If you can’t get through an article about Indiana without mentioning a certain twenty-year-old sports movie, you aren’t qualified to write it.
One thing about Indiana is that it has a long history of competing ideas and interests. It’s not only the home of the KKK, but also of Eugene Debs, one of the founders of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World. Indiana housed some of the first two utopian societies in the United States, had several integral stops on the Underground Railroad, and additionally boasts one of the internationally known centers for Quaker society. Reynolds, Indiana, a twenty minute drive north of my house, was chosen as the first BioTown in the United States thanks to it’s proximity to major biofuel sources. Indiana is heavily based in manufacturing, moreso than in agriculture, and as such is heavily unionized. Where Indiana was once largely a white state, the African-American and Latino populations are growing exponentially, and hell, within the last decade the university in my backyard hosted the largest number of foreign students in all of the United States. But somehow, whenever you see an outsider write about Indiana, what you read about is corn, religion, grand dragons, and basketball.
Which brings me to this Salon article.
See, Edward McClelland thought he’d take a trip to the zoo — excuse me “Da Region”, except The Region is only called “Da Region” if you’re a skit actor for SNL* — and paint the entire state as a bunch of politically starry-eyed yokels who cain’t buhlieve the “canary coif[ed]” Clinton and “business-like” Obama would bother to stop by and say howdy.**
NEW RULE: If you don’t live in flyover country, you don’t get to write about “flyover country.” ***
Now.
The other thing about Indiana that the article has right, sort of, is that Hoosiers are a practical bunch. The author falls short of the usual tactic complaining that midwestern folks vote Republican because they don’t know what’s good for them, but what he misses is a major point. Hoosiers don’t “always vote Republican.” A minor bit of research would have informed the author that the state’s most-beloved long-term politicians are Democrats, namely Senator Evan Bayh, formerly state governor, who was briefly a nod for the Democratic presidential race, and most notably his father Birch Bayh, who served as a U.S. Senator for almost twenty years. The much-beloved Julia Carson, who passed away this December, led an astounding number of achievements in the House in her work as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Oh, Frank O’Bannon, anyone? Joe Kernan?
But outside of state and local politics, Democrats don’t pay a lot of attention to Indiana. You want a dying manufacturing city for a photo op, you hit Detroit, and if you want a lead on the ag economy, you hit Iowa. I can recall President Bush visiting Indiana several times in the last eight or nine years for His Man Mitch, but until last month no presidential Dem really bothered to pay our dying industry, our sad economy, any attention. Not in my living memory.
While the talking elites had a heyday examining the truisms of Obama’s “bitter” remarks, I think there’s a grain of truth in that for all middle Americans. But we’re just equally bitter about being left behind as we are bitter at being ignored unless it’s politically convenient. For that, the Democrats ought to take note of what kind of response they get from active campaigning in the states they usually abandon.
Because anymore, when liberal commentators exclaim that Indiana doesn’t matter, whether because of the delegate counts or the state’s perceived conservatism or because it’s only a primary, I think Indiana doesn’t care about Democratic politics because national Democratic politics doesn’t care much about Indiana either.
__________
* Dear Mr. McClelland, I’ve never heard the term “Region Rats” before I read your article, but for what it’s worth The Region populates everything from Lake County and East Chicago all the way to Chesterton, La Porte, and Michigan City. It’s really hard to stereotype a population of this size so mythically, but bravo. You really outdid yourself.
** McClelland should have culled his thesis down to two simple sentences: “Fuck that bitch. Vote Obama.”
*** Hat tip for the rule to she of the rules.
well said.
that piece in salon made me so crazy too… I was born in the region… and it pained me EVERY time I read the “da” in front of it. I still shudder to think about it.
that, and if you’re gonna tie Indiana to any film, especially if you want to, I don’t know, say, pay attention to how class conflict functions in Indiana, Breaking Away is just so much more apropos, and a better film.
W00t, do this article next please!
We are not just a bunch of stupid rednecks here in Indiana…
So much of what you’ve written applies to North Carolina, too, with a few details changed. How ironic that two states so looked down upon by the fauxgressives now have so much importance in the Democratic primary. (Except we’re not actually important, really, of course because we don’t have that many electoral votes and we all vote Republican against our own best interests, and we’re all too stupid to know better, and…)
As an official born-and-raised-and-returned-in-residence Region Rat, it especially pains me to see “The Region” represented that way because we’re one of the few parts of Indiana that’s decidedly blue. Our congressman (Pete Visclosky) is a 10 term Democrat, and, because of the mills, it’s solidly blue union country. Also, it’s the most ethnically diverse and integrated Congressional district in Indiana. It’s not exactly a bunch of hillbilly rubes. Yeesh.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank the fuck outta you!!
We get the same thing down here south of I-80 (Chicago is supposedly the only “blue” area of Illinois, even though Galesburg and the Metro-East (though I prefer Riverbend—roughly Jersey/Madison/St.Clair counties, the area across from St. Louis) are both solidly blue, with the rest of the state more “purple” than anything. Shit, we aren’t toes-up yet.
And kudos for the Debs poster. It’s similar to one I have in my house (that I got from the Debs Society in Terre Haute!)
Can we just let ‘da __’ die already? It was funny 15 years ago. Not so much anymore.
for that matter, can we lay SNL to gorram rest already? it’s more undead than McCain, and about as funny most of the time.
but what he misses is a major point. Hoosiers don’t “always vote Republican.”
And on that note can we just shoot, in an especially painful place if we were to talk of my preferences about such matters, the electoral college system, that encourages the partisan gerrymandering, which in turn creates the whole “red state/blue state” framing in the first place?
Well, I was born, bred and educated in Da’ Region. And, I certainly am more than familiar with the term “Region Rat.” I guess I never saw it as demeaning. In fact, I think of it sort of as a badge of honor.
If the region is anything it is, and always has been, diverse. I mean how can an area be a melting part of cultures and not be diverse? Yes, it is true the area has struggled with regard to that diversity over the years; there is a love – hate thing at work here, and always has been.
The bottom line, however, is that only those ignorant of the history of the Region smugly tack a label onto the population and environs of the Calumet Region. In doing so, they exhibit their own shortcomings, not any deficiencies in the populus or of the environment known as the Region.
I am proud to be from the Region (Gary). I invite others to explore its rich diversity by visiting the Dave’s Den web site. The url for the site is http://GDYNets.WebNG.com. A visit there just might change your perceptions.