Business as usual
Well, first off, what happened this week only strengthens my cynical worldview of “never underestimate the stupidity of your fellow man.” I believe in that more than ever now.
I guess the big issues don’t matter as much any more: the economy, education, foreign policy, the environment. Because on every count, the current president has been a miserable failure. He and his White House cronies have, however, been successful at cleaving our country up over social and moral lines. America is a religious country, predominantly Christian, and any candidate that appeals to that part of the electorate is always going to have a large number of supporters in their camp. Few other institutions or causes connect people in such a fevered manner. Getting the homophobes out on election night was a genius move on their part.
I believe that this kind of opportunistic vote-getting, while crafty and ultimately successful, is so wrong for our country. It seizes upon the foolish blind faith that normally rational people gladly ascribe to religion. It gives the elected a blank check upon which he can incur the most horrendous debts, for which his only justification need be an appeal to a higher power. This is madness. For so many to buy into this line of reasoning is a sad indication of the number of shit-eating sheep that this country has raised. Kings claimed divine right to the throne. Should we let our president do the same? Apparently so.
The distribution of the vote
Turning it down a few notches, I’d like to make mention of the number of maps that have popped up showing the distribution of the votes.
- First, there’s the standard state-by-state winner-take-all map. While good for tallying the final electoral college distribution, it is misleading with respect to deeper divisions within our country.
- Then there’s the country-by-county winner-take-all map. Even more red, this map give some interesting insights as to the urban/rural split in voting patterns. Look for other patterns too – state capitals often go Democrat (see Austin or Topeka, for example), as do indian reservations in North and South Dakota. Although rather detailed, it casts each county into a clean red-blue split when, really, things exist somewhere in between, someplace that’s…
- …purple, for example. This map shows that the total results of each state were all awfully close to being split down the middle.
- Continuing in the purple vein, this map combines #2 and #3 into a beautiful representation of the county-by-country results. Notice how the South, overwhelmingly red in #1 and #2, was really more evenly split than those maps would suggest.
- Very interesting is this map that incorporates population into the fray. The bright red of the Midwest is reduced to almost nothing, while both coasts, a purple and blue mix, balloon up impressively.
So what does this say? There’s a city-country split out there. And it’s based largely on moral issues. The landed suburban and rural population is in direct opposition to the urban population. Maybe history repeats itself in odd ways.
