The Great Divides

[Raúl Ilargi Meijer]

EdgarDegas A la mer 1863   Something hit me this week. The maps which came out on Monday and detailed the outcome of the French elections, were t
[See the full post at: The Great Divides]

[Professorlocknload]

“Diversity” has been achieved. It’s the “Conquering” that’s going to prove more difficult,,,and likely messy.

[rapier]

It’s just another iteration of the same problem addressed a couple of days ago with the political continuum, where the left has disappeared. Of course if there was a left alternative then the opposition to the neoliberal order would just be divided.

Speaking from America the old center of the Democratic party was barely left but it was anti fascist. That is what make it honorable to hate Trump, who isn’t a fascist but he just as well be one. Being anti Le Pen or anti Trump is honorable, and yet disastrous. Illargi and everyone else in the alt econ community seemed to think Trump stood for some possible good change but they were wrong. The enemy of our enemy, the neoliberals and their fellow travelers, are not our friends.

Draghi has it right but allow that the stimulus could get much much much bigger and last a very long time. I am not saying it will I am just saying it could.

[Chris M]

Mr. Meijer,

If you allow me, I’ll expand on your analysis of the map of the United States.

It is true that there is a concentration of people who favor the status quo, or the establishment, because they benefit from it, in the city centers of wealth. This was especially apparent with the neo-cons who explicitly proclaimed they were voting for Clinton, even though they were camped out in the Republican Party.

The concentration of Democratic voting was certainly on the coasts, in the big cities of Boston, New York, Washington DC, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and San Diego. But you can also see it in the heartland–Pittsburgh, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Detroit, St. Louis, Denver, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Reno, and Las Vegas. Cities hold a high population of minorities and those minorities still mostly vote Democratic, especially blacks. These minorities generally are still attracted to the economic welfare promised by the Democrats and the Democrat’s identity politics.

Leftist politics is taught at many universities, and those who believe in and benefit from jobs from centralized government, at both the state and federal level, congregate at the seats of government. Thus, you can see concentrations of Democratic voting at places like Madison, WI; Columbia, SC; Raleigh, NC; Iowa City, IA; Moscow, ID; Boulder, CO; Des Moines, IA; Pierre, SD; and Charlottesville, VA (also Washington DC, of course).

Fortifying my contention that ethnic minority tend to vote Democratic, you can see Democratic voting in the map where Native American reservations are located–Wisconsin (Menomonie County), Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota.

You can see the evidence of immigrants voting Democratic, by the blue counties that border Mexico in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Also, to lend support to your contention that the rich vote status quo, you can see the predominance of Democratic voting in the rich mountain resort counties in Colorado and Jackson Hole, Wyoming (might be some Democratic leaning environmentalists there too).

I don’t know for sure why there is so much Democratic voting in the Mississippi Delta region of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It might be the predominance of black voters there, including Black farmers in the rich soils of that region who vote Democratic.

You could see some of these trends in the Republican primaries too. Marco Rubio, who is establishment, got a lot of his support in the cities and around and in Washington DC. The maps showed that clearly.

[danielm]

The way I look at this feature of divide is that we are seeing a unity dissolving or breaking down into a duality. The unity of a belief system-capitalism/american dream/human progress toward a utopia/ science as the arbiter of truth materially/ reason as the arbiter of truth of mind- are all losing their meaning to western people. A feature similar I suspect to the fall of Rome and its world view. The splintering is leading I suspect towards chaos which is necessary for change but not sufficient as the system could spiral out of control and so no new belief system arises rather the human time on earth ends. It is signally a tipping point into something new which we may not like as a species.

[Author]

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