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Wednesday, December 4th, 2019

America’s Red State Death Trip

Author:     Paul Krugman
Source:     The New York Times
Publication Date:     Dec. 2, 2019
 Link: America’s Red State Death Trip
Stephan:   Before I even began SR I was tracking social outcome data across the U.S. states. That is what convinced me of the reality of The Great Schism Trend and also, and increasingly, that what makes people associate with the Republican party is a form of mental illness arising from fear, racism, male dominance, and an overactive right amygdala. It is also what convinced me that Republicans cannot govern to produce social wellbeing because they have other priorities. Over the years the trends that I saw developing under Reagan and the Bushes became more and more exaggerated until we actually elected a psychopathic criminal for president. Now, finally, others are also beginning to see this connection. Here is Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman's take on The Great Schism Trend. It will be very familiar to my regular readers, and it shows once again that it is as much as your life is worth to vote Republican. This has nothing to do with partisanship, it is just based on social outcome data.

A “Keep America Great” rally in Tupelo, Miss., a month ago.
Credit: Erin Schaff/The New York Times

“E pluribus unum” — out of many, one — is one of America’s traditional mottos. And you might think it would be reflected in reality. We aren’t, after all, just united politically. We share a common language; the unrestricted movement of goods, services and people is guaranteed by the Constitution. Shouldn’t this lead to convergence in the way we live and think?

In fact, however, the past few decades have been marked by growing divergence among regions along several dimensions, all closely correlated. In particular, the political divide is also, increasingly, an economic divide. As The Times’s Tom Edsall put it in a recent article, “red and blue voters live in different economies.”

What Edsall didn’t point out is that red and blue voters don’t just live differently, they also die differently.

About the living part: Democratic-leaning areas used to look Read the Full Article

1 Comment

  1. David Center on Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 8:53 am

    I was born in Tennessee (red) and I live in Georgia (red) and I’ve spent a bit of time in California (blue). I wouldn’t swap living in Georgia for living in California. Georgia has its problems but so does California. I know a number of people who have fled California because they just couldn’t afford to live there anymore. In Georgia $1 of income has the purchasing power of $1.08 while in California $1 of income has the purchasing power of $.88. Georgia is the 9th most expensive place to live and California is the 49th most expensive place to live. The only places more expensive than California are Washington D.C. (blue) and Hawaii (blue). In case you’re wondering, Washington state (blue) is the 38th most expensive place to live. Georgia is largely a Republican state but Republican or Democrat isn’t much of a choice for me. They are both corrupt and self-serving in their own way. I haven’t voted for candidates of either of those parties in 40 years. I vote but I always vote for a third party or independent candidate when one is available. My children went to public schools in Georgia. The schools could have been better, but I think that is true of pretty much all public schools. My children did alright with their Georgia public school education. One is a radiation oncologist and the other is an information security analyst for an international corporation.