The split betweeen the red and blue states is made worse by the Electoral College, which weights heavily in favor or Republicans. The Senate with its two Senators per state also gives undue weight to red states with small populations. These states are clinging to their supposed "real America" title opposing immigration, LGBTQ rights, and anything that may help people of color or those they label the undeserving poor. They won't accept expansions of medicaid or enlarging the Snap program , even when the CDC has found that deaths are higher in those states with the lowest rates of insured people. Now they would deny the poor access to abortion even though they have the worst outcomes in maternal health and infant mortality. The split between the red and blue states goes beyond the philosophy of Republicans and Democrats and has now become more a claim of "moral superiority" by both sides. As long as the "exman's" lies control the Republican party, there will be no way to bridge the gap.
So true, although I read a tweet recently that made a different comment. To someone's mention of possible Civil War, the tweeter replied that it isn't so easy now because affiliation isn't so clearly split along geographical lines.
I live in MA, with a GOP governor, surrounded by a lot of "red" people. Also, with a terminated pension, high state taxes, and inflation, I'm thinking of selling my house and moving to my RV lot in the FL Keys. But...FL!!! Except most people I know in the Keys are "blue" or "chartreuse" or something other than "red" (Perhaps they should split to become, as they say, the "Conch Republic.")
My point is, I'm not sure things are so well defined. In my experiences, this modern war is inflicting a lot of pain within states as well as between them, and even between family members.
But maybe that's not new. I grew up in MA but remember my TN grandma talking about the pain of families with a son in each Civil War army. I see current real estate maps showing migration from high-tax/blue states to low/red. I read tweets by young folks claiming they're going to change things, suggesting they don't agree with surrounding politics. (But then, my generation said that yet produced Trump.)
Being blue in an allegedly blue state, I'm all for seeing those nasty, costly red folks cecede -- until I think about being financially forced to move to FL. Maybe things are seldom as simple as they seem. Or, as we taught at the airline in diversity training, the stereotyping of people rarely works well. One of the most striking things about living for 36 years at flight levels is seeing so clearly, every work day, that there are no border lines painted down there on the ground.
All of that, for me, makes the current political situation feel even more tangled and scary. If the high-cost luxury of living blue causes me to have to move to FL, the gates might slam shut and trap me in red. Not just me. It's not only poor red people; what about the poor blue souls trapped now in red hell?
Professor, Though I agree “we’re [seemingly] becoming two versions of America,” I’m not convinced this split is as pervasive as it might appear. Imagine, for example, when the budget reconciliation plan (BBB) failed to pass, that, instead of near-deafening silence, a stronger, tougher Biden had gone to West Virginia, and also to the red parts of Mississippi and Alabama, and to other states and said, “This is what we have tried to deliver and these folks have voted against it.” Simply stated, Democrats have to be willing to engage in war. One can’t play fair with people who don’t play fair. The other side has shown that it will do whatever is necessary to attain power. Therefore, Democratic leadership has got to say, “America, when they didn’t care about you, we did.”
Imagine the impact if everyday people across the country were asked, “Who do you want here—somebody who doesn’t want to cut the price of insulin or those who do”? What about the child tax credit? Affordable, quality childcare? Universal Pre-K? Investments in housing? In elder care? In climate? My point, and note I haven’t covered what Biden and the Party have accomplished, is that Democrats (contrary to Republicans who have no ideas aside from those arising from greedy and self-serving impulses) have an extraordinary narrative if only they would deliver it.
Professor, maybe the problem is people like me? When my brothers and cousins, or neighbors, start spewing right wing tropes, lies and bigotry I forget that they are the victims of manipulation by moneyed interests controlling media messaging, and they are the victims of global capital and corporations who really are stripping away the possibility for a dignified middle class lifestyle for broad swaths of American workers. This dual action, reality of the stripping away AND their blaming the problem on "the left", immigrants, Americans of color and "woke" culture results in large numbers of Americans actually not understanding their real economic and social interests. But people like me too often blame the victims. I think they are stupid, uneducated, racist, xenophobic and some of them are fanatically religious, still hewing to long-discounted belief structures.
