The Red Wide-Open Spaces of the USA

[Airbrush]

Take a look at this red/blue map of the 2020 US election.  Click on any state and it gives you a breakdown of the red and blue counties of each state.  Notice how the wide-open spaces are overwhelmingly red and population centers are overwhelmingly blue.  If you click on a blue state you will see most of the counties are red.  Population centers are blue.  Why is this?  Is it true that "blue" policies are generally more popular in the US than "red" policies?

election map red blue - Bing

The "traveling salesman jokes" are about a city-slicker, conman, salesman (Trump) who travels across the nation taking advantage of the local country bumpkins, especially farmers' daughters.  The targets of the conman are people who are not very educated, not very sophisticated thinkers, and too trusting for their own good.  These are people who are easy for a devious but clever con artist to enlist into their cause.  These are people who can be suckered by a Jim Jones.  The next populist may be even more devious and clever than Trump.  When that happens the US will have enough people suckered by the clever con and the US becomes a dictatorship.

There is an old joke about a traveling salesman and a farmer's daughter that has been referenced constantly for decades yet you don't know anyone who has actually heard it. How does it go? - Answers

 

[Phi for All]

Business owners in general favor as little regulation as possible, and the rural ones are usually associated with a lot of land (farming, ranching) and have their own special reaction to anyone telling them what they can do on it. Programs paid for by taxes tend to favor the population centers, where states get more bang for their buck, and where more voters will be affected. Policies and politics that favor the People over Big Business are more popular in more populous areas. 70% of Americans feel the the whole economic system is rigged to favor the already wealthy, and many folks in the rural US feel it's also rigged to favor big cities too.

[swansont]

2 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Take a look at this red/blue map of the 2020 US election.  Click on any state and it gives you a breakdown of the red and blue counties of each state.  Notice how the wide-open spaces are overwhelmingly red and population centers are overwhelmingly blue. 

Such maps can be used in a misleading fashion, as land does not vote in elections, people do. 

42 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Business owners in general favor as little regulation as possible, and the rural ones are usually associated with a lot of land (farming, ranching) and have their own special reaction to anyone telling them what they can do on it. Programs paid for by taxes tend to favor the population centers, where states get more bang for their buck, and where more voters will be affected. Policies and politics that favor the People over Big Business are more popular in more populous areas. 70% of Americans feel the the whole economic system is rigged to favor the already wealthy, and many folks in the rural US feel it's also rigged to favor big cities too.

OTOH, the population centers probably pay more in taxes, because there are more people to pay them. We already know that the   states that tend to pay significantly less in taxes to the federal government than they receive in government spending are mostly red (there are exceptions of course)

[Phi for All]

9 minutes ago, swansont said:

OTOH, the population centers probably pay more in taxes, because there are more people to pay them. We already know that the   states that tend to pay significantly less in taxes to the federal government than they receive in government spending are mostly red (there are exceptions of course)

This seems similar to the problems we see when we tie school funding to property taxes. At a certain point, there's not enough money to sustain a top tier school system and the community declines.

And I wonder if Red state mentality isn't the culprit. Blue theory seems to say those with more economic opportunities (in the cities) should help those less fortunate (in the country). Are the rural folks slapping away helping hands because they want to concentrate on their bootstraps and their personal up-pulling?

[MigL]

There will always be people who take advantage of other people, so we will always have the TeleEvangelists, the Jim Jones, and the Donald Trumps.

Placing the blame with the "people who are not very educated, not very sophisticated thinkers, and too trusting for their own good" is what got H Clinton in trouble and led to the D Trump Presidency. Those people are voters too
If the elitist, career politicians who are " very educated,  very sophisticated thinkers" would address the needs of common folks, some of whom are not, we wouldn't be in this situation.
Government is responsible to ALL of its voters/citizens, no matter how trusting they are.

