Solved: Why Poor States Are Red and Rich States Are Blue

Forbes ^ | 01/05/2015 | Tim Worstall

[SeekAndFind]

One of the great conundrums of the American political scene is why the poorer states, colloquially known as “red” states, tend to vote Republican or conservative, while the richer states, the “blue” ones (and let it be said that this is very confusing for this European, for over here the colours tend to work the other way around, red is Labour, or left wing) tend to vote Democrat. We would think that it should be the other way around, the poor people voting for more from that Great Big Pinata which is government. But it seems that there’s a simple solution to this: the red states aren’t actually poorer in terms of the way people live.

If we measure by consumption patterns then it’s the blue states that are poor, the red states that are rich:

Blue states, like California, New York and Illinois, whose economies turn on finance, trade and knowledge, are generally richer than red states. But red states, like Texas, Georgia and Utah, have done a better job over all of offering a higher standard of living relative to housing costs. That basic economic fact not only helps explain why the nation’s electoral map got so much redder in the November midterm elections, but also why America’s prosperity is in jeopardy.

Red state economies based on energy extraction, agriculture and suburban sprawl may have lower wages, higher poverty rates and lower levels of education on average than those of blue states — but their residents also benefit from much lower costs of living. For a middle-class person , the American dream of a big house with a backyard and a couple of cars is much more achievable in low-tax Arizona than in deep-blue Massachusetts.

[neocon1984]

Crony Capitalism is rife in blue states, causing a much wider gap between rich and middle class than in red states.

-former Chicago resident

[xp38]

Me too....forever true blue.

[Reddy]

Yes, that’s how conservatives got stuck with the “red” moniker. I was astonished when I recently heard Rush say he didn’t remember how the red/blue descriptors got decided.

Red (as in communist) better describes the democrats, but I don’t care if it’s used for conservatives because we are the lifeblood of the nation ;)

I just think it’s important to remember how the lib media used their power to skirt the “red” label.

[MeganC]

Electoral maps in the US used to have the Republicans as blue and the Commiecrats as red...

http://presidentelect.org/images/e1984_ecmap.GIF

[HiTech RedNeck]

They thought blue blood was nobler.

[Amendment10]

”… while blue states punish their middle class [emphasis added] with high taxation."

Thank you for referencing that article headstamp 2. Please bear in mind that the following critique is directed at the middle class that you mentioned and not at you.

My problem with the middle class and high taxation is this. The middle class must have the most voting power of all voters in a given state. So does higher taxes on the middle class mean that such voters are just sitting on their hands on election day instead of getting out and firing their state lawmakers? If such is the case then a blue state’s middle class deserves higher taxes imo.

[manc]

The left likes to call themselves the poorer party and the right is rich with bankers, insurance companies, and Wall street.

It is all a myth but it is something which the media will not cover nor question.

[huldah1776]

From what I’ve heard it is very hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, so when you get rich, you lose your humility and sense of reality. Someday the earth will be all red.

[Oliviaforever]

The writer is a bit delusional if he believes that the Red States of Texas, Georgia and Utah are similar to the Red States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Kentucky.

[OneWingedShark]

They thereby become states with a wealthy elite supporting a huge welfare class while the mid to lower middle class gets squeezed out and flees.

What is feudalism?

[Steely Tom]

It would be interesting to see the “income inequality” figures for red vs. blue states.

I think I can guess why those particular figures are not being given in all the stories about how “income inequality in the US is at a record level.”

[VanShuyten]

The BLS issued a report on poverty levels, and 4 of the bottom 6 were blue states, with California leading the pack at about 25% listed as poor.

[1010RD]

It’s part of the Left’s War on History. Why conservatives have fallen for it, I don’t know.

[oldbrowser]

The media decided post 2000 to “stick” the right with red because the red/communist connection with the democrats would be a little too “truthy”.

The media controls the narrative.

[1010RD]

What should be patently obvious to any observer is that local, county and state permitting, licensing and zoning schemes generate poverty. Look at any Democrat/liberal run city and you’ll see it isn’t that they’re magnets for the underclass, they’re the cause.

[SeekAndFind]

I’m willing to bet that in that BLS report, Mississsippi ranks as one of the poorest ( that state has made the poorest list for as far back as I can remember ).

[DiogenesLamp]

One of the great conundrums of the American political scene is why the poorer states, colloquially known as “red” states, tend to vote Republican or conservative, while the richer states, the “blue” ones (and let it be said that this is very confusing for this European, for over here the colours tend to work the other way around, red is Labour, or left wing) tend to vote Democrat. We would think that it should be the other way around, the poor people voting for more from that Great Big Pinata which is government. But it seems that there’s a simple solution to this: the red states aren’t actually poorer in terms of the way people live.

The fact that "RED" is the color used to define Republicans nowadays is the result of the LIBERAL DEMOCRAT MEDIA COMPLEX DELIBERATELY RUNNING INTERFERENCE FOR COMMUNIST BILL CLINTON IN 1992.

Reagan was Blue, as was George HW Bush in his first election in 1988. The LYING SCUMBAG MEDIA OUT OF NEW YORK said that there was no particular color assigned to Republicans vs. Democrats, they just chose to make George HW Bush "RED" in the 1992 election and they just chose to make Bill Clinton "Blue" that same year.

Their decision was not made because Bill Clinton was a well known leftest and communist sympathizer during the 1960s, and that stories about him traveling to Moscow in the 1960s, and being the guest of various Communist officials all over Europe, and that he Protested American Involvement in Vietnam while he was dodging the draft in London and that he made a point to hang out with Red Communists every chance he got, Why, that had nothing to do with the fact that characterizing him as "RED" would be too d@mnn obvious for even the stupid voters to ignore, it was just a "Coincidence" that they decided to make Bill Clinton "Blue" That year, and ever since Republicans would be represented by communist "RED".

No siree, it was not part of the deliberate attempt by New York Liberal Democrat Union members who run the media to distract everyone from the fact that Bill Clinton was a F***ing communist, it was just the ordinary rotation of the colors that they always do, except they haven't since they permanently assigned the communist color to the Republicans.

CBS screen shot from 1984.

I'll cover the next point (Why Rich blue State vote Democrat) on my next comment.

[InterceptPoint]

"One of the great conundrums of the American political scene is why the poorer states, colloquially known as “red” states, tend to vote Republican or conservative, while the richer states, the “blue” ones (and let it be said that this is very confusing for this European, for over here the colours tend to work the other way around, red is Labour, or left wing) tend to vote Democrat"

LOL. Glad to see that the Europeans are also confused by the MSM Conspiracy to disassociate the Dems from the Red of Communism and Liberalism. It didn't used to be that way. Once upon a time we CONSERVATIVES WERE BLUE. The MSM just took it away one day.

We all noticed it happening. Not much we can do about.

Not yet.

[wjcsux]

later

[DiogenesLamp]

Up to and including 2000, red was used to denote the “challenger” in the election. Example - 1984, when Reagan won 49 BLUE states and Mondull had one state plus the District of Corruption.

The media decided post 2000 to “stick” the right with red because the red/communist connection with the democrats would be a little too “truthy”.

Right theory, wrong date. 1992 was when they started doing it because Making Bill Clinton wear the communist colors was just too obvious. I remember it because I was screaming bloody murder about their underhanded tactics when I first saw it back in 1992.

I explicitly stated then that they had made George HW Bush "RED" because Clinton was too closely connected to actual communists in his past.