But I'm wrong to think of them as permanently fitting that profile; true, they too often act like that these days. But that is not the real person acting - it is the twisted simulacra they are living which is inverting the humanity they could each have if they too could be "woke". So I want to quit blaming and vilifying the victims - they are the victims (as we all are to some extent) of the malicious manipulation of culture and economics by the owners of global capital, oligarchs, authoritarians and moneyed interests in this country who have somehow convinced themselves AND their victims that someone else, something else is responsible for their problems.
Let's be gentle and forgiving of our Red State friends. Let's keep our focus on the real sources of problems in our country. Let's overcome the institutional barriers to Democratic majorities in government. Let's legislate relief for the problems in Red States and our country whether or not a minority of folks believe that equal rights, fair taxation, social safety nets, environmental activism and aggressive regulation of corporations are in their real interests.
As a proud Berkeley science PhD who has run a farm in Kansas and taught university environmental science classes (my husband teaches evolution) for the past 30 years, I would caution everyone about imagining our part of the country as a monolithic "red state". After all, we have a woman Democrat in the governor's mansion (Laura Kelly) and a wonderful progressive (and decidedly not white, male or old) Democrat on our Congressional delegation (Sharice Davids). Kansas was the battleground for Brown v. Board of Education not because this state was the most opposed to segregation, but because the lawyers new that the state would not mount a strong fight in court. No one has given more to the the cause of access to safe abortion than Dr. Tiller. Our state Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the right to abortion is protected by our state constitution. Kansas has a proud tradition of being the "Free State", and the town of Lawrence was the site of one of the bloodiest massacres of the Civil War (the Border Wars can't be forgotten around here). I think that restricting Berkeley faculty from traveling to Kansas is exactly the wrong thing to do - we need to stay engaged and learn more about each other, not reinforce the isolation on both sides. While yes we have a struggle with LGBTQ+ rights, we also elected Sharice Davids to Congress and have a university (Kansas State) that regularly wins national awards for its campus programs to support LGBTQ+ student life. It isn't simple here. I lived in California for many years, and encountered much more overt racism and misogyny in inland and northern parts of California than I have in any part of Kansas, even though I work largely with students and communities of color. My neighbors in my rural county are a farmer who immigrated from Kenya and a family with four adopted Korean children. Mixed race families are common and very much loved in our community. So please don't assume that voting patterns define the values of everyone in a "red" or a "blue" state. It is much more complicated, and hence, more hopeful, than that. As they say, we have a democracy if we can hold onto it - and Kansans are definitely in a fight to hold onto their rights. We need everyone's support to do so.
People aren't as divided as it looks. Only those politicized, but they are not the majority, and most of them believe what they do because they are lied to in the media on both sides. We need to fix the government by breaking ti with rolling general strikes. Let it be that nothing will get done if they don't take care of the people's business first. And I would also point out that this Roe v Wade undoing is the result of 50 years of violent acts against abortion clinics & doctors. Exposing the lie that is our history of peaceful demonstration. So fight and cause violence for half a century until the Supreme Court gives you your way...
Having left teaching for an early retirement this year, I've been giving a lot of thought as to how to join the fight in the mid-terms. For now, I've been engaging all the workmen who come to the house (phone people, HVAC guy, termite guy, etc.) with a very short plea to consider voting Blue. I start by asking if they have kids and if they were happy with the education the kids are receiving. They invariably are. I ask how many times kids reported that their teacher pushed political views on them, and they open their eyes wide and say that it never happened. Then I tell them that our SC General Assembly has spent weeks debating five CRT bills that insult and attack teachers, and have finished by not giving teachers a raise or any other reason to stay in the profession. I literally beg them to consider voting Blue if they want other kids in our state to have any type of education. All of this is done pretty quickly, and is in no way combative, and I laugh while I'm doing it and say, "Hey, I know I'm asking a guy named Jimmy who lives in in York to consider voting Blue and that that's about the longest shot in the world, but that's how desperate I am to see some change in our state," and they laugh. And then we move on to other things. I'm honing my skills of engagement with the other side. We all need to be doing this now, in the spring, so we'll be ready to make a difference as we approach the elections.