[Phi for All]

Folks in rural areas don't have to be less educated (and duped because of it) to be disenfranchised by our current system. There are already fewer of them, they cost more wrt infrastructure and services, cleaning up air and water is more expensive, and they have the biggest disparity between the wealthy and the poor. This study suggests it's partly a density problem. 1% of extra density in a population translates to 4% higher wages. And in rural areas, most folks work for the big land owners doing un- or low-skilled jobs that don't require a lot of education, so there's little incentive. 

We need to network together without the assumption that one lifestyle is better or smarter than the other. We need the urban and rural parts of our country working together. I keep thinking that for every person who feels stuck in a podunk cow-town, there's a city-dweller who's just dying to get out of the rat race. 

I think urbanites can understand why the taxes they pay that regulate farmers and ranchers affects them directly, but I'm not so sure the cattle rancher thinks the same way about how his taxes are spent in the city. How do urban community centers and needle exchange programs help farmers grow better crops? 

[swansont]

16 hours ago, Phi for All said:

This seems similar to the problems we see when we tie school funding to property taxes. At a certain point, there's not enough money to sustain a top tier school system and the community declines.

And I wonder if Red state mentality isn't the culprit. Blue theory seems to say those with more economic opportunities (in the cities) should help those less fortunate (in the country). Are the rural folks slapping away helping hands because they want to concentrate on their bootstraps and their personal up-pulling?

I think the “I’m doing it on my own” denial is an ingredient. They get help but since it’s not that obvious, they assume it’s not there.

15 hours ago, MigL said:

There will always be people who take advantage of other people, so we will always have the TeleEvangelists, the Jim Jones, and the Donald Trumps.

Placing the blame with the "people who are not very educated, not very sophisticated thinkers, and too trusting for their own good" is what got H Clinton in trouble and led to the D Trump Presidency. Those people are voters too
If the elitist, career politicians who are " very educated,  very sophisticated thinkers" would address the needs of common folks, some of whom are not, we wouldn't be in this situation.
Government is responsible to ALL of its voters/citizens, no matter how trusting they are.

Why are urban dwellers not considered “common folk”? “Common” means there are a lot of them. 

[MigL]

By 'common folk' I meant people who have become disenfranchised with our political system, career Politicians, and the way government does business.

These are the people who, overwhelmingly voted for D Trump, expecting a change, and that he would actually 'drain the swamp'.
Boy, were they wrong !

[J.C.MacSwell]

A lot of salt in that swamp...with the tide still coming in as fast as going out

Must be some kind of global warming effect...

[CharonY]

22 minutes ago, MigL said:

Boy, were they wrong !

Worse than that, though. A cult has formed that actually think that the rampant corruption is for unfathomable reason great and justified.

[Area54]

I wonder if discussions like these, amongst educated Roman citizens, took place during the Decline, or were not commonplace until the Fall.

Or have my mild bipolar tendencies just moved into the depressive phase?

[swansont]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

By 'common folk' I meant people who have become disenfranchised with our political system, career Politicians, and the way government does business.

These are the people who, overwhelmingly voted for D Trump, expecting a change, and that he would actually 'drain the swamp'.
Boy, were they wrong !

People who voted the other way (or wanted to) were not disenfranchised? People have literally been disenfranchised, and it’s primarily not people who voted for Trump.

Or dissatisfied with the status quo? I think the BLM protests dump a whole lot of cold water on the idea that it’s just Trump supporters who want long-standing practices to change.

- - - 

Anyway, back on the topic of rural voters 

There’s a quasi-romantic notion that there are a whole host of them, and there quite literally aren’t. The rural population of the US is under 15%. Why should they be listened to with any greater weight than any other group of similar size (or larger)? 

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/

(and since rural population is predominantly white, many politicians use this as a racist dog whistle) 

 

 

 

[MigL]

Sorry I wasn't clear swansont.
I was referring to the 2016 election, and why I mentioned to H Clinton, who famously called them "deplorables".

