One can trace our electoral differences to regional cultures
that have been in place since the nation's founding. Last week's
election demonstrated, once again, that America's most abiding
divisions are not between red states and blue states,
conservatives and liberals, or even the faithful and the
secular. They're cultural, the result of differences that can be
traced all the way back to the rival colonial projects
established on our continent three and four centuries ago. Our
political divisions are rooted in 11 disparate regional
cultures, as I explained in a recently published book. These
regions -- separate nations, really, including Yankeedom,
Tidewater, New Netherland, New France, Deep South, Greater
Appalachia, the Midlands, First Nation, the Far West, the Left
Coast, El Norte -- have been hiding in plain sight throughout
our history. You see them outlined on linguists' dialect maps,
and maps of religious regions and political geography. The fault
lines could be seen throughout this year's presidentia