Gulf of America Arrives On Google Maps

February 11, 2025 Hunter Wallace Politics, Southern Nationalism 2

I can already hear it now.

There is a persistent troll in our comment section who can’t wrap his mind around drawing a distinction between 1.) what I would like to see happen and 2.) what I see happening.

In an ideal world, the South would be an independent nation and the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the Gulf of Dixie, but I don’t have a magic wand. I can’t make something like that happen. I have a lot of nostalgia for the Confederacy too, but unlike some people I am not a prisoner of nostalgia.

For the first 70 years of our history, the idea of America was closely associated with the South, which was the dominant region of the country. New England was the disgruntled minority region that threatened secession. Northern presidents like John Adams and John Quincy Adams were few and far between. Obviously, this changed after the Union won the War Between the States and Lincoln was elected as the first sectional Republican president with 40% of the vote in 1860.

Southern Nationalism developed in response to this perceived loss of power. States like South Carolina were aggrieved by their loss of importance in the antebellum era. The North was rapidly growing in population, wealth and industrial might. The South was losing the fight over the future of the West. These were the dynamics which drove secession. Southern fears were prescient and the North and particularly the Midwest became the “Heartland” and the quintessentially American region after the war. The idea of America migrated from the South to the Midwest in the 1870s and 1880s. The typical American president was a Republican from a Midwestern state like Illinois or Ohio and the South was reduced to the status of Ireland as a colonial backwater and a captive market for Northern manufacturers.

This relationship between the South and the rest of America persisted until well into the 20th century. When foreigners thought of America, states like New York and California came to mind. New York became the metropole of America in the 1920s and culturally dominated the rest of the country in the same way that Paris and London were hegemonic in France and Britain. The idea of America shifted again in the 20th century from the Midwest to the California of Nixon and Reagan after World War II.

Today, the idea of America is returning to the South, and specifically to Florida. The South how has a population twice the size of the Northeast. The South alone is the size of the Midwest and Northeast combined. Florida now has more votes in the Electoral College than New York. The Sunbelt has rapidly caught up with the rest of the country in economic growth. States like New York, California and Illinois are rapidly losing population. The fastest growing states are in the Sunbelt except for Idaho.

To be crystal clear, what I see happening, which is not what I want to happen, is the Sunbelt becoming wealthier, more influential, more industrialized, more dominant, which is the reverse of the trend that drove secession in the antebellum era. The South is becoming like the North in the Gilded Age with Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach becoming something like what Newport in those days. How did you persuade Florida to secede from the United States at a time when Florida is starting to dominate the country?

The “Gulf of America” is the latest example of this trend. It is a nod to the rising importance of the Sunbelt elites and the base of the president’s ruling coalition who are White evangelicals.

Note: Once again, there is a difference between how we feel about the trend and acknowledging the fact that it is happening, which is lost on some people.

2 Comments

  2. Recall the Golden Circle?

    Would be rather funny if the British cartographers called it the Gulf of Vernon. Or the Gulf of Jenkins’ Ear or perhaps after that Admiral who angered the Hebrews of the Caribbean. Gulf of Rodney.

    Jamaican Sea also has ring to it.

    Reply

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