{"id":2139,"date":"2008-05-06T00:08:24","date_gmt":"2008-05-06T05:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2139"},"modified":"2008-05-06T00:12:53","modified_gmt":"2008-05-06T05:12:53","slug":"two-americas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/05\/06\/two-americas\/","title":{"rendered":"two Americas?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It seems actually possible that the same forces in our country that were operative in 2000 and 2004 are operative today, and capable of electing  Bush <\/strike> McCain  again <\/strike>. Yet, I don’t think those people who might try to do that [elect McCain] support the War in Iraq, or our continued troop presence there, or bombing Iran. I doubt that they think the solution to our economic woes is making the tax cuts for the wealthy permanent. I don’t even think they wake up in the morning thinking about Abortion or Stem Cell research. About the only front line Republican issue that the majority might be behind is cracking down on immigration, something a lot of Democrats agree with too.<\/p>\n

What then is it that so attracts people to this group, the current Republicans, who are so determined to thrust us into this role of the world’s pugilists, who make such a mockery of our political system? On the surface, it makes little sense to me. Whatever it is, it’s not rational to people on this of the fence.<\/p>\n

There’s another thing that I find very confusing. The current Republicans talk about being against big government and runaway government spending. Bush can throw away a trillion dollars on a pointless foreign war, and stand in front of us and talk about big government and keep a straight face. He can talk about cutting taxes and run up the debt just like Reagan did before him without flinching. This graph alone makes what he says ludicrous:<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

We’re feeling the effect of this daily. The falling value of the dollar is driving up prices, further contributing to our economic woes, yet people still talk about the Democrats as big spenders. What is the force that allowed over half the voting Americans not to see this paradox between what they say and what they do?<\/p>\n

I’m not talking about Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. I’m talking about the people who live on Main Street in my home town, or small towns in North Carolina, or Indiana. There’s some data from the 2004 election that seems to address an aspect of my question. This is a map of how the states voted [red for Republican, blue for Democrat]:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It looks pretty red. Now here’s the same map, only the data is shown by counties:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It looks a bit different – patches of blue interspersed in the sea of red.  The next map is distorted in a specific way. It is corrected for population. So the space occupied represents the number of people rather than the geographic area:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Those blue spots on the map represent two things. First, they are the cities<\/strong><\/font> – centers of population. And some parts are not cities, but are areas where the population of minorities<\/strong><\/font> is high – a black belt in the South and a latino concentrations in the Southwest and South Florida.<\/p>\n

So, It’s the cities\/minorities<\/strong><\/font> versus the small town\/rural<\/strong><\/font> parts of America. While I suspect that this dichotomy has some traditional roots, this seems excessive – like two Americas. In some ways, this data seems to further confound. The Democrats have traditionally represented the working class, the Republicans the businessmen and the wealthy. That’s not at all how this map looks.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what all of this means, but it’s something to think about…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems actually possible that the same forces in our country that were operative in 2000 and 2004 are operative today, and capable of electing  Bush  McCain  again . Yet, I don’t think those people who might try to do that [elect McCain] support the War in Iraq, or our continued troop presence there, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}