Hello, my name is Jim Langcuster, and I am the creator and editor of “Ruby Red Republic.”

I’ll admit it: I conceived this site largely out of anger. I’m tired of my part of America being maligned as out of touch and retrogressive – a haven of “deplorables” and “irredeemables” as Hillary Clinton and others among the ruling class have chosen to describe us.

This anger inspired me to fight back with my modest financial and rhetorical resources. This site is intended to serve as both an analysis of red state America and as a kind of cri de coeur on its behalf.

A little bit about me and my background: I’m a retired Cooperative Extension news and public affairs specialist who worked for 29 years on the campus of one of America’s 1862 land-grant universities. I hold bachelor’s degrees in political science, sociology and communication from the University of North Alabama and a master’s degree in communication from the University of Alabama.

At this stage in my life I suppose that I have returned significantly to my paleoconservative roots, which I first began cultivating while growing up in a conservative Republican family in what was then regarded as yellow dog, pro-labor northwest Alabama. I am happy to report that that region of the state has taken on a very deep red hue in the lost 40 years since I left the region. In fact, the 4th Congressional District in which I grew up is now considered the most pro-Trump district in the entire country.

“The times, they are a changin’.”

I chose the name “Ruby Red Republic” to express my deep solidarity with my fellow Americans who occupy that broad swath of the country contemptuously dismissed by elites with terms such as red states and “Flyover Country.”

And incidentally, the illustration above depicts Red State deplorables attending Andrew Jackson’s post-inaugural White House reception.

Strains of deep-dyed, Jacksonian populist and ruby-red deplorable runs through my veins. My family tree abounds with horse thieves, brigands, army deserters and sundry other misfits, and I’m rather proud of that fact.

Deplorables helped build this country and that fact is much of what this site explores. The people held in such low regard by Hillary Clinton and other members of our Mandarin class have borne a disproportionate share of this country’s imperial burdens, serving as enlisted men and women in far-flung military posts throughout the world. Our forebears also supplied the bulk of the courage, ingenuity and brawn that not only ensured the settlement of the vast American wilderness but also the remarkable industrialization that followed.

How did I come with such an esoteric name as “Ruby Red Republic” for this site? A blue-state friend of mine supplied it rather unwittingly when she rather disparagingly described my native Alabama as a “ruby-red state.” That inspired me to apply this term to the entire region commonly derided by our elites as “Flyover Country.”

Thank you for visiting.

Warm Regards,

Jim Langcuster

<AmericanRedTory@gmail.com>