Point taken, but I was thinking of her referring to southern Virginia as “real America”, with the contrast clearly with northern Virgina, which is more suburban/exurban. However, I will agree that many suburbans, very strangely in my mind given how suburbs are the antithesis of small towns, tend to identify more with small towns. I don’t think it helps Palin’s rhetoric, though, as even just urban America is larger than small town and rural America (I think – it has been a while since I saw the stats).

On a more anecdotal and personal note, I grew up in a rural county north of Atlanta at about the time it changed from a city to a sprawling cancer that thinks it is a city. I can tell you that none of the old residents of the county saw the increasing hordes of suburbanites as anything other than encroaching city folk (and dern Yankees). At this point, the small town, rural culture of the county is pretty much completely dead.

I know I grew up in a suburb of Dallas and almost everyone I knew identified themselves as being from Dallas.

Maybe it’s just Texas or the merging cities of Dallas, but I felt like you definitely knew if you were from Dallas/suburbs or from beyond the city walls.

Most Americans live in the suburbs, as you suggest. But often there they identify more with ‘small towns’ than ‘big cities’. And then you have a whole lot of cities like mine that are mid-size but people prefer to think of them as more akin to Wasilla than Chicago.

I think that may be the reason country music is so popular ;-)

The problem, though, is that sometimes there is a culprit and a victim. The populist movements of the late 19th and early 20th century were largely based around the fact that small groups with far too much power really were oppressing and exploiting large groups of people. The “us-versus-them” dynamic can be very, very dangerous given how our species is, but it can also be useful in getting oppressed majorities to realize their power and correct severe power imbalances. Further, the thing to keep in mind is that “us-versus-them” is also a mentality held by those populist movements went against. I don’t think it can be argued that the robber barons thought farmers or laborers were like them and had to thus be given respect and a fair deal. Nor do I think that the Louisiana establishment that opened the door to Huey Long thought the vast majority of the state’s population to which it denied roads, schools, and services (and even more if you look at the aftermath of the 1928 Great Flood), and which gave him power deserved any consideration.
So, populism has its place, and I think you can argue whether or not Edwards’ populism is appropriate, but Palin’s faux-populism certainly isn’t appropriate.

As to the gun thing, I think you hit the nail on the head. People who grow up in different contexts do end up with different attitudes toward guns. We need more dialog between the different sides of the issue so that a good, satisfactory, and useful set of policies on guns can be worked out and diffuse the idiotic acrimony of the past that has done nothing but make people angry.

Palin’s rhetoric is flawed because it makes generalizations about small towns verses big cities. Obviously they are more complicated than that, but it’s worth repeating that attitudes towards guns, for example, are much different in small towns as opposed to big cities. No doubt Obama’s urban upbringing postioned him to think differently about guns that Palin or myself, both of whom grew up around guns and using guns.

I’m not a big fan of populism in general because no matter how you slice it, it’s ultimately an ‘us vs them’ message. It positions one group as the victim and another group as the culprit. I actually think Palin’s was slightly more mild in that respect because it was contrasting values, whereas Edwards was playing the victim card. That’s not to say i agree with palin’s message, but i think it’s a fair assesment.

Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America that does the work, another that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America – middle-class America – whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America – narrow-interest America – whose every wish is Washington’s command. One America that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants, even a Congress and a president

Edwards is blaming the Washington culture, and particular the Bush administration, for serving predominately the wealthy, not the middle class. He is blaming the government for favoring the wealthy for tax breaks, not the wealthy for having tax breaks. He is not blaming the wealthy for being wealthy, but blaming Bush for only looking out for corporations and not for the middle class.

The only statement in the above quote that really is “anti-wealthy” is “One America that does the work, another that reaps the reward.” But that is more setting up the rest of the argument, that it is the Washington culture that creates the system that allows this to happen. It’s more his method of speaking than a real attack.

I guess whether it is rabble rousing depends on what you mean by rabble rousing. Edwards rhetoric is an appeal to emotion (pathos in classical rhetoric) and so is Palin’s. Edwards argument more clearly places responsibility on the Bush adminstration whereas Palin’s rhetoric places value of one type of American over another.