The Jesusland map is an Internet meme created on November 3, 2004, very shortly following the 2004 Presidential election in the United States. It was created by G. Webb, a poster on yakyak.org, an Internet message board for fans of the work of Jeff Minter (the original discussion); its creation has been incorrectly attributed to many different individuals, most notably Michael Moore. It has been sighted throughout American and global media since that time.

Geography

The meme is in the form of a map of North America which depicts a new hypothetical national border between the United States and Canada. The "blue states" from the 2004 election have been merged with Canada to form a single nation, which is labeled the "United States of Canada". The remaining "red states" are labeled as "Jesusland." Some view the map as a humorous, cynical, or even bigoted commentary on the cultural and political divide within the United States; others have labeled themselves proud to be from one "nation" or the other.

Variations

Similar maps give different labels to the geographically separated blue states. The northeastern states are referred to as "Eastern Realitania," "Northeastistan," or "New America"; the central blue states near the Great Lakes are labeled "Central Realitania" or "Minniwillinois"; and the blue states along the Pacific Coast are called "Western Realitania," "Pacificstan," or "Baja Canada" (with Hawaii being separately labeled "The Tropic of Canada"). Another has chosen the overall name "Realistan." The red states in these variant maps are called "Jesusistan," "Redstateistan," "Redneckistan," or "the United State of Texas," and some maps purport to show a capital of Crawford, Texas, the home of U.S. President George W. Bush (although one map shows Alaska as having been returned to Russia). A popular variation of the map pokes fun at the cultural divide in Canada by including Alberta, which tends to vote conservative in Canadian elections, in "Jesusland". Some conservative versions replace "Jesusland" with "God's Country", or refer to the "United States of Canada" as "Godless Communists".

Analysis

In the context of the Jesusland Map, the states in which a majority voted Democratic in the election are viewed as more socially liberal or socialist in outlook, and therefore having more cultural similarities with Canada than with the remainder of the United States. The Republican-voting red states, in common with 22 percent of all voters nationwide, tended to vote based more on perceived moral values, such as opposition to gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research. [1] Holders of these values are characterized by a high degree of faith in Christianity, thus causing the name of Jesus to be affixed to the hypothetical country [2]; indeed, based on a comment by a Republican official in an article by Ron Suskind of the New York Times, some have characterized the divide as being one between a "faith-based community" and a "reality-based community".

The gap is seen as stark enough that some bloggers on the Democratic side, including the musician Moby, have ironically or semi-seriously advocated secession, whilst some on the Republican side, such as Mike Thompson, a past Chairman of the Florida Conservative Union , suggested the Federal government should expel the blue states [3]. Perhaps to that end, some have also noted the similarity between the electoral map of the U.S. in 2004 (which was somewhat similar to the electoral map following the 2000 election) and a map of the United States in 1860, showing the free and slave states prior to the American Civil War. [4]

Critics of the Jesusland Map have pointed out that the actual electoral map is in fact mostly "purple", containing a mixture of support for both parties (and therefore by comparison, both cultural outlooks) which rarely exceeds 65% towards either side in any given location, and that some exit polls exaggerated the depth of adherence to the issues, creating a mistaken impression of the public's motivations.

Some similar maps, such as the "Bush Country" map, appear to give Bush a larger margin of victory than he really had; while it is correct to say that a large majority of counties in the U.S. gave more votes to Bush than to Kerry, the more populous the county, the more likely it was to vote for Kerry. [An electoral map weighted by population would be almost evenly divided between red and blue.]

See also

• Red state vs. blue state divide
• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities
• The "Blue States" paradigm in Canada
• Canada and the 2004 U.S. presidential election
• Reality-based community
• Soviet Canuckistan

External links

• the original "Jesusland" thread on yakyak.org
• Jesusland 'official' site
• Ron Suskind's New York Times Magazine article "Without a Doubt"
• A map showing "The United State of Texas"
• Jesusland News and Discussion Group