McCain and Obama are attending a forum this Saturday, hosted by Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life. It will focus on "heartland questions":
The Rev. Rick Warren said Thursday that his upcoming forum with Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will be aimed at asking them tough "heartland questions."
The author of the best-selling book "The Purpose-Driven Life" is to interview McCain and Obama on Saturday.
Heartland questions, eh? Where is this "heartland" that Warren speaks of?
The candidates will appear together at Warren's 20,000-member Saddleback mega-church in southern California.
Ah, I see. Southern California. Truly, the heartland of America.
More in the extended entry.
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What really irks me about Warren's use of the word "heartland" is not that he identifies southern California as the heartland of America. For one thing, southern California is just as much part of America as any other location. Secondly, like all those who use the term "heartland," isn't actually making a geographic claim when he uses the word. Instead, he is making an argument about cultural primacy in America.
The term "heartland," as in most rhetorical uses of the word "heart," implies the emotional center of America, not an actual geographic location. As such, what Warren is claiming here that the people who follow him are somehow more American than people who consume other media. His ideas are more connected to the emotional center of America than other ideas. It is a subtle way of implying that those who are different than you are less American.
Of course, for the past several decades, conservatives have consistently implied that liberals are somehow less than American. These implications are, I believe, one of the main adhesives that keep the Democratic coalition together. African-Americans, non-Christians, Latinos, Asians, the LGBT community, and white secular progressives are all jointly implied to be somehow less-than-American by conservatives. We all fall outside the claims to cultural primary made by terms such as "heartland." It is in this way that white liberals are actually treated, at least in the news media, in pretty much the same way as minorities. We are all excluded, mainly because seen as somehow outside the mainstream of America, and thus not as relevant to political discussion.
"Heartland." Ugh. I really despise that term. It is one of the more accepted forms of implied bigotry that I can think of. |
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