Hmmm. I suspect, hope, that this is a bit exaggerated. I have property in TN. Over the past few years I’ve been; assessing, working with builders, architects, Airbnb folks, meeting regular people. I’ve found the ideological divide is driven by politics not the average folks. The growth in the Red states by people moving around the country to less expensive locations is likely diluting the extremism and hopefully will expand the melting pot of ideology over time.
I too have concerns about the radical ideology and I’m watching the local politics in a newsletter called Lookout TN before I make the leap from CA.
( funny writers btw I’d post the link but it’s long.)
I’m hoping the younger folks will get out and vote out the extreme political folks, run for office and then perhaps our great United States will find away to self identify with a bit less of a sharp divide.
the fear of red states for anything -- everything -- that does not conform to an extremely narrow, white, male, authoritarian view of how the world should be will not go away soon. it's rather like families where some family members are control freaks and others are more laid back, but ALL family members avoid contact with each other because they are sick of all the arguing and fighting over every little thing. i assume at least some of those families manage to mend their differences and get back together? it would be interesting to learn how they managed this and see if this can be reproduced within the nation itself? (that said, i fear that a huge crisis to the family, like a cancer diagnosis or a random shooting of one or more family members, is what it took to finally heal the rift -- which bodes ill for america itself.)
I think education should help. The red people are against what’s good for most people. It’s not apples and pecans. One side is obviously cruel and unfair. We can’t just be civil while narrow-minded, ignorant people run things.
You won't find a way for red and blue to amicably coexist. Trying to handle the country's business will become a never-ending series of state governments trying to get one up on each other, vying for favor, like spoiled children. Ignored in this new stupidity will be the big picture, things like America's place on the world stage, the welfare of those unfortunate enough to be born with disabilities, the fact that systemic racism is actively encouraged and the continued legalized theft of dollars from the dwindling working class as it is pulled from them in higher prices and or taxes before it is sent up the line to make others super rich. I absolutely do not encourage violence but let history guide you. Revolutions start exactly like this.
My husband read a news story from his tablet a few weeks ago that Massachusetts was receiving more new residents from Texas and California. I did not ask him for the source, but thought it may have been climate related. I would not want to live in Texas. California is expensive, and has had the wildfires and drought. I'm wondering where there would be accurate information of trends of 'migration' from and to states that are blue and red.
Our two-party, winner-take-all political system is the root of our problems. Here is a somewhat tortured analogy:
In sailboat racing there is, or was, a tactic called downspeed tacking. (Tacking, is changing direction while traveling upwind and tacking slows sailboats.) In a tacking duel two boats tack furiously back and forth until one or the other, and often both, come nearly to a complete stop. But one boat may have gained a slight tactical advantage over the other.
Downspeed tacking only works in a race between two boats though because any additional competitors would sail right past both of them.
Since we have a two-boat race here downspeed tacking works, to the detriment of our country. Our two political parties engage in a duel of negativity, each framing the other as bad for our country. Both are right. Another, less negative party could sail past both of them.
I just don't get it. I'm reading elsewhere that the Democrats are going to get clobbered in the fall because they haven't delivered on campaign promises "when they have had the power to do so."
But build back better failed because the REPUBLICAN controlled Senate blocked it. True, a couple of Democrats In Name Only (DINOS) didn't help, but they are not THE Democratic Party, but outliers. Why can't voters be shown to see that the answer is not to turn to Republicans, but elect more Democrats?
And why hasn't the infrastructure bill, now law, gotten off the ground thereby creating good paying jobs? If the Republicans get back in the drivers seat of power, nothing by way of public policy will be done to address Climate Change-Global Warming. They still want to pretend that it's a hoax. If you missed the three-part series by Frontline on "Big Oil" then by all means get it "On Demand."
The split betweeen the red and blue states is made worse by the Electoral College, which weights heavily in favor or Republicans. The Senate with its two Senators per state also gives undue weight to red states with small populations. These states are clinging to their supposed "real America" title opposing immigration, LGBTQ rights, and anything that may help people of color or those they label the undeserving poor. They won't accept expansions of medicaid or enlarging the Snap program , even when the CDC has found that deaths are higher in those states with the lowest rates of insured people. Now they would deny the poor access to abortion even though they have the worst outcomes in maternal health and infant mortality. The split between the red and blue states goes beyond the philosophy of Republicans and Democrats and has now become more a claim of "moral superiority" by both sides. As long as the "exman's" lies control the Republican party, there will be no way to bridge the gap.
