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Does U.S. regionalism explain the gun debate?


Washington’s partisan gridlock may have a simple explanation: its founding historical roots.

Author Colin Woodard explains in his book, “American Nations” that the United States isn’t one united nation, but actually eleven separate nations with their own historically-rooted values and perspectives.

“I argue there’s not really one American culture, but several Americas,” said Woodard on Friday’s The Daily Rundown. “When people have moved in, their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren aren’t just assimilating to an American culture, but to one of these regional cultures so the overall ethos and characteristics tend to persist over time.”

He added that people’s preference to move where they feel comfortable has “emphasiz[ed] rather than reduc[ed] differences between these cultural spaces.”

His theory has recently been used to explain one of the most heated topics on Capitol Hill – the debate over gun debate.






Woodard theorizes that Yankeedom’s attitude stems from its radical Calvinist roots, which emphasized social engineering rather than violence as the way to improve society and welcomed government regulation. Similarly, the Midlands’ Quaker roots created a society where people organized around the middle class, creating support for social welfare programs.

However, the challenge with having eleven nations is governing, which Washington has exemplified this year.

With D.C.’s dysfunction over the gun debate, the budget and healthcare, Woodard predicts that major parties are going to have to sway broaden their messages if they want to move government forward.

“What’s happened in our history and presumably it would have to happen moving forward is that one or the other of the current political blocks…would have to figure out how to modify their message so as to build a larger regional coalition,” he said. “Or I think we’re going to remain for a long time in this state where it keeps switching from one coalition to the other and we’ll remain completely deadlocked with neither group able to overcome the resistance of the other in Washington.”


Does U.S. regionalism explain the gun debate?