Welcome to the Homeland: A Journey to the Rural Heart of America's Conservative Revolution

by Brian Mann

After George Bush’s stunning reelection in 2004, newspaper headlines such as “Rural Values Proved Pivotal” summed up the story, and the outcome left tens of millions of urban Americans baffled and outraged.
America’s political divide is not between red states and blue states. The divide is between counties in every state in the nation, and this urban—rural schism is the new frontier in America’s culture war.
For the first time, Welcome to the Homeland explores the radically different culture evolving just over the horizon of our urban beltways, and explains how Homelanders – Mann’s name for the nation’s fifty million rural whites – have managed to dominate the conservative base of the Republican Party, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, and to use the electoral college, which favors small states, to their advantage. Ultimately, Homelanders are fighting to create a new national culture, one rooted in the traditional values of nineteenth-century America.
In a nation that grows more urban and multiracial every year, how did Homelanders seize so much power? In a unique blend of travelogue, political analysis, and family memoir, Mann unveils a grassroots movement that has done the impossible, reversing the urban tide of American politics.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

296 pages, Hardcover

First published August 22, 2006

Reviews

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really mixed on this book. Welcome to the Homeland is a good read in light of the bifurcation of American politics between urban and rural. However, it's far from the best read on this topic. First of all, much of his conclusions are dated. I don't fault Mann for that because such is the course of political writing.

On the positive side of things, Brian Mann is a good writer and this book is a relatively quick read, even if you're crunched for time like I am. Mann's interactions with his conservative brother Allen are interesting to read and charming in a familial way. I personally wish there had been more of this entertaining personal aspect, as it was well woven in when it did appear. Mann presents some good points, including that Hillary's candidacy would storm a rural backlash (how prescient!), that Democrats fail to have a presence in rural areas anymore, that Democrats find themselves conflicted over the role of social issues, that voting Republican has become second nature in many parts of the country that were previously "purple". At times, I get the sense of empathy on Mann's part. It's not as much of a finger-pointing, rural-shaming piece as a lot of

However, when I think Mann is onto something, he turns around and seems a little condescending. The chapter on religion was tone deaf and terribly out of touch. His rantings and ravings about the electoral college and the senate also failed to impress me. Maybe I'm just not a fan of blaming things on the Constitution. It seemed at points that Mann had forgotten his Kansas roots and Alaskan upbringing. Additionally, there points that I kind of question. When Mann argues that FDR's administration represented a metropolitan, urban outlook, he fails to convey the high support that the New Deal attracted in *many* rural areas.

Overall, I don't think this is a stellar read. It's a decent book about America's shifting politics, but in trying to thread the line between personality and substance, Mann falls short in some aspects and appears out of touch sometimes. I definitely think there's value in his chapter about the struggle within today's Democratic Party, so if you want to focus on one part of this book, pick that one.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bush-era screed about rural-urban divide as manifested in politics.

Minimal discussion of race, class, regional differences, or rural economies. Occasionally flirts with making some interesting points about the religious adherence divide, but this is never discussed in sufficient detail to be incisive or accurate. Conflates exurbia with rural areas in a particularly unhelpful way. Fails to contextualize rural Republican voters as a minority within a larger coalition dominated by suburban whites. Says nothing at all about non-voters.

It's not that the author doesn't attempt to show empathy and understanding - it's just that he fails to in a telling way, especially with more than a decade having passed since the time of writing.

This has not aged well. Mostly of interest as a window on liberal attitudes of the time, esp. the caricature of rural areas that seems self-fulfilling in retrospect, to the extent that there is truth to it at all.

[Gil Bradshaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm really interested in this topic because right now we are seeing that rural Americans are not moving out of state to find work like they used to. Then these Americans find themselves trapped in areas without plentiful jobs and they get angry against the government and are extremely conservative (and get mad at immigrants). Mann makes a lot of arguments about why rural voters are conservative. Some of them pretty compelling. One thing Mann points out, for example, is that rural voters are overrepresented because each state has two senators--regardless of population. This leads to Wyoming having as much representation in the senate as California.

This book is outdated and you should probably find something more timely.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I continue searching for explanations to the clusterfuck of America and this book kind of, perhaps, maybe has hit onto something. It is not so much RED STATE VS BLUE STATE but urban vs rural. Part travelog, part family memoir part political analysis, the writer - urban travel through America's heartland with his brother - rural and draws some conclusions that continue to leave me frustrated and bewildered - because it is not going to change.

A lot of it has to do with the two senators per state that provides equal representation to Wyoming or Alaska with populations totaling less the the borough of Manhattan. Since the majority of Americans live in cities and the surrounding suburbs, not the exurbs and rural land you can start to realize how the Republicans have gained the upper hand in dictating the policies that the government promotes.

I found this in a used book shop in Burlington, and paid a few $ for it. It was originally published in 2006 so politically is very outdated. The author focuses on many of the social/cultural issues that are dividing the country: abortion, same-sex marriage, environmental issues, climate change that have become even more pronounced as we go into the 2012 election. It would be enjoyable to read an updated version that takes into account what has happened since its original publication.

It did provide an opportunity to reflect and convinced me more than ever that I am glad a moved to VT; a state he mentions as being on that has an undue influence but one that is at the forefront of progressive change. I mean really we have an Independent Senator in Bernie Sanders and he was the first elected social mayor of the Queen City on lovely Lake Champlain - Burlington!

Vermont is truly doing things right.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book. The most important argument here is the same one that Sanford Levinson made in his excellent book "Our Undemocratic Constitution," which is that our country's outdated constitution guarantees that Senate and presidential elections in the United States will always be extremely undemocratic affairs where 20% of the country's population can wield almost 60% of the political power and can thereby enact laws and policies that are not supported by 80% of the U.S. electorate.

This book also eloquently rebuts some smug and unproven assertions that Thomas Frank made in his influential book "What's the Matter with Kansas," mostly to the effect that rural voters have not been hoodwinked into voting against their own economic interests as Frank asserts--they understand their economic interests much better than Frank gives them credit for, but they either put their biblical concerns above those, or laugh all the way to the bank when they collect the pork-barrel largesse that comes their way as payment for their loyalty to the less popularly elected but more politically powerful Republican party.

Mann uses interviews with real-life rural "homelanders" to put a human face on the 20% of our population that he calls homelanders in order to make them more understandable to us "metros," and he succeeds.

[BetsyD · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. There are some major errors in this book, and it seems entirely obsolete given the 2006 election results. I also don't buy the author's contention that people who refuse to believe that rural folks are more subsidized by the government than urban folks are thoughtful or intelligent.

[Garrett Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and respectful look at the Urban/Rural divide in American Politics and conservative "Homeland" values. Consider it as a a counterpoint to "What's the Matter With Kansas"

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good study of the political divide between rural and urban America circa 2005, I think this book has important insights though it may have dated quickly.

[Maria]

Occasionally, it makes good points, but could have been half as long. For the first three chapters, Mann basically makes the same point over and over with different sources.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives rise to hope for the middle