The ZIP Codes That Rule America!:
BY: MICHAEL LIND, DECEMBER 16, 2020
The real divide isn’t between red states and blue states or cities and rural areas.
It’s between mega-rich political donors and everyone else.
In theory senators represent the citizens of their states and members of the House represent the people of their congressional districts. In practice they represent individual and corporate donors and political allies and future employers, who may live anywhere in the United States—or in some cases abroad. Joe Biden was the senator from the credit card industry, based in Delaware.
The donors to American politicians in all 50 states are concentrated in a few ZIP codes. According to Open Secrets, of the ZIP codes that delivered the most campaign funding for the Democrats in 2020, not counting dark money or soft money for liberal groups, four of the top five were in New York City (10024, 10023, 10022, 10011), followed by Chevy Chase, Maryland (20815), a suburb of Washington, D.C. Other top Democratic ZIPs this year were Silicon Valley (94301 and 94022) and Cambridge, Massachusetts (02138). New York City was also overrepresented among donors to the Republican Party, whose donor base is more geographically diverse, with a lot of money coming from Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Palm Beach, Florida.
Most politicians follow the preferences of their donors, not their voters, when there is a conflict. “Who buys my bread, his song I sing,” as the old saying goes. Or, if you prefer another proverb: “The Golden Rule is whoever has the gold rules.”
“When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
Are we stuck with only 50 stars on Old Glory from now on? Except at the margins, it doesn’t matter whether there are eight Californias or just one. Nor would it make much of a difference if D.C. or Puerto Rico became the 51st state. We can draw state borders however we like and add or subdivide states if we choose. But to the extent our influence is limited to voting, most of us are just renters in American politics. The donors, wherever they happen to live, own it.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-zip-codes-that-rule-america
New York? Washington DC? Maryland? Massachusetts?
Some people mock me when I say the people living in the "Acela corridor" are who controls the nation.
And yes of course, Silicon Valley is rich enough to be a major player in the game now.
BroJoeK, are you figuring it out yet? SoCal Pubbie, are you getting a clue as to how the real world works yet?
