The Red and the Blue

Every time I hear someone talk about "red states" and "blue states" I feel like vomiting.

Partly because of the idea that the Republican Party could possibly get to have the color red, after the long history of red being the color of Reds -- international socialism -- rather than the color of supporters of capitalism or imperialism. 

But mainly because the whole idea of a society being geographically divided on such a broad level in some way that corresponds with political perspective is completely asinine.  It's an idea that has never applied to the US historically -- certainly not in my lifetime.  There are many such divisions if you narrow down by neighborhood or zip code, but not by state.

Of course, in the most primitive sort of democracy, a winner-take-all electoral system that pretty much guarantees a bipolar power structure, there are going to be states that vote one way or the other way, as far as what the electoral map looks like.  But the reality is each of the states has lots of different people mixed within it.

The "red" and "blue" color-coded thing began with broadcast media covering the presidential election in 2000, and it was adopted readily by social media users, where a simplistic, black and white, red and blue representation of anything and everything is the norm.

Over time the notion seems to get more and more entrenched.  I hear more and more people talking about the idea of some parts of the country seceding, along such geographical/political lines.

What seems more and more clear as I navigate the physical world and the online world is most people in the US really don't get out much.  Whether because they don't want to visit parts of the country they see as politically not aligned with them, or because they can't afford to travel extensively, most people in the US might travel for a few days to visit relatives somewhere a couple times a year, but most people don't do the kinds of road trips and concert tours that me and some other folks have done so much of.

Rather than seeing the country themselves, most of them are probably relying on the media and their social media feeds to inform them about what it's like in other parts of the country that they don't live in and have never really spent time in.

What was especially striking to me in both Texas and Georgia was the lack of any visible sign of support for President Trump anywhere.  Not a single MAGA hat or Trump flag did I see, anywhere.  Not even one.  What was also very noticeable was the complete lack of any references to the Confederacy anywhere, and, perhaps more than anything else, the relative scarcity of US flags flying from people's front porches or along the highways in various places, where they used to be so numerous, large, and prominent.

When I last lived in Texas it was the years just after 9/11, and the hyper-patriotic reaction to that event was visible in every direction, at all times, in the form of gigantic US flags blowing in the wind above every car dealership and a whole lot of other places, such as hanging from overpasses everywhere.  Coming back now, I can report to you that the flags are gone.

People assure me the Trump supporters and the Trump flags and MAGA hats are out there, in between the cities, in the rural areas.  There's a big urban-rural divide, I was assured by various folks who I mentioned the lack of Trump paraphernalia to.

But I drove hundreds of miles through suburban and rural areas in between Austin and Dallas, in between Dallas and Houston, and in between Houston and Dallas, and saw literally nothing pro-Trump.  US flags were not completely absent, but there were probably 1% of the number of flags there were twenty years ago, by my rough estimation.

I was, as usual, traveling with my collection of potentially offensive t-shirts.  I like to wear t-shirts with flags of the countries the US has recently been attacking the most.  So I have t-shirts with Palestinian flags along with one each for Iran, Mexico, and Cuba.  The t-shirts evoked the usual looks of affection from certain people.  At least one in ten Arab-looking people I pass in any given airport is likely to smile noticeably when they see the Palestine flag, especially.  If anyone anywhere didn't like any of my t-shirts they made no indication.

In so many ways I'm unable to effectively promote gigs -- barred from using the "Invite" feature on Facebook Events, catalog of albums deleted from YouTube Music, creating a whole cascading effect of suppression in terms of where my gigs are listed and how likely people are to hear about any of them, and I could go on.  But at each event there was a small collection of serious fans who had managed to hear about the gig, along with other folks that the organizers were much more responsible for having recruited to join the various little audiences.

In Austin it was an outdoor concert in support of the Middle East Children's Alliance, with lots of Palestinian flags around.  In Dallas it was another Palestine fundraiser, taking place in a wonderful Pan-Africanist book store.  In Houston, a backyard show around a fire.  Several of those in attendance were programmers at the venerable community radio station in that city, which has the distinction of having had its transmitter burned down by the KKK not once, but twice, long ago.

The next weekend in Atlanta, a concert at Radio Free Georgia, preceded by dinner with such an impressive bunch of radicals.  A long-time war correspondent who worked for CNN, one of the Emory professors who was attacked by the police while trying to protect students protesting the war on Gaza, the first station manager of WRFG, who was one of the organizers for the big civil rights marches on Washington at the beginning of the 1960's.

One old friend I spent a day wandering around Atlanta with spoke fondly of the 1970's, when the Allman Brothers were regularly putting on free concerts in the park.

People walking through the city to get to the park were liable to be walking through a neighborhood where there were elements of society unfriendly to long-hairs and other alternative sorts.  At the beginning of the period when the free festivals were happening in Atlanta walking through these neighborhoods could be dangerous.

But then things changed, as the rednecks in those neighborhoods realized that not only was the music really good, but so was the cannabis, and half of those festival-goers were women.  The free festivals won over hearts and minds in Atlanta just as they had done a few years earlier in San Francisco.

What was never very far from view in any of these cities, as well as in some of the exurbs and rural areas between them, was poverty.  Along with the gleamingly well-maintained highways and insane infrastructure of bridges and overpasses are people wrapped in blankets, woodenly walking the city streets, or living in decrepit and largely abandoned apartment complexes outside of the city centers, outside of the more affluent neighborhoods I was staying in everywhere I went.  In these ways, Texas and Georgia are very reminiscent of Oregon or California, except on the west coast the poverty is much more visible.

One of the many terrifying aspects of the modern era is how effectively the algorithms that govern what people see on social media have instilled in so many people a completely warped view of the country they live in.

I know from personal experience that neighborhoods full of MAGA hats and Trump flags and "deport them all" type of sentiment do exist, and I regularly hear horror stories from people who live in such neighborhoods, in various parts of the US.

But it is more than a little worth noting that in so much of the country where you'd expect to encounter such sentiments in various forms, it is gapingly absent.

As much as Trump and his cronies are trying to instill fascist values in the population and as much as they are taking us all headlong in that direction, the kind of public displays of loyalty and patriotism one would expect from the populace in the areas where the man won the last election and most of the ones before that seem to be notably missing.

Whatever else is going on here, it seems completely evident to me that reality as evinced by either social media or the mainstream press is not reflected by actual reality, in the real world.