Following the 2016 presidential election, liberal elites wasted no time in demonizing those people populating “Red States.” Writing for The Hill, Duane Townsend was among the first to voice an opinion that has become familiar to the point of cliché: “America is held hostage by flyover states.” Townsend offered this thoughtful, measured analysis of this demographic:
“A flyover state is the huge region between the coasts. As opposed to the eastern seaboard, northern post-industrial states and Pacific Ocean states. They’re overwhelmingly Republican, stanchly conservative, regressive right wing, evangelical Christian and working class, well, the loudest, most ill-informed of them are….They either want their country back or they’re tired of being ignored. They regularly blurt the latter as justification for electing right-wing theocrat/closed minds, austerity minded, cultural fascists to office.”