So true, although I read a tweet recently that made a different comment. To someone's mention of possible Civil War, the tweeter replied that it isn't so easy now because affiliation isn't so clearly split along geographical lines.
I live in MA, with a GOP governor, surrounded by a lot of "red" people. Also, with a terminated pension, high state taxes, and inflation, I'm thinking of selling my house and moving to my RV lot in the FL Keys. But...FL!!! Except most people I know in the Keys are "blue" or "chartreuse" or something other than "red" (Perhaps they should split to become, as they say, the "Conch Republic.")
My point is, I'm not sure things are so well defined. In my experiences, this modern war is inflicting a lot of pain within states as well as between them, and even between family members.
But maybe that's not new. I grew up in MA but remember my TN grandma talking about the pain of families with a son in each Civil War army. I see current real estate maps showing migration from high-tax/blue states to low/red. I read tweets by young folks claiming they're going to change things, suggesting they don't agree with surrounding politics. (But then, my generation said that yet produced Trump.)
Being blue in an allegedly blue state, I'm all for seeing those nasty, costly red folks cecede -- until I think about being financially forced to move to FL. Maybe things are seldom as simple as they seem. Or, as we taught at the airline in diversity training, the stereotyping of people rarely works well. One of the most striking things about living for 36 years at flight levels is seeing so clearly, every work day, that there are no border lines painted down there on the ground.
All of that, for me, makes the current political situation feel even more tangled and scary. If the high-cost luxury of living blue causes me to have to move to FL, the gates might slam shut and trap me in red. Not just me. It's not only poor red people; what about the poor blue souls trapped now in red hell?
Professor, Though I agree “we’re [seemingly] becoming two versions of America,” I’m not convinced this split is as pervasive as it might appear. Imagine, for example, when the budget reconciliation plan (BBB) failed to pass, that, instead of near-deafening silence, a stronger, tougher Biden had gone to West Virginia, and also to the red parts of Mississippi and Alabama, and to other states and said, “This is what we have tried to deliver and these folks have voted against it.” Simply stated, Democrats have to be willing to engage in war. One can’t play fair with people who don’t play fair. The other side has shown that it will do whatever is necessary to attain power. Therefore, Democratic leadership has got to say, “America, when they didn’t care about you, we did.”
Imagine the impact if everyday people across the country were asked, “Who do you want here—somebody who doesn’t want to cut the price of insulin or those who do”? What about the child tax credit? Affordable, quality childcare? Universal Pre-K? Investments in housing? In elder care? In climate? My point, and note I haven’t covered what Biden and the Party have accomplished, is that Democrats (contrary to Republicans who have no ideas aside from those arising from greedy and self-serving impulses) have an extraordinary narrative if only they would deliver it.
Professor, maybe the problem is people like me? When my brothers and cousins, or neighbors, start spewing right wing tropes, lies and bigotry I forget that they are the victims of manipulation by moneyed interests controlling media messaging, and they are the victims of global capital and corporations who really are stripping away the possibility for a dignified middle class lifestyle for broad swaths of American workers. This dual action, reality of the stripping away AND their blaming the problem on "the left", immigrants, Americans of color and "woke" culture results in large numbers of Americans actually not understanding their real economic and social interests. But people like me too often blame the victims. I think they are stupid, uneducated, racist, xenophobic and some of them are fanatically religious, still hewing to long-discounted belief structures.
But I'm wrong to think of them as permanently fitting that profile; true, they too often act like that these days. But that is not the real person acting - it is the twisted simulacra they are living which is inverting the humanity they could each have if they too could be "woke". So I want to quit blaming and vilifying the victims - they are the victims (as we all are to some extent) of the malicious manipulation of culture and economics by the owners of global capital, oligarchs, authoritarians and moneyed interests in this country who have somehow convinced themselves AND their victims that someone else, something else is responsible for their problems.
