The Red State-Blue State Divide: Is Economy the Driver?
With another close national election looming, we seem headed towards another election night where most states are spoken for and just a few battlegrounds like Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, and Florida will choose the next president.
The conventional wisdom about the familiar divisions of Democratic “blue” states located mostly on both coasts versus Republican “red” states in mostly the South and the Heartland is that the phenomenon is based mainly on social issues. Michael Barone, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, has argued for years that social or cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, gun control, and minority rights have been more important than economics since the 1960s in determining Americans’ votes. On the other hand, Democratic strategists like James Carville have always believed that Democrats win by focusing on economic issues. And in the conclusion to The Emerging Republican Majority (1969), Kevin Phillips wrote: “Thus, it is appropriate that much of the emerging Republican majority lies in the top growth states or new suburbia, while Democratic trends correlate with stability and decay.”
As we shall see, Carville and Phillips have a point: as the South has gotten wealthier, it has become more Republican; as the North has lost economic clout, it has moved towards the Democrats in the last generation.
But Mr. Barone and the other “culture war” theorists also have a point. In 2008, President Obama carried eight of the top ten states in per capita income, losing only Dick Cheney’s Wyoming and Sarah Palin’s Alaska (both with substantial energy wealth). Furthermore, the 2008 exit polls showed that red-state voters were more likely to attend church services regularly, and to oppose abortion, gay rights, and gun control.
So, obviously, social issues count in a mostly middle-class nation. But what if there was more to it than that; what if economics still played a major role? Not in the sense of total wealth, but in the direction that state and regional economies are going? What if economic growth patterns reinforced the cultural divisions?
To examine this theory, we can compare the per capita income figures for the South, mountain states, New England, and the big-city states of the Northeast and Midwest like New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. We’ll use data from the censuses of 1930 (just as the Depression was beginning), 1950 (the first post-Depression census), 1980 (when Ronald Reagan won big and the South began to permanently move into the Republican coalition at the presidential level), and in the latest census of 2010 (when the state divisions into red and blue are firmly established).
We compare the per capita income of these states and regions to the national average as their percentage of the national average. For example, New York is nicknamed the “Empire State.” That term was highly accurate in the 1930 census as New York’s per capita income was 165% of the national average, by far the best of any state. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that New York voted Republican in seven of the eight presidential elections from 1900 to 1929. The patterns in Illinois (137%), Michigan (110%), Ohio (110%), Pennsylvania (113%), and New England (110%) were very similar.
Just like your mom’s wonderful pie with all that home prepared love and care, when the flies take a crap on it, you just have to wonder what hell really lies below the fantasy of life. And that said, California is like a nice home baked pie, with the liberal flies crawling all over it, rendering it a fly crap toilet. Why do libs claim the nicest things in life as their own while taking a giant crap on it 24/7? Cus’ they ain’t human maybe? Or was it brain damage from the 60s and 70s? Me thing so.
I lived in CA for a couple of years. It was lovely, but the place makes you soft. Most of the people I knew there soft of body and brain.
I’ve lived here all my life and raised my family here. There was a time when California truly was the Golden State. That is why my parents moved here. The best schools, the best climate and room to grow. But it was fundamentally changed by the Dem-Libs into what we have now. Which is always the case with the Left. They cannot build their Utopia from scratch, they must invade and take over an established and successful town, city then state and ultimately the country, because their ideas won’t work without the wealth ready for central-planning and plunder. They came to California, then Oregon then Washington State and over to Colorado. The infection spreads fast, they are always in search of a healthy host. Their collective mentality is frightening and hard to fight against, but some of us here are committed to taking back this beautiful state come Hell or High water. Since we are already drowning in debt I guess there’s Hell to pay next. If we are not successful, then let our failure serve as a warning to others, but I doubt it will, for you see the collective is not conscious. “They know not what they do.”
Elections are always about the future. It’s not where the voters see themselves today, it’s where they see themselves tomorrow. If they see a good future then it’s “Republicans Baby!”, if they see misery and despair then it’s “Democrats and abort the baby”.
The Republican message is “grow the pie”, the Democratic message is “get a share of the pie”. One message is “tomorrow can be a better day”, the other “this is as good as it gets”. If you see the possibility of a better future then you vote Republican, if you see a dismal future then you grab what you can while the grabbing is good. Both, however, can be self-fulfilling prophesies. If you expect the worst then the worst is the best you’ll get, if you expect the best then you’ll work to make it happen. The Republican theme is “Success”, the Democratic theme is “Failure”. Why anyone chooses to be a failure is beyond me but I’m not a Democrat.
ChrisS, that is oustanding. I fully intend to steal it.
