Would you give up a year of your life to advance your political views? Two years? Three? Five? This sounds like the very definition of hypothetical. But what if it were not? What if you really were faced with that choice? What would you choose? What if I told you, you may have already chosen.

In 60s and 70s, it used to be said that the United States was just becoming one homogeneous mass. Super highways, big-box stores, chain restaurants, and strip malls were everywhere. One state was much like another, it was said. Academics studied the idea. Pundits discussed it, but history now shows us that it was true in only superficial ways.

In the second decade of the 21st century, we are in fact more fragmented than we were 40 years ago, riven into competing camps in a split so intense, it evokes comparison with America just prior to the Civil War. This is an ancient split deep in the fabric of our country. Partly race based, partly economic and cultural it goes all the way back to the Constitutional Convention. It is a point of view, not just a region. As I write this Counties in Virginia, Colorado and […]