08-16-2016, 08:51 AM
Virginia has much to say about America. It may not be a perfect microcosm of America (no ranch area) , but it isn't far from being such. Virginia straddles regions, having parts that resemble the Northeast, the Mountain South, and the Deep South. No Rust Belt, oil patch, or ranch country, though.
![[Image: w-virginiapoll0817no1.jpg?uuid=9WShOGNYEea02DPpMbWibQ]](https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/08/16/Local-Politics/Graphics/w-virginiapoll0817no1.jpg?uuid=9WShOGNYEea02DPpMbWibQ)
The DC suburbs are politically similar, I would guess, to suburbs of San Francisco, Boston, or New York City. Northern exurbs might give us some indication of what to expect in the urban fringes of such Northern cities as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Greater Richmond is urban, but still rather conservative by urban standards. "Tidewater", or southeastern Virginia, looks lost to the GOP. It used to be conservative. Maybe it has the wrong sort of conservatives for Donald Trump.
Southwestern Virginia, which bucks the trend of the rest of Virginia, suggests that Hillary Clinton has as much a problem with the Mountain South as Obama did. I'm guessing that the two worst states for Hillary Clinton will be Oklahoma and West Virginia.
The DC suburbs are politically similar, I would guess, to suburbs of San Francisco, Boston, or New York City. Northern exurbs might give us some indication of what to expect in the urban fringes of such Northern cities as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Greater Richmond is urban, but still rather conservative by urban standards. "Tidewater", or southeastern Virginia, looks lost to the GOP. It used to be conservative. Maybe it has the wrong sort of conservatives for Donald Trump.
Southwestern Virginia, which bucks the trend of the rest of Virginia, suggests that Hillary Clinton has as much a problem with the Mountain South as Obama did. I'm guessing that the two worst states for Hillary Clinton will be Oklahoma and West Virginia.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.