Every society (human and animal) have common goals and morals, but the goals are various, depending on the kind of people who constitute the society. And make no frikkin’ mistake — the kind of society depends 100% on the kind of people in it. Mexico is wherever Mexicans happen to live; everyone who lives in Mexico is not a Mexican. Sub-Saharan Africa was a wasteland until European settlement. Now that the Europeans have been displaced, it’s reverting back to a wasteland. To assume that the environment affects the type of people living there is Lysenkoism/Leftism on parade. Sorry, it’s irrelevant. Hong Kong was a bare rock when the Brits took it over. Allowing the local and refugee Chinese to run wild, it became a world financial center. You can bet your d*mned ranch that if you put a million blacks there, it’d be a rock again in about a minute, e.g., Detroit, Gary, D.C., Camden, etc.
The danger here is ascribing those societal qualities solely to race. You have to wonder what your opinion of blacks would be today if after the civil rights movement they were simply allowed to assimilate on their own without special treatment and without all of the race baiting “leadership” and misguided “liberal” programs that are ultimately based on the assumption of their helplessness and inferiority. Look at Blacks who reject and resist all of that – like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Bill Cosby, Star Parker, etc. – admirable and capable people all.
It depends on which blacks. Just as it depends on which whites, Asians, what have you. As the white underclass in this country quickly converges in habits and social ills to the black underclass, it is whistling past the graveyard to think that social failure cannot happen to your people. It isn’t about race. It is about the history, which weighs us all down.
It is not a good idea to absolve people of responsibility because of wrongs they, or their parents, suffered. But, it is also not right to tell them to forget about it, and do the best they can with what they have. Ultimately, a new social order will evolve which includes shared respect and responsibility, and the ghosts of the past will melt away. Unfortunately, if there is an effective way to speed up that evolution, we have not yet found it. But, blanket indictments of whole ethnic groups is most definitely not a path leading forward.
Being a Democrat isn’t only about living at the expense of others. It’s also about punishing everyone who has been successful through their own efforts in the past.
One trait of the south that crosses social and economic lines is the fierce independence of southerners and their desire to succeed without assistance from the government. The exception to this is the black permanent underclass that continues to undermine the health and securioty of the country.
Gee, no resemblance at all to the black underclasses in every other square foot of the US (and the world, especially Africa).
‘Cultural issues have been more important than economics since the 1960s.’
Which coincides with the Middle Class acquiring a great deal more money
than they needed, which could be taxed away to support social engineering
without causing them any pain. That is about to change.
As Senator Jellison puts it, “Civilizations have the morality and ethics they can afford. Right now we don’t have much, so we can’t afford much.”
http://www.poptheology.com/2012/03/lucifers-hammer/
It will not take a cometary impact to do us in (though one is possible
next year); The coming world-wide economic collapse will suffice.
Watch the attempts to rebuild after Frankenstorm for a preview.
Topsy-turvy, upside-down, vice-versa… and not limited only to the US.
As regions get more Socialist, they get poorer. As they get more Conservative they get richer. This is a phenomenon that repeats over and over all over the world. Great examples: Detroit, Cuba, Argentina (pre-1945 compare with post-1945).
Want to be miserable, poor, over-controlled? Vote Democratic (or RINO).
Simple message that has to be repeated until the voting morons get it.
So, what the subtext of this article is, that in spite of the rhetoric about making everyone equally rich and successful, the Dems are actually dependent on making the voters poor and unsuccessful to get re-elected.
Does this jibe with their policy actions and decisions? Would this explain why, in spite of years of evidence of the failures of policies to spread the wealth around, it really doesn’t matter because that is not the real objective here?
There’s a factor other than economics at play here. The South after the Civil War and through my youth in the segregation of the 1950s was a region dominated by the politics of victimhood. The North had won the war and imposed rule by carpetbaggers and scalawags. Whites were expected to live in continual fear of blacks and hate Damn Yankees.
That sense of victimhood is what the Democratic party appealed to and it offers a similar appeal to its voters across the nation today. All you need do is look at the nasty political ads directed at Romney.
Economics comes into play because victimhood kills initiative. When your life is controlled by this evil ‘other’ you can’t and won’t make an effort to succeed. You economy languishes, and remains based on a few products (i.e. cotton in the South, cars in Detroit). You only hope lies in finding another ‘other’–the Democratic party and unions–to counter the evil one. You can do nothing yourself.
The feds saved GM. Romney will destroy the auto industry and send jobs offshore. Obama brought tax-paid birth control and abortions. Romney will take both away and not just the tax-funding. That sort of thing. And never mind that the South is now filled with prosperous auto factories that needed no federal bailout.
Incidentally, what is the equivalent of victimhood if you’re extraordinary well-off, as in coastal California and can hardly see yourself as a victim? It’s one of a long series of hysterias: Yellow Peril, Eugenics, a Population Explosion, Global Cooling followed by Global Warming and then Climate Change. Victimhood is replaced by a different set of fears, most centered on some Malthusian, Darwinian, or allegedly natural cause.
