Left vs. Right + Rural vs. Urban = Red vs. Blue

Dennis Prager published an essay I found today on RealClearPolitics titled "There Are Two Irreconcilable Americas." He writes:

It is time to confront the unhappy fact about our country: There are now two Americas. Not a rich one and a poor one; economic status plays little role in this division.

There is a red one and a blue one.

He identifies these along ideological lines:

Right and the left do not want the same America.

The left wants America to look as much like Western European countries as possible. The left wants Europe's quasi-pacifism, cradle-to-grave socialism, egalitarianism and secularism in America. The right wants none of those values to dominate America.

This is the ideological component of our political divide - the explanation for the tight polarization of the country into a 50-50 nation. I estimate it explains about one-third or slightly more of our recent electoral outcomes. This ideological component has been dominated by the center-right ever since the Reagan years and it seems to prevail still, though it can be trumped by other factors. We see this in the tension over this election. Neither Obama nor McCain has transcended this divide, but the Bush years and the financial crisis has changed the playing field.

If we look at the politics of the last 40+ years we can see how ideology and party platforms have coincided with geography, which explains the pattern of red vs. blue across the nation. These patterns reflect real differences in lifestyle preferences and values. This is nothing unique to America or our times. For example, Thailand seems to be experiencing the same division in its politics:
"In Thai Protests, a Divide Between Urban and Rural."

The challenge for our politics is to reconcile these divisions and I have to say I'm a bit more optimistic than Prager, who believes one or the other ideological world must win out. America is not like Europe and never will be; trying to make it thus only invites a backlash. Besides, in practical matters European societies have been moving away from state socialism toward markets for years. The developing world is moving that way even more deliberately.

But there are important aspects of a developed society that the traditional right needs to acknowledge - things like a competitive market in health care and spreading the benefits of capitalism by promoting equity participation and defending the rights of ownership. The corporate scandals and moral hazard of the financial sector have dealt a terrible blow to these preconditions.