" and "red" America. And while appreciating that most of us -- myself included -- are actually more shades of purple than the personification of either stereotype, those stereotypes do reflect a large measure of truth. "Red" and "blue" Americans do often have different priorities and values that extend well beyond the voting booth and into most every facet of daily life.

That said -- and perhaps here's where my "bilingualism" comes into place -- those differences need not be as divisive as they often are. I'm amazed at how many people on both sides of the political/cutlural divide simply despise those on the other, even though they know few if any such people personally. For all our differences, our similarities are far greater; if only we're willing to get past our antipathies to discover them.

Here's where I think people like myself and the contributors to this book -- people who can and do live comfortably in both worlds -- can hopefully play a peacemaking role. The press release for "Living Blue in the Red States" says the "essayists’ views testify to the power of writing to bring us together as one nation of whatever color."

We can only hope so.