The Troubles of Liberals Don't Pop Out of Thin Air?

[Jimmy Higgins]

I've been pondering the vote in the northern part of the country and an interesting thought came to mind. Liberals. People seem to think if you live in the north, you have to be liberal, but the reality is, that isn't true. Some people are actually conservatives. I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Why does this matter? Well, demographics. Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia are getting bluer... not from magic or people in the south started reading books (I kid, I kid), but because liberals are moving south (or east from California to Arizona) because the some people are sick of Winter Coming every year (or think the expensive Phoenix area is a bargain.. due to even more expensive property in California!), and a relative high cost of living.

So in part, the growing purpletude in the South is caused by migration of liberals. Because, as I noted in the OP title, Liberals don't pop out of thin air, this means the population drop in liberals in some northern states. This might be getting overlooked, State like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan are losing people, blue people... which increases the influence of the red conservatives that are still there. I have little to back this up at the moment, but it seems like a reasonable conclusion based on a conservation of liberals in the US. If North Carolina and Georgia are getting bluer because of migration, the states they come from are getting redder.

 

[rousseau]

Without the data to back up this assertion, I'd guess there's a case to be made that democrats will gravitate to areas where economic prosperity is possible (like the diffusion from California you mention), and away from places that are in economic decline like Michigan. In theory, economics should be one of the major factors at play, as democrats tend to be more educated and have greater mobility. If a state is declining economically it's hard to imagine it becoming more blue.

 

[southernhybrid]

New Jersey has been losing people for decades, and it's not just me. I've lived all over the South for decades. When I first moved to Georgia, I had a job as a QA nurse in Atlanta. My team was made up of 3 women from Jersey, one from Pa, and one from Georgia. The Georgia nurse was Black, so she was most likely already a Democrat. That was in the early 90s. Even my small city, 40 miles south of Atlanta is changing. It's been majority Black for years, but my district has been gerrymandered so that the more White neighborhoods are in a district that is also part of a fairly rural mostly white area. Today I met two women who moved here from New Jersey. I met one from Detroit when the senior center was open, so even small town Georgia is becoming more blue or less red that it was in the past. Of course, as you've said, there are plenty of conservatives in the North, so not everyone who moves South is a liberal.

 

[Playball40]

I'm a southern liberal and desperately want to move NORTH! Get me out of hell!

On a good note, my county did vote blue - we've always been purple so it could go either way, but we were solid blue this time.

 

[ZiprHead]

A lot of Michigan is very conservative. Pretty much the entire state north of Bay county (the county at the southern end of Saginaw Bay). Mostly rural and small towns, lots of farms until you get further north. Than it's pretty much all forest.

Talking to people in those areas makes me wonder where they get their ideas about down staters from.

 

[southernhybrid]

My sister lives in Northern New Jersey and she told me there were several huge Trump signs on her street. NJ is very weird in that it's had several Republican governors, including Chris Christie, but it always goes Blue when there is a presidential election. I have found that quite a few people in Georgia only vote in presidential elections, and that might be the same thing that happens in parts of Jersey. Most states tend to be purple, more than blue or red. It's just that until recently, voter apathy was a huge problem in Georgia. I still know people who never vote, but we are making progress. Imo, a lot of it has to do with Stacey Abrams wonderful activism organization, Fair Fight. That organization has registered many first time voters. Sadly, two of my neighbors didn't vote this time because......"we didn't like ether candidate". I wish people would get over that and realize that no candidate is perfect but one is always much better than the alternative.

 

[Politesse]

I've been pondering the vote in the northern part of the country and an interesting thought came to mind. Liberals. People seem to think if you live in the north, you have to be liberal, but the reality is, that isn't true. Some people are actually conservatives. I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Why does this matter? Well, demographics. Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia are getting bluer... not from magic or people in the south started reading books (I kid, I kid), but because liberals are moving south (or east from California to Arizona) because the some people are sick of Winter Coming every year (or think the expensive Phoenix area is a bargain.. due to even more expensive property in California!), and a relative high cost of living.

So in part, the growing purpletude in the South is caused by migration of liberals. Because, as I noted in the OP title, Liberals don't pop out of thin air, this means the population drop in liberals in some northern states. This might be getting overlooked, State like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan are losing people, blue people... which increases the influence of the red conservatives that are still there. I have little to back this up at the moment, but it seems like a reasonable conclusion based on a conservation of liberals in the US. If North Carolina and Georgia are getting bluer because of migration, the states they come from are getting redder.

Attracting both moderately wealthy liberals and poor international migrants is the price to pay if you want economic success. Arizona and Texas are both learning this lesson. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, old money may favor the GOP, but skilled laborers who are newly successful in the current global economy do not vote Republican. It's not just California, talented young people across the nation are going to emigrate to the nearest urban hub where there are jobs and avocado toast. It's always been this way, but even more so with the death of agriculture, mining and manufacturing in most of the country.

