But you don’t have to scan or slice open your brain to figure out what your political leanings are. In an era of politics shaped by the “values vote” political messaging masterminded by Karl Rove and Frank Luntz, a lot of us are not quite as liberal or conservative as we think. Strong sentiments about issues like abortion, war, and gay marriage can manipulate your thinking into a very polarized position, when in fact you may in every other way espouse values of the party you think you detest. But don’t worry, there’s a test to help you sort things out. Actually a bunch of them. With just twenty a/b questions, the Pew Research Political Typology Quiz informed me that I – along with 10% of the population – am a “New Coalition Democrat”. I of course bristle slightly at this; if I have to put myself in one of the current boxes available, I think I’d be a weird hybrid of Green Party and Libertarian. The common red vs blue framework doesn’t really capture the values of someone like me who thinks money itself is an obsolete concept, which renders a lot of other dialog pointless. Anyway, adding a little more nuance, we have the Political Philosophy Quiz, which identified me (with relative accuracy) as a “socially progressive, moderately capitalist, libertarian pacifist”. The On the Issues PartyMatch Quiz assessed me as 55% Democrat, 53% Green Party, and 37% Republican. A little more accurate in some ways, but all of these quizzes highlight one thing, which is that we’re stuck in a gridlocked bipartisan system that doesn’t really represent anyone’s values, except those who are inside the game, or happy to take their marching orders from those who are.

Probably the most useful of these online quizzes for someone like me was the About.com Political Loyalty Quiz, which asked questions like “Which bumper sticker would you be most likely to put on your car?” and offered choices like “At Least In Vietnam, Bush Had An Exit Strategy” or “Nice Hummer. Sorry About Your Penis”. What about you? Do you know where you really stand? Or or are your party convictions really based on single issues?

You know America has really gone to hell when a self-respecting white supremacist can’t attend a tea party rally without getting harassed by some elitist intellectual teabagger type. We suggested a while back that the country may be headed for some kind of red vs. blue civil war, but this thinking was based on the pretty narrow evidence of two-party voting behavior during a national election. Now that we’ve had a chance to see America showing its true (mostly white) colors, we’re rethinking things a bit, and think the real civil disorder will be just that: civil disorder. And mostly amongst the hard-to-define factions known as rednecks, hillbillies, and white trash. Yes, while American spatial mobility seems to have slowed around 2007, we’re still left with a lot people from different American subcultures transplanted to a variety of urban areas. And as the old saying goes, “you can take the boy out of the country” yadda yadda. I was reminded of how powerful these subcultural influences can be recently when I used the term “white trash” in mixed company. And by “mixed company”, I mean a group of white people from various parts of the country, some of whom are only spittin’ distance from their more rural roots. I really thought that in an age when so many oppressed groups of people had reclaimed the power of words used against them – i.e.: gay men calling themselves fags, black people calling themselves niggers, etc. – that my reference to my white trash background was pretty safe. How wrong I was. The hilarious arguments that ensued regarding what the differences were between rednecks, hillbillies, and white trash inspired me to do a series of utterly unscientific pop-anthropology overviews of the distinctions. Since my snuff-dippin’ grandmother from West Virginia always bragged about how the main thing that made her not a redneck was the fact that her family fought for the Union during the civil war, that’s the first line I’m going to draw. The strongest image in the redneck brand seems to be the confederate flag, so I’m going to assert that since grandma didn’t come from the hills, and wasn’t a redneck, she must have been white trash. Which gives me license to claim a certain expertise on this group. We’ll go into more detail in upcoming pieces (besides, we already covered how to talk like a hillbilly) , but I figure we’ll cover some basics right now. First of all, you’ll need a name. An awful lot of my white trash (see how comfortably I use the term now?) ancestors had that familiar “billy bob” or dotty mae” theme going on, so I highly recommend this white trash name generator. Two other fundamentals in life are food and housing. As a culinary guide, I can comfortably recommend White Trash Cooking . A friend gave this to me years ago (thanks Johnnie Sue!) and although I’ve never tried the recipes, my older brother borrows it all the time, which I think speaks to its authenticity. And for a nice home (more commonly referred to as a “trailer”) try Cullman Liquidation. As Mr. Cullman himself eloquently and honestly puts it: “These are mobile homes. Not mansions. They come in two pieces“. We’ll be back soon with a more in-depth look at rednecks, hillbillies, and white trash. If you have any expertise regarding these complex American subcultures, feel free to chime in.

We also have all the money. This map shows aggregate income by county, blue being the highest:

But perhaps most important of all, we’re consistent. The map below shows party swings from 1960-2004. Note that while all the fickle hick flyovers are voting like drunken sorority girls for 44 years, the areas that stay consistently blue are – you guessed it – major metropolitan areas.

Bring it on, ya dumb hillbillies.

Q: Which bumper sticker would you be most likely to put on your car?
At Least In Vietnam, Bush Had An Exit Strategy
May the Fetus You Save Be Gay
Ted Kennedy’s Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun
Nice Hummer. Sorry About Your Penis.

And….

Q: Which of the following do you find most offensive?
A vice president who enjoys telling Senators to “go f— yourself” and shooting people in the face
A Senator who enjoys lecturing about family values when he’s not busy tapping his toes in the men’s room and soliciting gay sex
An anti-war protester who says that Bush is “ten times the terrorist” that Osama bin Laden ever was
A Hollywood celebrity who says that anyone who uses more than one square of toilet paper is contributing to global warming
A FOX News host who sanctions an Al Qaeda terrorist strike on San Francisco and laments that Hurricane Katrina didn’t wipe out the UN

Give it a go, they have a Republican Loyalty Quiz too.

Me? I think I’m going back to my apolitical roots and forming a punk band.

Our quadrennial fascination with red vs blue (here’s an interesting NYTimes map, by the way) reminded me of the brilliant machinima web series Red vs. Blue that debuted back in 2003. After taking a look back at a few episodes (many clock in at around 2-3 minutes) I realized they hold up pretty well, in spite of the media used to create the series. I’m no machinima fan (please, if you know of other machinima this clever, let me know) but the almost existential humor the creators utilized was actually perfectly suited to the stiff, personality-less medium of the Halo game engine. There are episodes that still make me laugh out loud. I recommend starting at Episode 1, as the feel and characters evolve over time. Jumping into later episodes would probably feel like tuning into a fan-driven TV series at the end of its run. This really isn’t just nerd stuff; the Lincoln Center’s film society for instance, described Red vs. Blue as “truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett.” As a Beckett fan I might not go that far, but it is pretty damn clever. Although most episodes can be found on YouTube, they look and sound much better in the Windows Media or Quicktime formats found at the Red vs. Blue web site.

Well, frankly…neither. I’d probably live in the brown state (some muddle of all the basic color options), where we found a balance between having enough for ourselves because we were motivated, and taking care of others because we were actually kind in nature. Where inventiveness and a “maverick” spirit led to anti-gravity cars and an actually healthy way of living, rather than an obsession with archaic combustion engine technologies, holes in the ground spewing black oil, and a lifestyle of gluttony and excess that inspires bizarre medical practices like liposuction.

Or the spectrum state (rainbows were co-opted by special interests a long time ago), where people of different beliefs and lifestyles respected a simple common value: respect others’ beliefs, and when you disagree, discuss things reasonably.

Oh, wait. We used to call that America.