Town and gown

I have a theory about the Democratic and Republican parties these days. First, some history...

I went to college in a small farming town in Iowa (Grinnell). The people I associated with were the epitome of the current Democratic party: liberal, college grads, mostly wealthy enough to afford college, many from cities, upwardly mobile, etc.

Then there were the other kids the same age as those at the college who lived in the same town, but who seemed to most of us like an alien species: the town kids. Our perception of them was that they got married right out of high school, never went to college, the men went to work on a farm and the women at the local Walmart. We considered them to have dead-end lives even before their lives had really begun.

The gulf between town and gown was huge--at least in our minds.

Seems to me that the same perception and divide describes the two political parties.