Let's be gentle and forgiving of our Red State friends. Let's keep our focus on the real sources of problems in our country. Let's overcome the institutional barriers to Democratic majorities in government. Let's legislate relief for the problems in Red States and our country whether or not a minority of folks believe that equal rights, fair taxation, social safety nets, environmental activism and aggressive regulation of corporations are in their real interests.
As a proud Berkeley science PhD who has run a farm in Kansas and taught university environmental science classes (my husband teaches evolution) for the past 30 years, I would caution everyone about imagining our part of the country as a monolithic "red state". After all, we have a woman Democrat in the governor's mansion (Laura Kelly) and a wonderful progressive (and decidedly not white, male or old) Democrat on our Congressional delegation (Sharice Davids). Kansas was the battleground for Brown v. Board of Education not because this state was the most opposed to segregation, but because the lawyers new that the state would not mount a strong fight in court. No one has given more to the the cause of access to safe abortion than Dr. Tiller. Our state Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the right to abortion is protected by our state constitution. Kansas has a proud tradition of being the "Free State", and the town of Lawrence was the site of one of the bloodiest massacres of the Civil War (the Border Wars can't be forgotten around here). I think that restricting Berkeley faculty from traveling to Kansas is exactly the wrong thing to do - we need to stay engaged and learn more about each other, not reinforce the isolation on both sides. While yes we have a struggle with LGBTQ+ rights, we also elected Sharice Davids to Congress and have a university (Kansas State) that regularly wins national awards for its campus programs to support LGBTQ+ student life. It isn't simple here. I lived in California for many years, and encountered much more overt racism and misogyny in inland and northern parts of California than I have in any part of Kansas, even though I work largely with students and communities of color. My neighbors in my rural county are a farmer who immigrated from Kenya and a family with four adopted Korean children. Mixed race families are common and very much loved in our community. So please don't assume that voting patterns define the values of everyone in a "red" or a "blue" state. It is much more complicated, and hence, more hopeful, than that. As they say, we have a democracy if we can hold onto it - and Kansans are definitely in a fight to hold onto their rights. We need everyone's support to do so.
People aren't as divided as it looks. Only those politicized, but they are not the majority, and most of them believe what they do because they are lied to in the media on both sides. We need to fix the government by breaking ti with rolling general strikes. Let it be that nothing will get done if they don't take care of the people's business first. And I would also point out that this Roe v Wade undoing is the result of 50 years of violent acts against abortion clinics & doctors. Exposing the lie that is our history of peaceful demonstration. So fight and cause violence for half a century until the Supreme Court gives you your way...
Having left teaching for an early retirement this year, I've been giving a lot of thought as to how to join the fight in the mid-terms. For now, I've been engaging all the workmen who come to the house (phone people, HVAC guy, termite guy, etc.) with a very short plea to consider voting Blue. I start by asking if they have kids and if they were happy with the education the kids are receiving. They invariably are. I ask how many times kids reported that their teacher pushed political views on them, and they open their eyes wide and say that it never happened. Then I tell them that our SC General Assembly has spent weeks debating five CRT bills that insult and attack teachers, and have finished by not giving teachers a raise or any other reason to stay in the profession. I literally beg them to consider voting Blue if they want other kids in our state to have any type of education. All of this is done pretty quickly, and is in no way combative, and I laugh while I'm doing it and say, "Hey, I know I'm asking a guy named Jimmy who lives in in York to consider voting Blue and that that's about the longest shot in the world, but that's how desperate I am to see some change in our state," and they laugh. And then we move on to other things. I'm honing my skills of engagement with the other side. We all need to be doing this now, in the spring, so we'll be ready to make a difference as we approach the elections.
Hmmm. I suspect, hope, that this is a bit exaggerated. I have property in TN. Over the past few years I’ve been; assessing, working with builders, architects, Airbnb folks, meeting regular people. I’ve found the ideological divide is driven by politics not the average folks. The growth in the Red states by people moving around the country to less expensive locations is likely diluting the extremism and hopefully will expand the melting pot of ideology over time.
I too have concerns about the radical ideology and I’m watching the local politics in a newsletter called Lookout TN before I make the leap from CA.
