Dick Yarbrough's post-election thoughts on America's "cultural divide" (?).

Liberals are out of touch and on wrong side of the cultural divide

Dick Yarbrough
November 2004

Here is a prediction you can take to the bank: For the next four years, the national news media are going to obsess on America's "cultural divide." In their opinion, that is why George W. Bush won re-election and why Democrats are out of power. In my opinion, they don't know what they are talking about.

To them, the "cultural divide" means a bunch of homophobic, born-again, right-wing crazies - most of whom live in the South - conspired to take over the country and disenfranchise the reasoned and rational. End of story.

For example, gays, who make up about 5 percent of the population, don't seem to understand we don't care what they do behind closed doors, but we do care about the institution of marriage. We have become weary of seeing gay marriages, hearing about gay marriages, reading about gay marriages and watching the media promote gay marriages. Eleven states - including a bunch not in the South, thank God - had referenda on gay marriage. In every single state, the vote was better than 2-to-1 against gay marriage. The reaction of gay activists? One opined the American public "didn't understand what they were voting on." Yeah, right.

There is an incestuous relationship between the national media and the Democrats. We watched Dan Rather try to sandbag the president late in the campaign and then discovered his producer called the Democrats and gave them a heads-up to contact Bush's accuser in Texas. In short, we perceived the media ganging up on President Bush and at least 59 million of us didn't like it.

Democrats are as out of touch with American values as are the national media. Democrats thought they could win the election without the South. As I said a year ago, it can't be done. We represent the traditional values that can get you elected - or defeated.

It is astonishing to me the Democrats made Michael Moore such a visible part of their campaign, even having him at their national convention. Had anyone asked, I would have said to stay as far away from that guy as possible. He is bad news. And he was.

We got tired of hearing self-important show-business liberals trash the president. Because they can carry a tune in a bucket or pretend to be someone they aren't, why should we care what they think? The answer? We don't. Now has-been actor Robert Redford says he may move to Canada. If we are living right, maybe he will take Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg and the Dixie Chicks with him.

The national Democratic Party is currently being held hostage by a host of special-interest groups. Zell Miller tried to tell them that, and all he got for his trouble was abuse from his own party. Whether you like Zell Miller or not - and I do - he was correct. Whether Democrats learned anything or not remains to be seen.

The European media wonder out loud how 59 million of us can be so stupid as to re-elect George W. Bush. Fifty-nine million of us look on Europe and think they are a bunch of lazy has-beens living in the 18th century who couldn't exist without our money.

This column will surely engender the usual bromides from elitists on the dangers of "majority rule," and I will receive numerous reminders of Samuel Johnson's comment that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." I would suggest majority rule is better than minority rule and sloganeering is the first refuge of people too out of touch to understand that Americans, for the most part, are good, decent people perfectly capable of making quality decisions.

Like the national news media and those who rule the Democratic Party, the sloganeers don't have a clue how the rest of us think. As far as I am concerned, they can all take their "cultural divide" and shove it.