49% of voters have little connection to average American reality

A conservative friend of mine passed along with glee a silly little essay that appeared in The Nation. He promised that I would crap my pants in amazement at the essay. Fortunately for my trousers, he was wrong.

The essay essentially suggested that liberalism and progressivism were dying species. It offered the usual canards, but precious little evidence

I responded that he liked the essay for two main reasons: a) it said what he, a conservative, wanted to hear and this surprised and pleased him because b) it appeared in The Nation, a left-wing magazine. I dismissed the essay as typically broad and with little to substantiate its vague, sweeping charges. I chastised him for buying into a theory that declares an ideology dead or dying, especially after its alleged standard bearer recent gained more votes than any previous presidential candidate in history.

My friend's rather weak response: "but the author is a liberal" -- as though that's supposed override all criticisms of lacking in substance. It is not totally irrelevant but as my friend is ordinarily the first to point out, liberals can make flimsy arguments too.

But then my friend goes on to claim that the author is saying:

the average liberal in America, the average Kerry supporter, has little if any connection to the realities of present-day America

I've heard this argument in various forms before and I'm tired of it.

The purportedly liberal candidate Kerry and the progressive candidate Nader combined for around 49% of the vote last month. So exactly how far away from average can 49% of a population be? Unless there's one heck of a standard deviation!

And isn't 49% is a pretty good result for two 'obsolete' ideologies?

Do the 'average' liberal or Kerry supporter (ie: 49% of the electorate) in America live in a vacuum? Are New York state, Oregon, Maine and Vermont not part of 'present-day America'?

This sort of nonsense is contemptuous as the assertion that all Bush voters are stupid. I'm sick of that. And I'm sick of being told that liberals, progressives and blue staters are all fake Americans while Heartlanders, fundamentalist Christians and red staters are real Americans.

Let's face it: America is a very closely divided country. The right indeed won a majority last month, but by a mere 3%. Conservatism was declared dead after the 1964 election; it's standard bearer, Barry Goldwater, lost by significantly more than 3%. Yet Reagan's first win occurred a mere 16 years after this "obituary."

So I ask any like-minded readers this: the 49% of Americans who voted for liberal or progressive candidates, what are the realities of present day America they have 'little if any connection to'?