And being part of poor or declining economies, as detailed in the article, also leaves people open to the Democratic party’s politics of victimhood and fear.
Michael W. Perry, editor of Eugenics and Other Evils by G. K. Chesterton
The Dems have always been the party of the newcomers – who don’t speak English and who will be faithful minions of the Dem political machine.
It’s the Dems and their white “limousine liberals” who want to abort all the black babies. Their idea is to replace black voters (who show signs of thinking for themselves these days) with Third World immigrants.
Don’t leave the influence of predestinarian religion out of it; “Thy will be done” is maybe even more powerful than victimhood. “God’s Will” explained a lot of f**kups and failures in The South.
ALL ,,, ALL of this is a symptom, not reality. We are living
with the result of the FED RES stealing the wealth of this nation
by fiat. 2013 is the 100 yr aniversary of the FED RES.
If “it’s the economy stupid” then get educated on WHO owns the economy.
World wide the Fed Res has cohorts (that have been labeled conspiracy theory)
that are doing the same across the globe.
I just started watching Max Keiser’s Keiser report he comes off as weird as
hell but you would too if you saw what he is seeing from the corporate
banksters and their theft.
Peter Schiff is another voice to listen to. Moral of the story is
WE ARE BEING RIPPED OFF and the criminals are running the show while WE
do nothing,,,,, so Evil is prospering at our behest.
I’ve looked at the data from the 2008 election, and the only factor that accounts for the split that makes sense is population density. At a certain number of people per square mile, people end up voting Democrat. You can imagine that at some point, with higher density, people become more dependent on Government for their lifestyle — transit, sanitation, police (to fight increased crime) and so on.
John, I think people who would identify more with Democrats move toward higher population density and people who identify more with Republicans move away from higher population density. It’s possible that sexual opportunity, not political philosophy or economics, drives population density. Attractive single people pay more to live near other attractive single people in spite of high rent and parasitic big government. However, once you’re partnered up, the density of singles is no longer valuable and couples move to a quieter couples neighborhood. If the couple starts a family, they move again to a new edge suburb with the best schools when the oldest child turns 5.
There is something definitely there. I lived in a couple of cities in my 20′s – just to have a short commute, be near friends, and meet girls. I never intended to stay there and was married and back in a distant suburb by 30.
So I think that there is certainly a type of person who prefers to live in a densely populated area. Whether you want to or not, you have to give up a certain amount of independence and deal with intrusion in your life if you are to live in a city. This usually repels conservatives.
You can leave off the “sexual” part of opportunity, though that certainly is a part of it. It is simply OPPORTUNITY; there’s more of it in the city when you’re young. We’ve seen this throughout our history; the oldest son inherited the place and the younger sons and the bastards had to move on. That movin’ on is what gave us America. My surname first appears on a census as LaChance, which just means luck; they were either bastards, outlaws, or both, but they did a little time in some part of the Revolutionary Army and got some land in Georgia for their trouble.
By the time I came along there wasn’t enough left of that land to support a skinny steer and certainly not enough to by me that GTO I lusted after more than I lust for any woman; with the GTO, the women would come, literally and figuratively. So, I went to Atlanta. In those days, your first born son, your good-lookin’ daughter, and ALL your money was going to ATL and it probably wasn’t coming back, at least not coming back intact.
On further reflection, you’re on the right track with the sexual thing; it takes money to get the hotties, so you have to go to the city to get money to get hotties. It takes awhile to learn that maybe hotties aren’t the whole answer.
The California syndrome.
The worse things get the more powerful the Democrats become.
I want to know who got to decide Republican states will be represented by red, and Democrat states by blue. Today’s Democrat Party is far closer to communist “Red”.
Who is voting for Mitt Romney? AKA let’s save America.
Catholics – who have been challenged by Obama in their faith and beliefs.
Blacks – who are against same-sex marriages as being immoral and who have suffered most from Obama’s failures.
Whites – who see that Blacks are voting for Obama because he’s Black; Whites will vote for Whites.
Republicans – none of which voted for Obamacare.
Tea Party followers – who like in 2010 are throwing out Liberals and RHINOS again.
Coal Miners – who are taking Obama’s threats to end coal mining in America seriously.
Vehicle drivers – those who are faced with TWICE the cost of gas since Obama took office.
Jobless workers – those who have been waiting for Obama to create jobs, but hasn’t; many have left the job market.
Stock and Bond holders – many of whom were shafted when GM and Chrysler went bankrupt.
Small Business owners – who have repeatedly been ignored by Obama.
Citizens against Obamacare – because of the upcoming increase in taxes and excessive regulation if Obamacare is not repealed.
