I still think this is too simplistic. As someone who grew up in Appalachia, went to undergrad in "The Big River" section, grad school in "The Farm Belt" and "The Southern Comfort" sections, I find their characterizations less than accurate. I think it's crazy, for example, to lump East Tennessee with West Virginia and the Northern parts of some very Southern states. And parts of Pennsylvania too? Northern Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia all have holdover issues from the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement that Pennsylvania--and really East Tennessee and West Virginia just don't have. I'll buy that there might be some commonality in terms of economics and maybe education. But culturally, there are huge gaps. There's not a lot of difference between outlying areas of Memphis and northern Mississippi, but these are in separate regions according to the map. I don't think we've even begun to put a real face on these areas. We still have assumptions and stereotypes. Just as they do of us. This is my first election in a blue state. I finally found myself among like-minded people no matter where I went (before, it was just an isolated group of academics). Until after the elections . . . and the people I grew up with, went to school with, and began a career with were blamed for the results in ways that were insulting and just wrong. We shouldn't try to simplify too much. America is a complicated place. I think we can find some answers, but I don't think it's by dividing the country up into pieces.
