Burcum: ‘You’ve got to have an answer for why [the U.S.] should stay together.’

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One of my first questions after Vice President Kamala Harris tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate requires a bit of context:

Is Walz a Midlander, or does his addition to the Democratic ticket mean it now has someone from the Yankeedom nation on board?

This is definitely the type of question a political nerd would ask. But bear with me because the answer is not only intriguing but has broader insights about how to knit a divided nation back together after Nov. 5.

Back in 2013, I wrote about a relatively new book called “American Nations,” whose author Colin Woodard was a Maine journalist at the time and now directs the Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy.

The book’s premise is that the United States is less a happy union of 50 states and more of an uneasy alliance between 11 dominant North American regional cultures — or stateless nations — jockeying for advantage.

The 11 nations’ boundaries don’t adhere to state lines but do hew to geography. Their character is rooted in the “contrasting ideals of the distinct European colonial cultures that first took root on the eastern and southern rims of what is now the United States, and then spread across much of the continent in mutually exclusive settlement bands, laying down the institutions, symbols and cultural norms later arrivals would encounter and, by and large, assimilate into,” according to the Nationhood Lab’s overview.

Skepticism is understandable about whether mostly European settlers deposited cultures that shape generations far into the future. I have questions about how race and gender fit into this. But given our nation’s serious fissures, a closer look is warranted.

In order to repair fault lines, you have to know where they are. The American Nations theory puts an innovative lens on their location along with the forces creating them.

The 11 dominant nations in Woodard’s book are: Yankeedom, New Netherland, the Midlands, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, Deep South, the Left Coast, El Norte, the Far West, New France and First Nations. For descriptions and to see their outlines on a U.S. map, go to tinyurl.com/AmericanNationsMap.

Minnesota is part of Yankeedom, which is rooted in the religious communities that originally sought refuge on Massachusetts’ shores. Its “communal empowerment” ethos prioritizes the common good, social engineering and assimilation of outsiders. It’s also “more comfortable with government regulation and public-sector social projects than many of the other nations.”

That should sound familiar to anyone who pays even the barest of attention to Minnesota politics.

Other key nations worth noting at this moment are:

There’s a reason I’ve highlighted these nations. They’re all represented on the main presidential tickets. Kamala Harris is an easy call: she represents the Left Coast. JD Vance, Greater Appalachia.

Walz and Donald Trump reflect a more hybrid type of affiliation, Woodard said in an interview. Walz, a native Nebraskan, grew up in the Midlands but governs a Yankeedom state. Trump is a native New Netherlander. While he’s not popular there, he has been embraced by the Deep South and Greater Appalachia and governed like a native of both.

For the 2024 horse race, Woodard said Walz was a more strategic pick, with his “dual citizenship” bolstering Harris’s Left Coast base and her need to win the northern “Blue Wall” states. Vance added little. His Greater Appalachia was already Trump’s strongest region. Trump has “already run the numbers there as high as they can go,” Woodard said.

But there are no guarantees, as Woodard notes. Democrats should be concerned that the Midlands, which typically acts as a “kingbreaker” when one political side gets too extreme, is no longer reliably playing that role. Iowa, for example, is perhaps the most Midlander state, and Trump has won twice there handily and is expected to win again.

What’s going on with the Midlands is a question that Woodard is scrutinizing, but he notes that its urban/rural divide is the sharpest of all the nations. Clearly, academics and journalists have work to do to better understand why.

Heavy lifting also lies ahead for the next generation of politicians. Woodard’s book is a reminder of what a fragile coalition the United States really is. Future leaders must bear this in mind. They will not only need to articulate policy but make a case for unity with wide appeal to the 11 nations.

Said Woodard: “You’ve got to have an answer for why we should stay together.”