Dating a Michigander these past six years has taught me three things about Michigan:

• The white people there are easily some of the most racist people I have ever met or hope to ever meet. Just going out to restaurants and such in Michigan makes me super uncomfortable, I hate seeing how the middle class treats "the help", and how "the help" transparently expects the same sort of abuse from me.
• They seem to think that every major American city is exactly like Detroit in the 1990's, and that creating similar hellholes is the primary goal of the Democratic Party. Which is funny, since it was their own vicious racial segregation that turned so much of Detroit into hopeless ghettoes in the first place, not liberal national policies.
• They really seem to believe that the nation's first mixed-race President was the cause of most of their present economic challenges (again bizarrely given that he actually went to inordinate lengths to save their only viable industry).

I note that my Michigander has moved to California, proving your point. Why would he stay in what is increasingly a Republican-infested hellmouth, when he can move here and triple his salary as well as living free of fear from sexuality-based hate crimes for the first time in his life? The Upper Midwest has a serious brain drain problem brewing, but you're right that this poses a possible electoral danger.

 

[Politesse]

My sister lives in Northern New Jersey and she told me there were several huge Trump signs on her street. NJ is very weird in that it's had several Republican governors, including Chris Christie, but it always goes Blue when there is a presidential election. I have found that quite a few people in Georgia only vote in presidential elections, and that might be the same thing that happens in parts of Jersey. Most states tend to be purple, more than blue or red. It's just that until recently, voter apathy was a huge problem in Georgia. I still know people who never vote, but we are making progress. Imo, a lot of it has to do with Stacey Abrams wonderful activism organization, Fair Fight. That organization has registered many first time voters. Sadly, two of my neighbors didn't vote this time because......"we didn't like ether candidate". I wish people would get over that and realize that no candidate is perfect but one is always much better than the alternative.

The same used to be true of California, blue for presidents, red for governors.The RNC managed to destroy their own base here, though, by embracing white nationalism so openly. Turned off a lot of formerly single-issue voters, who care about abortion a lot, but care even more about their close relatives being deported or shot down in the street for jaywalking.

 

[Jarhyn]

One thing to keep in mind is that whole liberals do not pop out of thin air, they tend, once they get enough influence in an area, to drive education up. This in turn leads to more people who grow up in that place growing up liberal.

In similar manners, conservatives are like mushrooms: deny the light of education, give a heavy sprinkling of the water of authoritarian religious upbringing, and you get conservatives popping up.

The effect as I see it of liberals "metastasizing" out of cities is that they will drive places purple or blue, and the places they leave arent going to get so dilute as to reverse the effects of educational infrastructure. So, I see the existence of sufficient voting quantities of liberals as an innoculation of sorts against conservatism of future generations and the net result is not a drain of liberal values from cities as much as a priming of liberal thought.

 

[TSwizzle]

I note that my Michigander has moved to California, proving your point. Why would he stay in what is increasingly a Republican-infested hellmouth, when he can move here and triple his salary

Probably triple his rent and taxes too.

as well as living free of fear from sexuality-based hate crimes for the first time in his life?

Well he has the random attacks from the drug addled homeless to look forward to instead.

 

[Politesse]

Probably triple his rent and taxes too.

Doubled, actually. Can you do math? Because he can.

Well he has the random attacks from the drug addled homeless to look forward to instead.

This has happened. Not as dangerous, though, drug-addled people have incredibly poor aim.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

As I bike around the rust belt towns I see a lot of Trumpo flags and signs on a lot of ramshackle houses. When I was younger that would have been the exception but now it's very common. Why is that? It's because Liberal policies and legislation have been successful. That's all. It's no mystery. So instead of voting economic and societal necessity people get to vote ideological preference. I see it all the time. I see it in my own family. Because of the success of Liberal legislation people are literally more free.

I don't wish to sound elitist here but we're not talking about folks who have been to university or have spent much time outside their own counties of birth for the most part. That's true for some but certainly not most.

And racism? Lots of racism.

 

[TSwizzle]

I don't wish to sound elitist here

But you do.

but we're not talking about folks who have been to university {snip}.

and missed out on the four years of brainwashing.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I don't wish to sound elitist here

But you do.

but we're not talking about folks who have been to university {snip}.

and missed out on the four years of brainwashing.

Thank you for that quote-mined, cogent response.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

As I bike around the rust belt towns I see a lot of Trumpo flags and signs on a lot of ramshackle houses. When I was younger that would have been the exception but now it's very common. Why is that? It's because Liberal policies and legislation have been successful. That's all. It's no mystery. So instead of voting economic and societal necessity people get to vote ideological preference. I see it all the time. I see it in my own family. Because of the success of Liberal legislation people are literally more free.

I don't wish to sound elitist here but we're not talking about folks who have been to university or have spent much time outside their own counties of birth for the most part. That's true for some but certainly not most.

And racism? Lots of racism.

Some of the intellectually smartest people I know are conservatives and even support Trump. One person that was tops in my engineering class in college was conservative, but has since... well, he hasn't changed much, but the GOP has just gone too far right... to the point of non-partisan.

