the cities know they can NOT live without rural areas, they also know the rural areas CAN live without the cities...If I remember my history, didn’t Ben Franklin want three presidents of the US at the same time to represent the different groups, Rural, merchant and big city?
There are a lot of studies on this. Factors that play into this include the ability to micro target these areas with marketing, especially unorthodox methods. Large populations in close proximity lead to more ‘group think’- it is natural in large groups to go with the flow. Think of large schools of fish. The suburbs are moving further and further out of the main city and into surrounding cities (Think Chandler for Phoenix or Garland for Dallas). There is also the exposure to more services liberals push so it becomes second nature to accept its existence. Public transportation is a good example. You are dependent on government services to get around. Government can control your movements simply by accessibility of these services.
Rural and smaller towns are just the opposite. You are more independent, free to move, and less likely to formulate your opinions based on what your neighbors think. If you want to do something as simple as go across town, you are not dependent on government services and timetables to make this happen. The smaller towns you are in, the more generic political messages become due to the cost/return factor.
A more interesting graph would be to show each of these blue cities as related to their fiscal stability, without federal or state subsidies added in.
Under that criteria, I would bet these bastions of liberal blue would in fact look like black holes, consuming the productivity of the surrounding pinkish suburbs and red of the rural areas.
Polarized America File.
I think 75 or 100 years ago the country was just as divided between rural and city as today. The difference is the 24/7 news cycle and the fact that there is just not that much to talk, pontificate about...so they turn debate into entertainment
With the 24/7 news far to many have bought into the notion that this county is homogeneous and we just need to get along. In my view nothing can be further from the truth, as long as we are Americans we will muddle through. Most folks are not the loons of the left or right but in our system we need both. They define and set the parameters of the debate which is how we have always done it...
the cities know they can NOT live without rural areas, they also know the rural areas CAN live without the cities...How many of these blue cities have large dhimmiecrap political machines (ergo voter fraud) and substantial populations of owebama’s people? Most of them.
Electoral votes need to be awarded proportionately or the Red country areas are going to continue to get screwed by the blue cities.
When I was in college I learned of an experiment that consisted of two groups of rats. One group was placed in a large area where each one had lots of space. They acted like normal rats. The second group was placed into a small space and were crowded tightly together. They developed violent, aggressive behavior and were not very happy rats. Country life/city life.
Have no fear about any split. Agenda 21 will fix it from happening.
Yeah, this is indeed nothing new.
Every county-by-county post-election map I've ever seen vividly displays tiny blue concentrated Democrat parasite nests ("cities") and huge land masses of red everywhere else.
Social services and needy. Chicken and egg argument.
It’s not really a divide when 79.219% of the population lives in urban areas. Just sayin’.
-—— what remains of the countryside.———
Josh, son, This is your ass, that over there is a hole in the ground.
You need to get out more, further out into the real country. I know, I know, you have allergies and the country makes you sneeze and it is hard to find Norwegian snow melt bottled water, but take the risk.
You have however correctly noted the problem. The cities are where elections are and were stolen. There is no way to correctly count votes nor prevent fraud.
America will be a better place when New York is realy destroyed and the Big’un wrecks San Francisco.
A state can be totally red and have a blue city and still win the Presidency because the city is where all the people live. It actually makes plenty of sense. When you have 10,000 people spread out among the state that makes it red and then you have a city with 1,000,000 people living there, it can EASILY make the state Democratic. Not a tough concept.
.Thus the stage is set for utter disaster.
I have the best of both worlds. I’m far enough in the country to have the independence, but close enough to a city to take advantage of what it has to offer, with a flood plain in between to provide some separation.
“The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution”.
Thomas Jefferson
The same is often true in Blue states, where the rural folk are more likely to vote GOP, but the city and immediate suburbs vote for the donkey party. Not always of course, but there are more conservative people in my rural part of Conn than most FReepers would guess. We’re just outnumbered by the brain-dead Dem zombies.
Eisenhower was the last Republican to carry Chicago (against native son, Adlai Stevenson), and the Black wards helped him out there.
Some states buck the trends though. More of rural Iowa is Democrat than it was a generation or two ago, and of course the same is true of the Northeast.
When you put two hungry Rats in a shoebox, things happen.
Same goes for Democrats.