Opinion | Why America Loves to Hate on the South

We all get a little Southern when this nation is going fascist is just what it is, right. We all want to consume the romantic version of the South: the verandas, the magnolia trees, the music, the food. To Jamelle’s point, when I look out across like our popular culture, even, I’m always going to start paying attention when country music is ascendant, I’m always going to pay attention when S.E.C. football now becomes a national obsession. I’m going to pay attention when the Bama Rush girls are driving millions of dollars of free marketing for their university. Because what that does for people, again, an audience that is consuming this from outside the South, is we can always say: No matter how bad it is in California, no matter how bad it is in Montana, at least we’re not the South. And so you consume the palatable parts of the South to make yourself feel better about where the national trend lines of politics are going. But yet we produce an idea of America that says: Well, we’re not as bad as the South, but also, the South wasn’t really always that bad, now, was it. We’re always doing both of those projects at the same time.