This isn't about intelligence. Political/Tribal intelligence can be low while Intellect can be quite high. Plenty of stupid vote for Democrats. What I was raising is that the states going purple to blue (Virginia and North Carolina... kind of Georgia) isn't happening in a vacuum... and it does need some numbers looked at. But if liberals up north moving down south are causing this shift... and I've read this is a thing between Californians moving to Texas as well, there is a drop in liberals then from where they are coming from.

New England has no shortage of liberals... all people born up there are born with a liberal stick up their arses... it is just how natured evolved us. But in other places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, we see a shift in how people are voting... and it might not just be people buying the bullshit of Trump, though that change did seem a bit sudden. If libs are moving away, the conservatives staying have a little more say.

 

[fromderinside]

I've been pondering the vote in the northern part of the country and an interesting thought came to mind. Liberals. People seem to think if you live in the north, you have to be liberal, but the reality is, that isn't true. Some people are actually conservatives. I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Why does this matter? Well, demographics. Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia are getting bluer... not from magic or people in the south started reading books (I kid, I kid), but because liberals are moving south (or east from California to Arizona) because the some people are sick of Winter Coming every year (or think the expensive Phoenix area is a bargain.. due to even more expensive property in California!), and a relative high cost of living.

So in part, the growing purpletude in the South is caused by migration of liberals. Because, as I noted in the OP title, Liberals don't pop out of thin air, this means the population drop in liberals in some northern states. This might be getting overlooked, State like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan are losing people, blue people... which increases the influence of the red conservatives that are still there. I have little to back this up at the moment, but it seems like a reasonable conclusion based on a conservation of liberals in the US. If North Carolina and Georgia are getting bluer because of migration, the states they come from are getting redder.

Thank you for that interpretation of purpletude of the south based on in situ examples. I think it better that we consider a more fundamental approach, an approach based on population and liberalism arising with the rise of cities .

I give you Cities, Information,and Economic Growth: https://www.huduser.gov/periodicals/cityscpe/vol1num1/ch2.pdf which concludes

Conclusion: This article has emphasized the role of information in influencing urban form. Many important papers on growth have found that disembodied knowledge and human capital play major roles as engines of growth. This important role in economic growth suggests that any informational role that cities play may be crucial for America’s future.

Cities and the spread of population across space interact importantly with information, deriving some of their natural advantages as centers for the flow of new ideas. Cities also have some of their greatest failings when their informational advantages fail to function. It seems that among the most crucial policy issues for the next century is the elimination of the informational barriers between downtown areas and ghettoes.

Obviously any time people gather in large social groups large social accommodations are necessitated. Liberalism.

Oh, by the way a critical reason cities tend to become is the economic benefit of information available among aggregated persons.

Ask yourself how likely is it that an individual will come up digging trenches from water source to field, lifting water up above the river to the land, and parsing the water out with some sort of damning and opening system? While it is entirely logical to see that happen in a community where many minds are viewing the problems.

Nuf sed.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Probably triple his rent and taxes too.

Doubled, actually. Can you do math? Because he can.

Well he has the random attacks from the drug addled homeless to look forward to instead.

This has happened. Not as dangerous, though, drug-addled people have incredibly poor aim.

Also, the police tend to arrest drug addled attackers. In more regressive areas, the police ARE the anti-gay attackers, so there's that.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I give you Cities, Information,and Economic Growth: https://www.huduser.gov/periodicals/cityscpe/vol1num1/ch2.pdf which concludes

Conclusion: This article has emphasized the role of information in influencing urban form. Many important papers on growth have found that disembodied knowledge and human capital play major roles as engines of growth. This important role in economic growth suggests that any informational role that cities play may be crucial for America’s future.

Cities and the spread of population across space interact importantly with information, deriving some of their natural advantages as centers for the flow of new ideas. Cities also have some of their greatest failings when their informational advantages fail to function. It seems that among the most crucial policy issues for the next century is the elimination of the informational barriers between downtown areas and ghettoes.

Obviously any time people gather in large social groups large social accommodations are necessitated. Liberalism.

So plant a liberal seed and then generate a liberal tree, like in the research triangle in NC.

I'll need to read that and get further into this concept to determine the growth rates of liberals and conservatives, and then how much cities contribute to such rates. Also, I think it could be real interesting to look at population changes, but instead of via the number of people, but the value in which the person has for generating tax revenue and another for education.

 

[Politesse]

Doubled, actually. Can you do math? Because he can.

This has happened. Not as dangerous, though, drug-addled people have incredibly poor aim.

Also, the police tend to arrest drug addled attackers. In more regressive areas, the police ARE the anti-gay attackers, so there's that.

Very true! I happen to know someone who was arrested for reporting a failed mugging that turned into a fistfight; the mugger accused him of "coming on to him", and characterized his brandishing a weapon as "self-defense". The friend was arrested, the mugger went free til (and after) the lawyers got involved. This was in 1989, though. I can't imagine such a thing happening quite that way in the Bay Area these days. Kern County, maybe.

 

[TomC]

Some of the intellectually smartest people I know are conservatives and even support Trump.

Some of the intellectually smartest people I know are Communists. Also conservative Muslims. Creationists.

Just because someone has a high IQ score doesn't mean that they're correct, or even know what they're talking about.
Tom