Proudly Clinging to Guns and Religion

Proudly Clinging to Guns and Religion

Susan Allen
Susan Allen

 

When he made the political gaff that revealed his disdain of rural America by saying small town Americans “cling to guns and religion,” little did Obama know it would end up a compliment, fuel for rural grass root politics. I’m Susan Allen back after the break. President Obama must have missed a few American History classes, or he simply forgot the valuable lessons learned by America’s founding fathers that the elite even in Thomas Jefferson’s and James Madison’s day totally underestimated the ability of farmers and ranchers to institute radical change. In a his latest book American Insurgents/ American Patriots author T.H Breen explains that it was the common folk that actually set the course of the American revolution. Not our founding fathers, who quickly discovered their political careers came at the mercy of  farmers who “clung to their guns and religion “and streamed into Boston in droves upon hearing rumors that that city had been invaded by redcoats.” Rural America was furious that their congressional leaders weren’t protecting them thus took matters into their own hands, spawning a movement that changed the course our country. In an interesting parallel to today, these early congressional leaders, in Breen’s words “found themselves in the extremely awkward position of becoming followers—perhaps even irrelevant spectators while ordinary people (from country towns) assumed the lead in defining the character of the resistance against great Britain. Elitists who chose to disregard the farmers during America’s conception committed political suicide.  I'm Susan Allen
 
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