Getting blue in red states.

There was a mountain of blather about the emergence of "morality and values" as the primary mover and shaker in the presidential election, and conventional wisdom had these nebulous, undefined concepts as the cause of Shrub's victory. Subsequent analysis of polling data and demographics reveal this to be wholly unsupported, though it continues to be held dear by those most invested in it - the punditocracy that invented it.

The second part of the "morals got him elected" fairy tale has those who voted solely on the "values" card as living almost exclusively in so called "red states," those that Shrub won to remain (become?) president. A closer look at county by county voting reveals the conceit behind that notion as well. Much was made of the outcry against the vulgarity of popular media, the coarsening of the culture, and the degradation of morals, all imputed to actions by those in "blue" states.

Now an excellent article in The Washington Post examines some cultural differences - and similarities - between "blue" and "red" states. The results are surprising, especially if you bought that whole false dichotomy to begin with. It also highlights the ties between the "smut" business and the giant corporations that bankroll the "values" party - the Republican Party.

GOP Corporate Donors Cash In on Smut

By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 21, 2004; 6:24 AM

Since the election, the e-mails from readers have poured into my mailbox. The common theme from conservatives has been that Nov. 2 was a triumph of values -- embodied by the GOP heartland over the heathens of the coastal elite.

Typical of the comments was this one from Arizona: "I do think the Democrat Party is identified -- justifiably -- with much of the vulgarization so prominently displayed by many celebrities, particularly those in the entertainment industry. Hey, we pick our friends."

In this case, the Democratic Party's "friends" are the expletive-spewing Whoopi Goldberg and her Hollywood pals, whom conservatives demonize. But Republicans have their friends, too. While not as obvious as the Goldbergs of the world, this corporate elite also profits from the peddling of lowbrow entertainment and, in some cases, outright smut.

In fact, just as the Democratic and Republican elites both profit from creating and selling popular entertainment, red states and blue states don't differ much in their consumption of it.

In my recent Yahoo Political Players interview with Tucker Carlson, the conservative writer and CNN Crossfire co-host asserted that the red/blue divide is rooted in the dismay many Americans perceive in the vast social and cultural changes happening in the country and the fact that the masses of people in middle America blame a distant, coastal elite for fostering those changes.

"The people who run the Republican Party are elites just like any other elite, and they don't share the same cultural concerns as the center of the country," said Carlson. "They don't -- they're all pro-choice on abortion, they're all pro-gay rights, they're all thrice married, you know what I mean? And they summer in the Hamptons, too. And so they don't have anything in common, that's true, with evangelicals who make up the bulk of their party."

In this world of irony, corporate leaders at companies as diverse as News Corp., Marriott International and Time Warner can profit by selling red state consumers the very material that red state culture is supposed to despise. Those elites then funnel the proceeds to the GOP, which in turn has used the money to successfully convince red state voters that the other political party is solely responsible for the decline of the civilization.

The full article is fairly long, but very worth while, to get an idea who is creating and selling TV shows depicting loose morals and human sexuality in a culturally destructive way, who is responsible for both the manufacture and the consumption of pornography.

Enjoy!