( funny writers btw I’d post the link but it’s long.)
I’m hoping the younger folks will get out and vote out the extreme political folks, run for office and then perhaps our great United States will find away to self identify with a bit less of a sharp divide.
Lookout TN
https://tennesseelookout.com/2022/05/05/commentary-the-road-we-travel-from-the-way-it-is-to-the-way-it-was/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=6a284054-e971-45f5-a76f-f15220455047
the fear of red states for anything -- everything -- that does not conform to an extremely narrow, white, male, authoritarian view of how the world should be will not go away soon. it's rather like families where some family members are control freaks and others are more laid back, but ALL family members avoid contact with each other because they are sick of all the arguing and fighting over every little thing. i assume at least some of those families manage to mend their differences and get back together? it would be interesting to learn how they managed this and see if this can be reproduced within the nation itself? (that said, i fear that a huge crisis to the family, like a cancer diagnosis or a random shooting of one or more family members, is what it took to finally heal the rift -- which bodes ill for america itself.)
I think education should help. The red people are against what’s good for most people. It’s not apples and pecans. One side is obviously cruel and unfair. We can’t just be civil while narrow-minded, ignorant people run things.
You won't find a way for red and blue to amicably coexist. Trying to handle the country's business will become a never-ending series of state governments trying to get one up on each other, vying for favor, like spoiled children. Ignored in this new stupidity will be the big picture, things like America's place on the world stage, the welfare of those unfortunate enough to be born with disabilities, the fact that systemic racism is actively encouraged and the continued legalized theft of dollars from the dwindling working class as it is pulled from them in higher prices and or taxes before it is sent up the line to make others super rich. I absolutely do not encourage violence but let history guide you. Revolutions start exactly like this.
My husband read a news story from his tablet a few weeks ago that Massachusetts was receiving more new residents from Texas and California. I did not ask him for the source, but thought it may have been climate related. I would not want to live in Texas. California is expensive, and has had the wildfires and drought. I'm wondering where there would be accurate information of trends of 'migration' from and to states that are blue and red.
Oof. And like many separations, it will get messssssyyyy
Our two-party, winner-take-all political system is the root of our problems. Here is a somewhat tortured analogy:
In sailboat racing there is, or was, a tactic called downspeed tacking. (Tacking, is changing direction while traveling upwind and tacking slows sailboats.) In a tacking duel two boats tack furiously back and forth until one or the other, and often both, come nearly to a complete stop. But one boat may have gained a slight tactical advantage over the other.
Downspeed tacking only works in a race between two boats though because any additional competitors would sail right past both of them.
Since we have a two-boat race here downspeed tacking works, to the detriment of our country. Our two political parties engage in a duel of negativity, each framing the other as bad for our country. Both are right. Another, less negative party could sail past both of them.
We need clearer messaging:
If Democrats win the house and Senate in 2022 (NOT counting Manchin and Sinema)
and keep the house we will abolish the filibuster and pass legislatively:
Voting rights
Abortion rights
Fair taxation of the wealthy
A law overturning "Ctizens United" protecting us from billionaires determining outcomes
Medicare for all including drug pricing negotiations
Child Tax Care Credits
Paid Family leave
A new version of the Glass-Steagall Act limiting possiblity of a repeat of 2008-2009
Protections for labor organizing
and more
If Republicans win the house or Senate we will lose the opportunity for ALL of the above +
I just don't get it. I'm reading elsewhere that the Democrats are going to get clobbered in the fall because they haven't delivered on campaign promises "when they have had the power to do so."
But build back better failed because the REPUBLICAN controlled Senate blocked it. True, a couple of Democrats In Name Only (DINOS) didn't help, but they are not THE Democratic Party, but outliers. Why can't voters be shown to see that the answer is not to turn to Republicans, but elect more Democrats?
And why hasn't the infrastructure bill, now law, gotten off the ground thereby creating good paying jobs? If the Republicans get back in the drivers seat of power, nothing by way of public policy will be done to address Climate Change-Global Warming. They still want to pretend that it's a hoax. If you missed the three-part series by Frontline on "Big Oil" then by all means get it "On Demand."