Yesterday, my wife and I passed a Catholic school/church where people here in north Alabama were standing on a sidewalk holding up handmade signs protesting abortion — the majority of the people in the crowd looked Hispanic and were conservatively-dressed.

In the national news lately, there has been an analysis of political wrangling over the recent “shutdown” of the U.S. government.

And in one news outlet, the comparison was made to show that the breakdown of support for the shutdown is partially aligned with the states that seceded during the U.S. Civil War.

I wonder if it’s more of an urban vs. rural thought set/mentality — the city slicker versus the independent cowboy, an extension of the Wild West/eminent domain/manifest destiny zeitgeist.

In other words, pick your poison pen letter and write for a target audience.

From my perspective, the conservatives in north Alabama are not all white or associated with support for keeping the blacks/browns/underemployed/uninsured economically suppressed.

It seems to be a longer-term objective to change the beliefs of the latest generation of new Americans toward a United States that is more competitive globally.

Whether that strategy works will play out over the next decade.

Time to click my stopwatch and see.