Red State Blue State Analysis

Fred’s 2010 Electoral Analysis    10/6/10

There are four factors in common with islands of blue (liberal) voters in red (conservative) states: 1: urban areas, 2: university towns, 3: transplanted liberals, 4: overwhelming minority population. Perhaps there is a fifth, 5: tradition of liberalism, as in the Northeastern US

Urban Effect:

Blue in Kansas City, Omaha, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Austin, Houston, El Paso, Tulsa, Memphis.

-New York Times interactive maps from the last presidential election showed this urban effect in red states nationwide

University Town Effect:

Blue in Latah County, ID; Pima and Coconino Counties in AZ

-NY Times interactive maps inevitably show blue around almost all big universities, Chico, CA for example is an island of blue in red Butte County

Transplanted Liberal Effect:

Blue in Blaine County ID (Sun Valley), Teton County WY and Teton County ID (Jackson, Jackson Hole), Palm Beach and Broward Counties, FL (sunbelt retirement) and Pima County, AZ (sunbelt retirement), Mammoth Lakes, CA (ski resort).

-this isn’t surprising: well to do, educated urbanites skew voting to the blue in their resort area second/ retirement homes

Overwhelming Minority Effect:

Blue in Apache County, AZ (77% Indian), all of south Texas between the Rio Grande and Gulf of Mexico (Mexican-American), Cherokee, Muskogee, McIntosh, Okmulgee Counties, OK (Indian), Lowndes, Macon, Bullock, Sumter, Greene Counties, AL (black), Allendale County, SC (black), Hancock County, GA (black)

-this isn’t surprising either as why would minorities vote for conservatives against civil rights, social security, universal health, gov’t help programs?

-government is a potential ally of these little guys, big business is not

Add these demographic factors into the existing areas of predominant blue: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Wilmington, Miami and it is easy enough to connect the dots: urban and educated, minorities, equals liberal. Rural, uneducated, lower income white equals conservative.  The more educated and worldly one gets, the more a liberal view seems to take hold. Why else would the areas of highest education be predominantly liberal?  A notable exception would be blacks and Hispanics voting red on a religious or culturally traditional basis, for example against gay rights, against sex education, birth control and reproductive choice for women.

There are two kinds of red state of mind people. The values people and the money people.

-The red state of mind values people are less worldly, less educated, less well off, less modern, looking to the past, religious and less able to engage the world on real historical terms. These people get played for parochial “values issues” (racial and ethnic prejudice, Nativism, homophobia, anti-abortion, Second Amendment hysteria, religious intolerance) while big money red guys stick it to them economically.

- Red money people are different; they have assets they want to protect; they want policies that allow them to keep the most and be taxed the least.

-Paradoxes result here as minorities may vote red on one values issue only to be victimized by another, for example: Hispanics vote red on an anti-abortion basis but this puts in power conservatives with anti-immigration Nativism as part of their platform.

Wealth in the US is heavily concentrated at the top, the top 1 or 2%, and most likely is represented by a high percentage of red ideology. These people are the quintessential insiders, the kings and the aristocracy, the Wizards of Oz who disproportionately monopolize power and control and steer social and economic policy in directions favoring their interests. This power elite resides right in the heart of the blue, New York City, San Francisco and yet they have the money, influence and power to steer policy away from blue issues and towards big red interests. “Values issues” are meaningless to this top percentile bourgeois aristocracy; values issues are only a foil, smoke and mirrors for them to keep control and push laissez faire economic policies.

It is hard to not see big money reds, their lobbyists and Wall Street as selfish and greedy. The values these guys stand for are hardly anything you could find in Enlightenment thinking. Where is the justice, equality and fraternity? Nowhere. Big reds are all about freedom of contract; that is their holy writ; that is liberty to them, freedom of money above all other forms of liberty. This is just aristocracy warmed over, one ruling class replaced another; for these guys this is the crux of the American Revolution. They then conflate freedom with some US constitutional mythology when in fact it is really all about power and control.  

Being educated allows one to see through the smoke and mirrors put out by red campaign bluster. You find out that a lot of the noise is “Astroturf”, not real grass roots, funded by anonymous conservative billionaires with patriotic sounding front organizations.

Yes, trade, business and money are critically important to keeping life and an economy going. You could even say that trade is what has constantly cross-fertilized human evolution for the last 5000 years.  Trade, money and economics are not bad in themselves. I propose that these economic necessities, these economic creative wellsprings of life, have been perverted into an exclusive capitalist ideology that puts economy and freedom of contract over everything else. Money is the top value.

To whose benefit is the system stacked now? Are we on the same team as a country or a world or is it every dog for himself? Is the history that Western wealth is based on a just history or has it been one big rip-off kleptocracy since 1492? Now that peons like me can get educated and see history for what it is, the rich can no longer cloak their power and control in divine right or even partial views of freedom and democracy. Don’t take me down no yellow brick road! These red money guys are the same plague that has always been on humanity, seeking to concentrate wealth at the top and then trying to stay there as long as possible by whatever means available.

The real problem we have now is not elite governments nor elite academics, it is reactionary millionaires and billionaires making a power grab for the direction of the country. As the US and world economy struggle it is clear that the top economic percentiles don’t even care about poverty, injustice, pollution, global warming, over fishing, immigration or any issues that are clear as day in needing to be dealt with. We can’t consume our way out of fundamental shortages and dwindling resources! Big reds just want to pretend it is the 1950s. Just when we need creative solutions and common purpose we’re stuck in contrived partisan bickering that leads nowhere but straight down the drain.

So it is neat that university towns are blue and that urban areas tend to go blue but what does it matter when the red opposition are such total idiots that they’ve foiled every effort of Obama to govern? Even the Supreme Court is pure partisan. I say the blue folks need to vote! And black and Hispanics need to not be co-opted by “values” bluster and vote the bottom line: civil rights, political and social liberty, equality and all the real values that our country is based on. Lets’ not let selfish, greedy corporate billionaires run the show!

VOTE!