[swansont]

19 minutes ago, MigL said:

Sorry I wasn't clear swansont.
I was referring to the 2016 election, and why I mentioned to H Clinton, who famously called them "deplorables".

Not important. I doubt a lot of 2016 Trump voters engaged in BLM protests, and I think even more people were literally disenfranchised in the 2016 election.  

And the ones who were motivated by sincerely expecting the swamp to be drained weren’t the ones that were called deplorables. 

[MigL]

Maybe not important to you, but it certainly was to many people in 2016, who felt that the 'status quo' Government of career politicians, like H Clinton, didn't care about their concerns.
D Trump got elected by appealing to those people, by promising to do things differently, and 'draining the swamp' of career politicians and civil servants who were in politics for themselves.
The fact that a lot of citizens felt their representative Government wasn't addressing their concerns/needs is literally what disenfranchised means.
The denial, or deprivation, of some right or privilege, such as the right to a representative Government.

The fact that D Trump turned out to be a jackass, and played those people to suit his own agenda, and has led to even more people becoming disillusioned with politicians, is a different matter altogether.

[CharonY]

6 minutes ago, MigL said:

Maybe not important to you, but it certainly was to many people in 2016, who felt that the 'status quo' Government of career politicians, like H Clinton, didn't care about their concerns.

While I think this is an interesting point, it is necessary to look at things more fine-grained than that. The reality is of course a mix of effects, some of which we have talked about earlier (e.g. voter suppresssion, status threat of white voters etc.). In that context I think two key questions are important. First, what are the proportion of voters who voted for Trump because they felt unheard, and second, why did they felt so?

One issue as brought up earlier and which seems numerically the most predictive factor was status threat by non-whites. Folks felt that their way of living was threatened by immigrants. The swamp is just nebulous enough to include folks that are not doing what they want to see happening (e.g. fewer immigrants, a wall and similar things) as part of the swamp. In that regard Trump actually delivered. And in fact far from being disillusioned, Trump actually got more votes than in 2016. 

I feel that a part of the whole mess is that certain folks like to see themselves as victims, even while being in power. Issues like status threat arise from such a viewpoint, and I have heard repeatedly that especially white men think that they are not take seriously anymore, just because there is a push to have POC's also being heard. Personally, I find it very hard to navigate these situations for a number of reasons.

[iNow]

26 minutes ago, MigL said:

Maybe not important to you, but it certainly was to many people in 2016, who felt that the 'status quo' Government of career politicians, like H Clinton, didn't care about their concerns.

Minor point of order: Hillary had TONS of policies that would have meaningfully improved the lives of most of those struggling with the status quo, and had already completed plans with massively experienced people with the relevant expertise. 

She was extremely well read on the issues affecting their lives and focused on fixing them, but since it was being shared at the intellectual / policy level instead of at the gut / reptile brain level, and since she was attacked with lies nonstop by the “vast right wing conspiracy” ... and since trumps message was easier to digest... nobody ever heard her message. They just knew they hated her for various reasons unknown... something about emails and corruption or something.

I return you now to your regularly scheduled program. 

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

I was referring to the 2016 election, and why I mentioned to H Clinton, who famously called them "deplorables".

The people she called deplorable ARE deplorable. Remember, she did not call Republicans or Trump supporters deplorable, she referred to the Trump supporters who were racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic. Her description was IMO spot on, although she didn't do herself any favors by giving them another talking point.

[swansont]

31 minutes ago, MigL said:

Maybe not important to you, but it certainly was to many people in 2016, who felt that the 'status quo' Government of career politicians, like H Clinton, didn't care about their concerns.
D Trump got elected by appealing to those people, by promising to do things differently, and 'draining the swamp' of career politicians and civil servants who were in politics for themselves.

Has this actually ever been quantified?

31 minutes ago, MigL said:

The fact that a lot of citizens felt their representative Government wasn't addressing their concerns/needs is literally what disenfranchised means.

The literal definition includes depriving someone of the right to vote.

