The Heartland of Manhattan
In an America famously divided into red and blue, much Republican ideological energy is spent marginalizing the politics and worldview of those who live in the “elite coastal enclaves” and celebrating the virtues of “real America,” by which they mean the rural South and Midwest. What makes Cairo, Illinois or the Holy City of Crawford more “American” than New York or Los Angeles, besides the recent tendency to vote Republican, is a point of faith. Common folks, untainted by the luxuries of city life, have historically been revered for their stoic and uncomplicated approach to life. The gold-plated moral compass awarded them by metropolitan conservatives is their booby prize for missing out on the material pleasures available in such corrupting abundance in the cities.
One of the great storylines playing out this week is the variation of “town mouse, country mouse” taking place on the streets of New York. Here, heartland conservatives in full ideological armor are about to be plunged into direct contact with the realities of the world’s greatest city – a place they have strangely chosen as a celebration of their superior American-ness. In a way, the towering irony of the occasion is a splendid metaphor for the monument to cognitive dissonance that Republicanism has become under Bush.
Here, the suburban and exurban footsoldiers of the Republican Revolution will applaud speakers who abominate the culture of tolerance, artistic and intellectual freedom, sexual exploration and inescapable pragmatism that has not only made New York possible but made it great. The inescapable evidence of its greatness will surround and confront them at every turn: the economic vitality, the excitement, the incomparable variety of experiences, and the sense of community shared by 8 million people of wildly diverse backgrounds sharing the same chunk of Earth.
In New York, no one has the luxury of insularity. People from the most rigid and traditional communities face daily challenges to their prejudices and preconceptions, and the best of them adapt by putting a face of public moderation and tolerance on values that are, at core, as deeply-held and -felt as those of any Midwestern farmer or suburban soccer mom. What the urban experience teaches them is that manifesting strident and self-righteous positions on issues affecting other groups or individuals in a heterogeneous community is an unseemly indulgence at best, and an invitation to violence at worst. In the crucible of cosmopolitanism, the ideology of division and intolerance – even expressed in the deceptive language of Christianity and family preferred by the contemporary Right – is exposed as a facile lie, a false vision of virtue.
In metropolitan America, conservatism is expressed as resistance to ethnic politics, preference for business interests over those of “City Hall bureaucrats,” and support for police and public safety, even at the expense of some personal liberty. These are reasonable positions in the spectrum of real issues facing cities, and for this reason, places like LA and New York occasionally elect Republicans. But creatures like Giuliani, Bloomberg, and former LA mayor Richard Riordan bear little resemblance to the strident, red-faced yokels who dominate the national party. Intelligent metropolitan conservatives like Kevin Phillips, David Brooks and Tucker Carlson, unable to reconcile the truthful lessons of their expensive educations and personal (urban) experiences to the simplistic (and manifestly failed) formulations of the GOP of Bush, Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum, have become increasingly vocal in their displeasure. Even Wall Street is quietly pushing back from the table (or trough, perhaps), horrified and dismayed at the programatic shortcomings of current junta of bombthrowing radicals now occupying the corridors of power, even when it’s ostensibly in the name of their interests.
It’s no accident that the medieval Islamists chose New York as the site for their most spectacular statement against modernity. Cities in general, and New York in particular, embody the confusion and complexity of the modern world. By pushing insular ideologies into intimate contact by sheer physical proximity, cities challenge traditional “truths” and expose them when they are shown to be contrary to human nature and experience. Fundamentalism can only thrive in conditions where the environment allows for few distractions, and where ideologues can command a monopoly on the attention of the people. Cities, with their abundance of luxuries and alternatives, force people (and especially young people) to question the certainties of their upbringing, and start defining their community as larger than the small circle of kin and tribe.
The contemporary Republican Party has become the party of rural fundamentalism, internalizing a set of principles designed to cater to the fears and insecurities of a population being left behind by an increasingly dynamic and urbanized world. In a perverse act of ill-conceived political exhibitionism, Bush and his cohorts have chosen to celebrate this retrograde vision of American culture in the place where the triumphs of liberal cosmopolitanism are on full display. They deserve the reception they get.
10:01:42 AM 
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