Washington Post commentator David Von Drehle claims the country’s “red states”/”blue states” split is a deliberate long-term strategy promoted by both politcal parties’ strategic teams.

As he puts it, both parties want to win national elections, but not by much. They’d rather each have their own dominant states and counties, in which each party could engage in safe monopoly politics, and which would add up to an even split in Congress and the Electoral College.

The whole thing, if you buy Von Drehle’s assessment, reeks of some of our age’s most pervasive business trends—consolidation, centralization, and the relentless shout of branding.

As Tom Frank pointed out in the April Harper’s, the Great Plains states have withered economically under Republican policies, yet they’re among the most solid Republican-voting ares in the whole country. Frank claims it’s all because the Republicans have successfully sold their “brand image” as the only politicians who care about the heartland, even as their actual policies contradict the sloganeering.

And, of course, you all already know the nasty things left-wingers say against right-wingers and people who live in right-wing-controlled areas.

I’m not a Democratic strategist, thank the Goddess, so I can say a big fat “Nuts!” to all that.

I say we work beyond the artificial rhythms of election cycles, beyond the lesser-O’-two-evils line. I say we bring progressive ideas and policies back to the land. Let’s bring back the good ol’ days of prairie populism. Move beyond the comfortable “base” of your own subculture. Set a figurative table big enough for the carnivores and the vegans alike.

The right’s only natural constituencies are the billionaires, the CEOs, the plutocrats, and the authoritarians. Everybody else belongs in our camp; and it’s about time we welcomed ’em all in.