In the course of reading Redstate.com’s analysis of the Philly vote in this week’s Pennsylvania primary (an analysis which convinces me that, despite the smooth assurances that the Democratic coalition will come back together just the same as always once Sen. Obama limps to the finish line and finally secures the nomination, the Obama-McCain general election is going to look very different from what we’ve been used to seeing lately), I found a link to an old piece in the Village Voice written by Michael Gecan (a community organizer in the footsteps of Saul Alinsky, as Sen. Obama was) titled “The Tribes of Yale.” It’s a fascinating piece of cultural-political analysis; and if Gecan’s assertion that conservative political leaders “don’t know what in the world—in the bigger, broader world where most moderate Americans live and work, play and pray, and try to raise their kids—they are for” is inaccurate, as I’m quite sure it is, I think his broader argument that they’re driven more by what they’re against than by what they’re for is thought-provoking, especially in the context of his overall understanding of the liberal/conservative cultural clash. Even if his conclusions are incorrect, the story he tells is an important one, I think, for those who would seek to understand American politics in the first decade of the third millennium AD.
