Panem et circenses.
Still want to cut the red states loose and go your own urbane way? Well, hell. You don’t just have Mike Thompson on your side: a big hand, ladies and gentlemen, for the rhetorical stylings of Jim McNeil!
The states Kerry won, due solely to votes in just one or two cities each, are California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. The cities that out-voted the rest of their state or adjacent areas are the District of Columbia, New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle.
Kerry won just eight states (Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) with balanced votes, and only two of these (Delaware and Hawaii) are outside of New England. These states gave him just 41 electoral votes.
The 11 cities listed above gave him 208 such votes, against wishes shown elsewhere statewide. Four more states could have had similar results due to city voting in Cleveland, Denver, St. Louis or the Miami to Palm Beach- area. Add D.C.’s three electoral votes and just 15 cities can award 278 electoral votes.
Thus, cities can pick our president, against the wishes expressed elsewhere nationwide.
Laugh if you like at his apparent misunderstanding of the whole point of democracy—that’s actually a standard tactic over in non-reality-based circles, where the vote is calculated by interest group, weighing the franchise of those you agree with more heavily, while discounting that of those you would consign to the Joy Division. Usually, though, this is reserved for the votes of those with funny skin: without the black vote, we’re told, over and over again, those Democrats would be sunk, yessiree. McNeil’s only innovation is to take the urban of “urban comedy” literally.
Now, I’m hardly the first person to have noticed it, but still: doesn’t one-state-two-state-red-state-blue-state make you think of the chariot races?
Factions were identified by their colors: either Blue or Green, Red or White. Domitian added gold and purple but they, like the emperor, were never popular and short-lived. Colors first are recorded in the 70s BC [sic]; during the Republic, when Pliny the Elder relates that, at the funeral of a charioteer for the Reds, a distraught supporter threw himself on the pyre in despair, a sacrifice that was dismissed by the Whites as no more than the act of someone overcome by the fumes of burning incense. According to Tertullian, these were the first two factions and, although the Blues and Greens are assumed to have appeared later in the first century AD [sic], it is likely that all four colors extend back to the Republic. Whatever their origin, by the end of the third century AD [sic], Blue and Green had come to dominate the other two factions, which seem to have aligned themselves as Red and Green, White and Blue.
A pairing of Green and White, at least, can be seen from lead “curse tablets” that invoke the most terrible fate for rival factions.
I adjure you, demon whoever you are, and I demand of you from this hour, from this day, from this moment, that you torture and kill the horses of the Greens and Whites and that you kill in a crash their drivers…
I conjure you up, holy beings and holy names, join in aiding this spell, and bind, enchant, thwart, strike, overturn, conspire against, destroy, kill, break Eucherius, the charioteer, and all his horses tomorrow in the circus at Rome. May he not leave the barriers well; may he not be quick in contest; may he not outstrip anyone; may he not make the turns well; may he not win any prizes…
Which, if nothing else, tells us the two-party system has always hated and feared potential third-party interlopers more than their soi-disant rivals. (Okay, weak. But it also answers the riddle of what color libertarian states are given on the Akashic electoral map.)
But! What do we do about this state of affairs? That’s the operative question, isn’t it? —Well, luckily for y’all, they used to show The Tomorrow People on Nickelodeon, and I watched a lot of it when I was a kid:
Though if you look deeper into the kaleidoscope and see past the loud colours that are the obvious horror, sci-fi and comic book references (John losing his “super powers” when imprisoned) this is quite an interesting science fiction story about an alien race who, like cuckoos, lay their eggs in different nests. The nests being different planets and the eggs taking the shape of the dominant life-forms on each planet, in this case taking the human form. The problem being that the energy the eggs need to hatch and fly free from earth can only be generated by human anger. The aliens have the power to create anger in humans by painting pictures of different planets that have temperamental weather conditions, which somehow affect the aggression levels of human beings who come into contact with them, and also by creating badges of different colours (blue and green) so the wearer of a green badge will become violent towards the wearer of a blue badge (but only when the weather is bad on, let’s say…Rexel 4!) The Tomorrow People’s job is to convince scary and very creepy Bowiealike alien Robert (who has been living in a junk shop with someone he calls Grandad, but actually appears to be a character that has fallen out of The Goon Show), that they can generate the energy needed by everyone on earth going to sleep at the same time and dreaming violent dreams whilst Stephen and John re-route the dream energy to the hatching aliens using giant stun guns! As John himself says “It’s an idea!”
So, hey. Let’s get cracking.
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Great post!
Of course, your ability to satirize the New Urban Isolationism (NUI) is consistent with NUI itself, since satire is an urban value. (If you think suburbs do irony, look again at the names of new subdivisions out there -- yep, they mean those literally)
See my site, http://urbanist.typepad.com, for a critique of the NUIcoming out of Seattle's free weekly.
Peace, Jarrett
re: McNeil: Never mind that less populous states get more electoral votes per capita...
NUI and red/blue are dangerous. I've been surprised by having the same views on economics as many of my relatives in North Dakota. Some of them are even farmers. And they're ok with gay people. Not entirely comfortable - gay marriage was probably an issue - but coming around.
Okay, so I'm looking for online documentation of this cool green/blue chariot race story Elkins told me ages ago, and I'm just not finding it (did find this moderately interesting blog though).
Anyway, apparently, and I forgot which Emporer this was under, there was this particular chariot race, and the crowds are screaming out for their teams, "Green," "Blue," "Green," when suddenly, they start chanting "Blue-Green" in unison, go wild in riot and overthrow the Emporer.
Just thought you should know.
Green!!
Purple!!
GREEN!!!
PURPLE!!
Sorry, couldn't help myself.