The dystopian myths of red America

DESENSITISATION is an amazing thing. At this point most political observers simply accept it as a fact of life that an overwhelming majority of Republicans accept the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen – a claim with nothing to support it, not even plausible anecdotes.

What I don’t think is fully appreciated, however, is that the Big Lie is embedded in an even bigger lie: the claim that the Democratic Party is controlled by radical leftists aiming to destroy America as we know it. And this lie in turn derives a lot of its persuasiveness from a grotesquely distorted view of what life is like in blue America.

Urban elites are constantly accused of not understanding “Real America”. And, to be fair, most big-city residents probably don’t have a good sense of what life is like in rural areas and small towns, although it’s doubtful whether this gap justified the immense number of news reports interviewing Trump voters sitting in diners.