Biran Mann insists that America’s political divide is not a strictly geographical divide between red states and blue states. The divide is between urban values and rural values and this urban—rural schism is the new frontier in America’s culture war.

The book explores the radically different culture evolving just over the horizon of our urban beltways, and explains how Homelanders – Mann’s name for the nation’s fifty million rural whites – have managed to dominate the conservative base of the Republican Party, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, and to use the electoral college, which favors small states, to their advantage. Ultimately, Homelanders are fighting to create a new national culture, one rooted in the traditional values of nineteenth-century America – a trend that may be reversing after the 2006 elections.

Welcome to the Homeland is a product of the emotions felt by urban liberals around the nation (which includes Mann) felt after the 2004 elections. For me it struck a nerve because it is this divide that first became evident to me after the 2000 elections which renewed my interest in politics. It was a profound life changing moment for me. In this book Mann offers his experience being an original homelander - now living the urban northeast - and now venturing back into the heartland to experience red state ideals first hand through the eyes of his conservative brother. This clash of values has been something that many people have been feeling very strongly for the last 6 years.

The best parts of this book are the personal stories of the author as he travels around the countryside with his very conservative and religious brother getting a first hand look at what makes conservatives so conservative. The arguments are the same arguments I’ve had with my relatives when I explain my change of heart and mind. This book helped me by showing both sides in print. Unfortunately there are not enough of these moments in the book. I wanted more.

After reading this book I realized that it is impossible for urban people and rural people to approach politics in the same way. For example – how can someone growing up on a ranch even comprehend why the idea of gun control would be taken seriously? It makes no sense to them that anyone would spend time considering controlling this constitutional right is a lunitic. For these homelanders guns are a part of life that in no way represent violence or create fear in their minds. Urban citizens will of course approach that issue much differently. How can you live in, around, and on top of millions of people without understanding the need for public help in protecting yourself. Both are a rational response to their own situation.

The most prevalent difference between urban and rural values comes in understanding how people come to value the idea of public property and services. Homelanders, primarily property owners, look to government for protection of their private property. The idea of sharing any type of resource in a place where resources are in abundance makes little sense. This is not a result of an innate selfishness or individuality, but it is a perfectly rational and ethical response to their situation. On the other hand, urban citizens value and take great pride in thier public spaces like parks, libraries, and a vast array of public services that are a part of their lives. This too is a rational and ethical response to their urban environment.

For urban citizens, the notion of public property might bring to mind the images of beautiful saturday mornings playing catch with your dad in central park. For a homelanders, the same notion of public property might remind you about that hillside behind your home where your dad first taught you to pitch a tent and start a camp fire that is now an interstate highway or that little pond where you caught your first fish that is now a waste treatment plant. Homelanders view the government as the entity which is orchestrating the slow demise of everything we hold as valuable where urban citizens view government as a powerful tool through which we together develop the resources which we then share in our community. Homelanders view goverment as "them" while urban citizens veiw governement as "us".

Is it any surprise that the basic foundation of our political ideals would be different?