Americans have sorted themselves geographically.
Town: "I don't know anyone who isn't disgusted by Trump."
Country: "There is no way--none!--Joe Biden could possibly have gotten more votes than Trump. I don't know anybody who voted for Biden."
Democrats live in big, dense cities. Republicans live in small town and rural areas.
Bill Bishop's The Big Sort described the political sorting of Americans 20 years ago. Larry Sabato, at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, observed in his "Sabato's Crystal Ball" that the sorting is getting more profound. He describes "blowout counties" where Trump or Biden won with more than 80% of the vote. Trump won big in low-population rural counties. Of counties with fewer than 10,000 people, 503 were super-landslide 80%+ for Trump. Eight small counties were super-landslide for Biden.
Landslide counties for Biden were urban. Prince George's in Maryland outside D.C. (91% for Biden); Manhattan in New York (88%); Suffolk, i.e. Boston (82%); Multnomah, i.e. Portland, Oregon (82%).
Rural landslide counties are thoroughly rural; Urban landslide counties are generally compact, although Oregon's Multnomah county extends both west into farm land and east into exurbs and the Mount Hood National Forest. It is still blue and the densest part, Portland, is intensely so.
Medford, Oregon area:
A precinct view best reveals sorting. Most counties are some mix of urban and rural. Click on this link to observe the phenomenon in your own area. College town Ashland gave Biden a 75% margin, with 86% voting blue. My home precinct in east Medford shows a beige 53%-45% for Trump. Beginning the next street over, the map turns redder to include an agricultural area that voted two-to-one for Trump. My farm, at the area marked "Table Rock" voted for Trump with a 73%-25% margin.
People live in social networks smaller than counties. Regular churchgoers mingle with likeminded people. Co-workers who are similar enough to share political views will often share a socioeconomic and educational status. They confirm one another. COVID mask signaling fostered clustering. In my circle of acquaintances, we eagerly got vaccinations and shared vaccination stories among ourselves. We still wear masks in stores. The farmworkers at my farm shared a general skepticism of vaccinations and COVID. Most caught COVID and got sick, some miserably so. They survived it, as most people do, and now share a common bond of pride having endured the "hazing" of COVID.
Wisconsin:
Georgia:
Wisconsin and Georgia are battleground states because of huge margins in Madison, Milwaukee, Atlanta and their inner suburbs. A Republican legislature does not need to insult the voters of their state, or a majority of Republican voters, by saying that they want the state's vote questioned or voided. They can target objections on a single "outlier" county. Without the vote margins from those counties, battleground states are firmly red. Officeholders in GOP areas pay no political price for suggesting possible wrongdoing in urban counties. Rural resentment of an urban colossus is a regular fixture of state politics in every state, both red and blue. It isn't politically costly for rural officeholders to cast unproven accusations on urban vote-counts. It is an easy sell and may be a political necessity.
Democrats face a peril. Suspicion and accusations give sufficient reason to void votes in a targeted area populated by "others" with demographics and views so different from oneself. The protection against this is a bipartisan legislature or statewide office-holders of two parties. The battleground states have strongly Republican-majority legislatures and statewide officers. That risks creating a political obligation for Republicans to target those counties. Their voters may demand it. In the 2020 election the notion of voiding votes was new and untried and statewide officeholders found the idea beyond the pale. So did Vice President Pence.
The "Overton Window," that spectrum of ideas and practices that range from unthinkable, to radical, to acceptable, to popular has changed. What was once unthinkable has become popular within bright red American communities. It is on the verge of becoming that final stage: Policy.
6 comments:
I just listened to a story about another aspect of this on NPR. People are purposely moving to areas that agree with their politics.
The widening political chasm is revealed in real estate data
Internet analysis, there are so many ways to slice and dice the population.
My biggest concern is a lack of education among Americans, including politicians. I've heard the majority of Congress don't believe in evolution.
The US is becoming a Third World country, being dominated by countries that value education and have less religious influence.
I heard the same story. Red zip codes are getting redder and blue zip codes are getting bluer. The problem is that more intensely red and blue districts elect more extreme candidates for office. As a result, politics has become less about solving our problems than about cheering for our side.
Our nation has serious issues, such as unsustainable debt, unaffordable education and health care, gun violence, pollution and climate change. But rather than address them, some politicians foment outrage over manufactured controversies like voter fraud, CRT and the like. If we can’t get our act together soon, there will be hell to pay.
So far Republicans are not actually voiding elections, it's been more of the voter suppression they have been doing for decades. It's a pretty big step to take and would be extremely hard to walk back. They may try it in some places, but it would start a firestorm of protest that would rival the civil rights years and turn those states into pariahs. Could Georgia withstand that kind of disruption?
Some smart Republicans, granted, a minority, might be thinking pretty hard about going that far, even if they give themselves the power.
I meant to say "interesting analysis".
I disagree.
That would require morals. As we've seen, some politicians (especially republicans) have none.
We're also seeing, throughout society, a general incivility and a sense of entitlement. From lawless looting and running through red lights to criminal behavior in DC. It seems having elected officials who follow the law would be a start.
The most important qualification for public office, in my book, is chatacter- someone who had tough times and learned consequences for their behavior (and not Daddy bailing them out).
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