The Tea Party-inspired drive to derail Obamacare is anchored in a place where opposition to the federal government is as old as the nation: the American South.
The current fight, a budget standoff that threatens the creditworthiness of the U.S, has vestiges of the secession from the union that started in South Carolina and led to the Civil War. It carries echoes of the nullification crisis over tariffs in the 1830s and the so-called massive resistance movement to oppose desegregation of public schools in the 1950s.
In each of those fights, led by Democrats who then dominated the region, Southerners said they were overrun by Northerners hostile to their culture in ways that undermined their freedom. Now, their heirs are Republicans and, while the regions prevailing party affiliation has changed, the basic orthodoxy has remained.
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I dont know if the South breeds conservatives, or conservatives flock to the South, said Harold Holzer, an historian and biographer of Abraham Lincoln, but of course there are historical parallels to the idea of obstructing federalism, repressing the minority vote, over-the-top (fire-eating) rhetoric, etcetera.
Doesnt anyone read history anymore, much less learn from it? Holzer asked.