Counties won by Biden represent 71% of U.S. GDP

Democrats represent people in areas doing OK in the global economy.

Trump won the countryside.

Donald Trump loved this map. It is a map of counties that voted for him, not Hillary Clinton, in 2016:

The map tells a simple story of small blue dots representing urban areas, with the overwhelming majority of the country being counties won by Trump. It is an image of a Trump landslide. So red! Trump communicated this idea of popularity. He won big. Just look. 

The map below shows a different reality. The dark spots represent less than two percent of the area of the map. Half the population lives in those areas. America is spread out, but Americans are not. 

There is another map which helps explain the concentration of people in the cities. Below is a map of economic activity.  The orange splotches represent the areas that represent half the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. The cities are where value is created.

There is a reason young people who graduate from high school in small towns grow up and move to the big city, leaving their parents behind. The city is where the jobs are. There are outdoor jobs in cities in construction and manufacturing, but the growth of cities in the past fifty years has been about the manipulation and processing of data. The archetypal urban employee goes to an office or other indoor place. Those jobs are increasingly done by people with higher education and by women. They are the new centerpiece constituency for Democrats, in alliance with people of color. It is a majority of the American population. It is where Joe Biden won his votes: Productive people in areas of productive diverse people.

Click: Brookings

The image above shows the division of counties that supported Biden over Trump, scaled to their economic activity. On the left were large pro-Biden counties, Los Angeles, New York; Cook County (Chicago); Harris County (Houston); Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco). The 29% of the country represented in red are the thousands of small-population counties.

The big take-away from this image is the scale of the two constituencies, showing where the money is made. It is an image of blue-America hegemony, a 71-29 split of economic power, a landslide. Democrats should avoid a victory dance. This map is a warning for Democrats.  Almost half of Americans live in the red zone above, and they are living in areas that aren't as productive, and therefore populated with people doing less well, and as we have seen, are made angry and frustrated by it. Many formerly were Democrats, and some of them still drive pickup trucks with in-your-face flags.

The problem for Democrats. Biden has the experience to run a competent administration if circumstances and Republican opposition allow it, but he has not yet shown the charisma or rhetorical skills to articulate a grand new vision that will inspire people in the distressed red zone. That probably is not in Biden's skillset. It isn't enough to make changes that benefit people. A president needs to announce clearly what those changes are, put them into a grand context, explain them, and sell them. Otherwise it is just political noise. 

Trump, notwithstanding his personal and constitutional failures, knew how to do one big thing very successfully: he could claim center stage and sell.  He sold the idea he won by a landslide in 2016 and would certainly win by another in 2020. He sold the idea that he inherited carnage and then he fixed it. He sold the idea that he was bringing jobs back to the countryside. He sold the idea that White Americans were being overrun by over-entitled Blacks and caravans of job-stealers, criminals, and welfare leaches from Latin America. He sold the idea that Democrats were more worried about the feelings of foreigners than they are for the welfare of struggling Americans. He sold the idea that White Americans were the true victims of racial discrimination, and that this explains some of their economic distress.

Now it is Biden's turn. He needs to sell a competing vision. He made some progress on one tiny part of it--enough to win election and be given a chance to govern. He sold the idea that we Americans are better than Trump, and that most of us would be happier if we weren't letting Trump's manic divisiveness define our politics. That worked. Biden isn't Trump and that was enough. 

Now Biden needs to sell a positive economic vision that gives hope for "flyover" counties, whether they are in the inland heartland or in exurban and rural counties in coastal states. The $15 minimum wage was vivid enough to be a memorable start, but it does not have the votes to pass. The idea that will persist is Biden's "failure," not progress. 

As I sit here to type this I cannot summarize the Biden economic recovery plan for distressed Americans in distressed counties. If I cannot do it, then the marginal voter cannot do it. Joe Biden has to articulate it, so clearly and well that anyone in America could voice it, the way anyone in America can say "Make America Great Again," even if they think Trump was a disaster as president.

Biden needs to do it now.