Image via WikipediaMichael Hirsch at Newsweek says that the nation has become “Southernized,” and that this is a bad thing — the title of his piece posits, “Maybe it’s Time for the North to Secede.” I don’t differ with Hirsch much on the fact that Southern mores have more pronounced influence now. But I sure differ with him on whether or not that is a good thing. Says Hirsch:

This region was heavily settled by Scots-Irish immigrants–the same ethnic mix King James I sent to Northern Ireland to clear out the native Celtic Catholics. After succeeding at that, they then settled the American Frontier, suffering Indian raids and fighting for their lives every step of the way. And the Southern frontiersmen never got over their hatred of the East Coast elites and a belief in the morality and nobility of defying them. Their champion was the Indian-fighter Andrew Jackson. The outcome was that a substantial portion of the new nation developed, over many generations, a rather savage, unsophisticated set of mores. Traditionally, it has been balanced by a more diplomatic, communitarian Yankee sensibility from the Northeast and upper Midwest. But that latter sensibility has been losing ground in population numbers–and cultural weight.

Ironically, James Webb, a Naval Academy graduate, Vietnam veteran, novelist, former Secretary of the Navy (under President Reagan) and new Democratic senator from Virginia, wrote a book praising the Scots-Irish, from whom he descends. Should we put Webb and Hirsch in a room together to let them talk about this?

Anyway, back to Hirsch:

Barack Obama seems to be so leery of being identified as an urban Northern liberal that he’s running away from the most obvious explanation of his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weatherman Bill Ayers: after Obama graduated from college he became an inner-city organizer in Chicago, and they were natural allies for someone in a situation like that.

Look, I’m all for allying with despicable people to get things done. We allied ourselves with Stalin in World War II. We helped Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 80s. But once these alliances served their purposes, we ended them and repudiated the former allies. We recognized the Soviet Union for the giant slave camp it was, and we recognized (too late) Saddam for the monster he was.

Obama, however, didn’t just use the alliance to get things done. He continues the relationships to this day, refuses to repudiate either Wright or Ayers, and unbelievably claims that in 20 years of attending Wright’s church, he never personally heard such inflammatory rhetoric.

And for all this, Hirsch insists it is southern sensibilities that are wrong. That reacting to Obama’s relationship with these guys is merely a matter of intolerance, rather than a recognition that Obama’s worldview is fundamentally different from the “southernized” portion of the electorate. What gall. Worldview matters.

Dennis Prager is fond of saying that the North saved the union in the 19th century and that the South will save it in this one. If Hirsch is right, then so is Prager.

Hat Tip: Hot Air.