31 minutes ago, MigL said:

The denial, or deprivation, of some right or privilege, such as the right to a representative Government.

The fact that D Trump turned out to be a jackass, and played those people to suit his own agenda, and has led to even more people becoming disillusioned with politicians, is a different matter altogether.

But it’s not like this wasn’t known about him before the election.

Without actual data to show how many people this applies to, it sounds just like the rural voter/“real American” issue, and being used as a narrative tp cover up racist backlash and misogyny.

[Phi for All]

13 minutes ago, zapatos said:

The people she called deplorable ARE deplorable. Remember, she did not call Republicans or Trump supporters deplorable, she referred to the Trump supporters who were racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic. Her description was IMO spot on, although she didn't do herself any favors by giving them another talking point.

You can't change a person, but you can change the way they act, so we should attack the behavior/arguments, not the people who have them. That's where Clinton made her mistake, imo. If you want the behavior to stop, don't make it part of the person. The behavior is deplorable.

[swansont]

7 minutes ago, iNow said:

Minor point of order: Hillary had TONS of policies that would have meaningfully improved the lives of most of those struggling with the status quo, and had already completed plans with massively experienced people with the relevant expertise. 

She was extremely well read on the issues affecting their lives and focused on fixing them, but since it was being shared at the intellectual / policy level instead of at the gut / reptile brain level, and since she was attacked with lies nonstop by the “vast right wing conspiracy” ... and since trumps message was easier to digest... nobody ever heard her message. They just knew they hated her for various reasons unknown... something about emails and corruption or something.

I return you now to your regularly scheduled program. 

My takes is that a certain group didn’t like her, and they sorted through the negative descriptions to come up with a justification why. This happens a lot, when one side decries the other for something, but are mum when their side engages in the same behavior. 

But 40% (or more) weren’t going to vote for her regardless, because they would never vote for a democrat, and all of this is moot in regard to those voters.  Nothing was going to sway them.

[MigL]

Hind sight is 20/20.
WHY they were disillusioned with Government ( and H Clinton in particular ) does not really matter.
Even if those reasons were not factual, or non-existant, they should have been addressed, and people reassured, not dismissed as complaining deplorables ( there were no qualifiers when she said it, Zap ).
I was an H Clinton supporter, and some simple considerations for all citizens may have spared us the last 4 years.

[zapatos]

17 minutes ago, MigL said:

there were no qualifiers when she said it, Zap

Quote

During campaign fundraisers in August 2016, Clinton reportedly explained her divide and conquer approach to courting Republican voters by putting Trump supporters into two "baskets": everyday Republicans whom she would target and the alt-right crowd.^[6] During a September 8, 2016, interview on Israel's Channel 2, Clinton said: "You can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets. There are what I would call the deplorables—you know, the racists and the haters, and the people who are drawn because they think somehow he's going to restore an America that no longer exists

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_of_deplorables

19 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

You can't change a person, but you can change the way they act, so we should attack the behavior/arguments, not the people who have them.

People are the way they act. Maybe not based on a single event (such as an out-of-character heat-of-the-moment slur), but if a person exhibits racist behavior for years, they are racist. No need to sugar coat it. We are not talking about children for whom we are trying to develop into good adults. These people ARE the way they act.

Edited December 15, 2020 by zapatos

[iNow]

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

~Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Edited December 15, 2020 by iNow

[MigL]

3 hours ago, zapatos said:

During campaign fundraisers in August 2016, Clinton reportedly explained her divide and conquer approach to courting Republican voters by putting Trump supporters into two "baskets": everyday Republicans whom she would target and the alt-right crowd.^[6] During a September 8, 2016, interview on Israel's Channel 2, Clinton said: "You can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets. There are what I would call the deplorables—you know, the racists and the haters, and the people who are drawn because they think somehow he's going to restore an America that no longer exists

Ooops !

I still stand by the rest of my opinion expressed in my last post.