Election 2020

[pbrower2a]

(10-09-2020, 09:31 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(10-09-2020, 11:38 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I agree we have passed a 4T tipping point.  The question is less have we reached it at this point, but what we have reached and why?  I have been trying to figure out the cultural divide from years.   I’ve come to look at it from a bunch of angles.  Which one is most relevant?  What element once leaned towards the conservatives and is now leaning the other way?

After a little thought, the answer seems all of the above.

There are now more working poor votes than racist votes.  The selfish period of the S&H turnings has passed.  It is time to sacrifice for the community rather than be selfish.  We have taken ignoring problems, small government and low taxes too far.  The corruption of government is becoming not tolerable.  We have ignored science too much.  COVID is too deadly.

While all of the above might have flipped in time, Trump in his desperation to cling to power, has made parts of America that are neither red or blue not work.  He has hurt our elections, our post office, well, everything Arkarch mentioned above.  Folks that would have clung to one aspect or another of the old regime have to reconsider.

I am not sure people are tired so much as the Republicans have split themselves hopelessly.  The Trump Base, the establishment and the true conservatives are going to have to fight for the remnants leaving the Democrats a time of being dominant.  Not sure which Republican faction will come out on top.  The transition of power has to happen first, which is looking interesting enough.

We're kind of at the tipping point. I know this will go against popular opinion here, but if you already voted for Biden, you voted for Hoover instead and you'll see the tipping point you're looking for afterwards. The Democrats have been riding on laurels of a bygone age it no longer represents and its going to pay the ultimate price for years of lying and deceit. I don't know a Democrat who isn't a Democrat first or a Liberal who isn't a Liberal first. As far as now and Trumps reelection, it's a tipping point too. Either way, it's bad news for you and the Liberal's. You're fortunate that your region has more historical significance to America than the West Coast.

We take the risk that Joe Biden will be President when the economy tanks. Trump has done as well as he can do to prop up securities prices, but that is typically one of the last games in town as a speculative boom goes bust. Trump is making poor responses to long-term trends, including the end of easy prosperity through production of stuff. Such in part reflects that people are living in tinier dwelling-spaces, so people no longer have the space for the bric-a-brac that they used to have. It is arguable that the used-book market is now bigger than the new-book market because the technology of the Internet has made renting a book (or simply downloading one) easier and more reliable than going to a store to purchase one.

Economic inequality in the US is now on par with what it was in the late 1920's in the last hurrah for the Gilded Age even though everything other than politics and the economic choices of America's "economic royalists" have made -- basically "all for the Few". That is unstable. 

I don't get what bearing "historical significance" has upon the political future.  Colorado now has one more electoral vote than Connecticut. Florida now has as many electoral votes than New York State. 

So let us contrast 1912 (when there were only 48 states, and Dee Cee was not voting) to 2012 (electoral votes will be distributed in 2020 as they were in 2016, and 2016 has some faithless voters mucking up state totals:

1916

In 1920






2012: 





Now notice that Massachusetts and Missouri both had 18 electoral votes, but now Arizona (which had only three in 1920) now has as many electoral votes as Massachusetts and one more than Missouri. It is telling that St. Louis was at one time one of the largest cities in the US. New York State had 45 electoral votes, which was more than the 39 that California (13), Texas (20), and Florida (6) had between them. Today New York has 29 electoral votes and California, Texas, and Florida have 122 between them. In 1920, Pennsylvania had 38 electoral votes and Texas had 20. That is now reversed. Oddly, Connecticut and New Jersey have as many electoral votes today as they had a century ago.

One of the biggest losers in electoral votes is Iowa, which now has six but had thirteen a century ago. Even though Iowa has highly-profitable agribusiness as the backbone of its economy, agribusiness has been poor at creating jobs. Add to this, family farms have been consolidated, with many former family farmers finding new lives in the big cities and their suburbs generally not in those states. The more agrarian states of the Mountain and Deep South have also generally lost electoral votes over a century. Except for Texas, the High Plains states that have the boundary between farm and ranch country (roughly US 281 today, which once officially separates "ranch routes" to the west and "farm-to-market routes" in the eastern half of Texas.