Jericho and the Yankee-Cowboy War

I recently rewatched Jericho, and had a thought related to a previous post.

In this post, I discussed the Yankee-Cowboy War as a paradigm for the shift of power from he Eastern Establishment based in Chicago, New York, Boston, and the industrial states (Yankees) to the West and Southwest (Cowboys) with its oil, natural resources and technology based sources of economic power.

Jericho unconsciously (or consciously?) mimics this division of elite economic power by dividing the surviving United States into Cowboy-dominated, Cheyenne, Wyoming-centered Western-United States, Cowboy-dominated Texas, and Yankee-dominated, Columbus-centered Eastern United States. Interestingly, it is the Cheyenne-based Cowboys who are the "bad guys," and the Texas-based Cowboys and Columbus-based Yankees who are the good guys. It's interesting to think that Texas-Cowboys are on the good side because Texas wealth and power is based as much on technology and market trading as it is on natural resources. Meanwhile, almost all of the Cheyenne-based wealth and power comes from natural resources only. This would play well into the growing hostility against fossil fuels in our society...