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The South, 14 June 2007

Memo to Mudcat: ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN.

There was yet another of those blogospherical kerfluffles this week when the English-To-Hick interpreter for the John Edwards campaign, David "Mudcat" Sanders, took a lengthy potshot at elitist lefties and bloggers in general. He said a bunch of stuff, and then he apologized for it, but the central bug up his central ass was as follows. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"I don't care what the 'Metropolitan Wing' of my party thinks. I don't like them. The damage the pseudo-intellectuals have done to my party by abandoning tolerance, combined with their erroneous stereotyping of my people and culture, is something that brings out my incivility."

How do I know it's the central bug? Because he repeats it in his apology:

"And by the way, I never intended to shoot at the net roots with my initial post. I am simply an 'elitism hating' Southern Democrat who loathes the stereotypes that have been placed upon me and my neighbors."

His people, his culture, and his neighbors are occupants of what can be termed the "rural South". The erroneous stereotyping he refers to as coming from elite urban liberals includes things like being stupid, fucking your sister, fucking your sister's pig, lynching black people, dragging black people behind your pickup truck, nailing gay people to fences, and enjoying the comedy stylings of Larry The Cable Guy.

As a metropolitan elitist liberal who perpetuates those very stereotypes for fun and profit* in this very space, I feel I am uniquely qualified to Mr. Sanders why he should suck it up.

It's true that just because someone lives in the deep South, that doesn't make them a racist, a pigfucker, anti-intelligence, or pro-Confederacy. It is also true that, thanks to both human nature and modern travel convenience, you can find stupidity, bigotry, and the Stars-N-Bars in every corner of our "great" nation.

Why, Mudcat himself points out that "I know few Southern white people who don’t have a great black friend and visa versus." See? The South is a lot less racist than it used to be. Some of the South's best friends are black! These are indisputable facts, and under some circumstances, might be grounds for Sanders' ire to hold some water.

However it is also indisputable that the South has a special variety of stupidity that is both unique to it and endemic within it. A New York City cop may shoot you fifty times in the face for being black, sure. And that's indefensible. However, only in the South will you find, in 2007, white kids not showing up to their school's first integrated prom because of "tradition".

Pennsylvania had a school board trying to foist intelligent design on students. Florida has a creationist theme park. Kentucky has a creationist museum.

Lewis Libby, an East Coast upper-crust type, chooses to use his nickname, "Scooter" professionally. David Saunders, a rural Sothern political consultant, chooses to use his nickname, "Mudcat", professionally.

OK, that last one, I'll admit, is a draw.

Stupidity can happen anywhere. But there's a certain special way that it can ONLY happen in the South. That's what we urban coastal Metropolitan Opera elitists like to make fun of. Is it entirely fair? No. But it's not entirely unwarranted, either. And you know what? If the attitude of a few snarky elitist liberals really causes Southern rural voters to abandon the Democratic Party in droves, counter to their social and economic self-interest, well, that's pretty fuckin' stupid too.

*Technically, just fun.