God, guns, gays, flags, parades

I was a political science double major long, long ago, and provide the following insight, informed by my decades-old degree.

I don't think people in the Bible belt or in rural America or in blue collar suburbs wake up in a sweat over whether liberals are going to take their guns away or force them to watch gay films, or whatever it is we are accused of doing to their victimised white psyches. I think politicians make sure that the masses are energised by these fears so they show up on election day and keep the political elites in power and at the service of their corporate masters.

The corollary here is that people in working class neighbourhoods don't wake up worried about whether the British flag is getting sufficient exposure or whether their favourite Protestant marching band will have the right to march wherever it likes (including Catholic neighbourhoods). The politicians fan the flames of these incendiary issues. Why? Northern Ireland gets A LOT of subsidies from the E.U. and the U.K. If those bodies threaten to reduce aid, as they have, I imagine the politicians warn them that all hell will break lose if funding decreases. "We're just a few molotov cocktails away from civil war and if you cut our funding, all bets are off."

This theory could be hogwash but it would explain a lot. The Good Friday Agreements were signed more than 15 years ago, so
you would think the threat would ring hollow. But you can't underestimate the ability of Ulsterman to keep the fight alive. Every summer they celebrate the 1690 victory of William of Orange over the Catholic King James. So they parade and wave flags and keep the fires burning.
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