Abandoned Center of Nation Turns Far Right Dragging US With It

Abandoned Center of Nation Turns Far Right Dragging US With It

note taken by Marshall Mayer on May 2, 2010 at 11:15 AM at the geographic center of the nation near Belle Fourche, SD 57717, USA

Image and text above Copyright © Marshall Mayer. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Marshall Mayer
Marshall Mayer says:
Jun 12, 2022 11:15 AM

The "center of the nation" has for over a hundred years been somewhere in the middle of America. It was in Kansas until AK and HI were admitted to the union (it moved 550 miles NNW in 1959). Now it is at the intersection of MT, WY and SD. But that is only a geographic marker. Democratically (as measured by votes), the center of the nation has moved to the coasts. But this country's politics have been dominated by the middle minority: there are 5 Republican Senators (all trumpets for authoritarianism) and only 1 Democratic Senator (a populist turned blue dog) representing those states at that intersection. Globalization has hollowed out the interior of the nation, and our politics.

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