Jewish folks – because Obama has not visited Israel even once since taking office; and Obama’s bad attitude toward Israel.
Hispanics – those who know that Obama’s failure to create sufficient jobs is hurting the U.S. economy in a bad way.
Business people – millions who are hesitant to grow because of the vast uncertainty due to Obama and Obamacare.
Workers – facing layoffs, underemployment and a worsening economy; lower wages.
Shoppers – those who see prices rising and product size shrinking; inventories reduced.
Concerned Citizens – who see the Benghazi incident as an Obama failure and even treasonous (un-American).
Concerned Citizens – who see Obama’s foreign policies as dangerous and failures.
Persons of Faith – who recognize Obama’s forcing provision by them of contraception to employees as Constitutional violations.
Gun owners – who have always been against the extreme liberal ideas Obama has for gun control.
Local government officials – who see Obama’s federal encroachment as unacceptable.
Truckers – who see the high price of gas as an attack on their livelihood.
Oil business – that reject Obama’s curbs on off-shore drilling.
Oil industry workers – that recognize the Keystone pipeline as Obama’s failure to encourage jobs and job growth.
Americans – who view Obama’s encouragement of high oil prices and lowered U.S. oil production as favoring OPEC and Arabs.
Concerned Congressmen – those that recognize that Obama has no cogent foreign policy, which could prove to be dangerous.
Individuals
Homeowners – who have seen their life saving and equity go down the drain because Obama has done nothing on the economy.
Health care providers – doctors and others who see Obamacare as a threat to their income; and harmful extreme regulations.
Concerned citizens – that are very concerned about the U.S. deficit and Obama’s extreme radical uncontrolled spending.
Others – concerned about Obama’s illegal activities, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, not defending DOMA, condoning illegal aliens.
Abortion foes – object to Obama’s callous lack of concern for the unborn and Obama’s radical third trimester abortion views.
Concerned Americans – who have been outright lied to by Obama when he claimed his administration would be transparent.
Car manufacturers – those that have seen car sales drop with Obama’s bad economy and economic policies hurting sales.
Housing developers – who like many others have seen the Obama economy cripple home construction and lower profits.
Mormons – who support Mitt Romney as a person of faith, good character, and honest principles.
Economists – that have expressed encouragement that Romney’s experience and knowledge will lead to true hope and results.
Military – seeing that Obama’s cuts will endanger their ability to protect our country.
Independents – who already have provided a surge for Romney, are convinced that the past 4 years of Obama is enough.
Evangelicals – who organized the largest get-out-the-vote for conservatism ever, in their concerted effort to defeat Obama.
Conservatives – a majority in U.S., are pushing hard to take the Senate, Presidency and House for the good of America.
Skeptics – who 4 years ago were duped into believing in Obama’s Hope and Change that eventually came to nothing, just lies.
Disillusioned Democrats – who have been utterly disappointed in Obama and will not vote for Obama or not vote at all.
and millions, millions more against Obama and his lies and failures.
Vote Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan. Let’s make America strong and great again because we can!
Was it a coincidence that Republican Dwight Eisenhower carried the three wealthiest Southern states (Texas, Florida, and Virginia, respectively) in 1952?
Maybe not, but Ike’s being a war hero certainly helped. Had the South won the Civil War, Robert E. Lee would likely have succeeded Jefferson Davis as the CSA’s president (under the Confederate constitution, the president was limited to one 6-year term).
The GOP’s early Southern success in presidential elections took a long time to filter “down ballot.” At the state and local level, my native Texas remained yellow-dog Democrat well into the 1970s. Until Bill Clements won the governorship in 1978, winning the Democratic primary was the equivalent of winning the election. (Clements’ opponent, AG John Hill, apparently thought that was still the case — he pretty much coasted through the campaign.) Pundits back then were fond of saying the “two-party system” in Texas was liberal Democrats vs. conservative Democrats. Meanwhile, here in Florida the legislature remained under Democrat control until 1992. Now the GOP has a 2/3 majority in both chambers.
Vote Republican for Recovery.
Vote Democrat for Depression.
Interesting case made here.
If it’s true,there are more areas with more states getting poorer, and only the South getting richer. Therefore Republicans will be more confined to the South for for votes and will soon lose all elections going forward. Am I missing something?
Electoral apportionment increases with population.
So the Republicans are the party of the thrifty while the Democrats are the party of the shifty. Nothing new about that. The Democrat Party has long been the party of corruption, most greatly expressed in the welfare state which enslaves tens of millions in live of desperation and dependence. The greatest trick is that Democrats manage to convince most not only to remain on the dole but like it and fight tooth and nail to stay.
Thing is, the Democrats have about run out of the thrifty to loot for the shifty. Their system won’t last much longer before it folds up like Greece.
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http://vimeo.com/m/51569342