There is a whole school of thought that says the current blue/red divide is the present day manifestation of the slave owning south, and the emancipated north. I believe there is something to it, which is a throw back to LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, and then Nixon adopting the "Southern Strategy". But I think that only really applies to the southern segregationist states, and not the rest of the nation. Which is why I think progressives need to just surrender the south to the racist Republicans, and focus on the Midwest and the West, where those black/white slavery cultural antagonisms really don't exist.

Evntually, once the segregationist south is completely isolated culturally and economically, they will come around and begin to assimilate with the rest of the country. Right now, they have no incentive to do that though. The incentive being given to them is stay the way they are, and be rewarded for it by the politicians and corporate elite that benefit from their being an easy to manipulate voting bloc.

Another reason why I think progressives can just ignore the racist cultual dynamic of the Republican "Southern Strategy" is that it takes attention away from the real issues we need to deal with, including improving the lives of all people of color through improved access to health care, better educational system (as an educator, I can tell you we need to scrap the system and start over from scratch), fairer access to capital to improve their economic prospects and their communities, that sort of thing.

The Republican/Republicrat status quo keeps people poor and dependent--on welfare, the military, and holy roller "faith initiatives" to provide for the barest subsistence level for many millions of people in this country.

Anybody who wants to start talking to those folks about changing their lives will be the new political party.