1) a cracked bell
2) James Buchanan
3) getting invaded
4) saving democracy in America.
The last was contraindicated from the first three.
It is a tiresome trope, “microcosm,” overused, boring short-hand. But you don’t have to photoshop or squint or stand on your head to see some similarities in these maps, geographical and political.
I truncated the West and South only to give it a more rectangular shape. Solid blue in the mega-cities that dominate the Northeast and West from north to south. Blood red in the heart of the South and in the farmland of the Midwest.
Pennsylvania was famously described by James Carville as Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west and Alabama in between. The east of Pennsylvania is as blue as the Northeast of the country.
The western edge is not continuously blue from top to bottom as is the West Coast of the U.S. but Erie County is a good analog for the Starbucks Nation in the Pacific Northwest. Pittsburgh (Allegheny County) is a pathetic island compared to the insurmountable Great Blue Wall hugging the Pacific.
Centre County is passable as Illinois except for population. Dauphin is smaller geographically than Centre but has a greater population. I admit this requires a squint and head-cock and if you don’t want to give it to me fine, but with a helping of geographical license would you indulge me? Dauphin County is Georgia.
The middle portion of the state, that known as Pennsyltucky, is geographically rural farmland, as are the American plain states, and ruby red politically.
Pennsylvania’s most accomplished governor, Gifford Pinchot, was urged by his campaign advisors to pay a visit or two to Pennsylvania’s vast, unpopulated northern tier counties. “What?! Why, there are more bears in Potter County than people. No!” As there are more elk and moose and whatever than peoplez in the northern border states of the U.S.—Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas.
It’s a stretch and I’m not going to use that goddamned, hackneyed word but both the country and the Commonwealth are horizontally oriented. There are East-West political and economic power loci in both with a lot of nervous sheep in between. And once in its lifetime Pennsylvania saved the country.
And now with something in my eyes and something else in my throat I close. Good night and thanks be to God for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
