Replies to post #335161 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[ForReal]

One sided RW polemic that overlooks the reality of GOP incompetency at a national level.

There is so much wrong with that, that I don't know where to begin. An all encompassing rebuttal would be......

"Figures never lie, but liars always figure". But a few salient points....

Economy: Of course the wages in more heavily populated areas is true. But, that is driven by the cost of living in those areas. Quality of life is a more important factor. Where wages are low, rents and groceries are cheaper.

Crime: Those crime figures are misleading, when you consider a couple of factors. The violent crimes in less densely populated areas are those of passion. A neighbor pisses off his neighbor and violence ensues because a dog is left to poop on a neighbors lawn or a man catches his wife with the local car dealer. Where as, in more heavily populated areas, crime is attributed to the violent nature of those that are packed together and tension results or the cost of living is so high a lower paid social class must commit crimes like robbery, drug dealing to survive. And often, those crimes lead to violence.

You can twist and turn the figures all day long, but you can never convince me that it is safer to walk the streets of South Chicago, Detroit or LA, than it is to walk the streets of a city with a Republican Mayor. Believe what you want, but I've actually lived in both environments.

[fuagf]

Red and Blue Voters Live in Different Economies

"One sided RW polemic that overlooks the reality of GOP incompetency at a
national level. What kind of magic will GOP mayors bring to the cities you revile?"

And they are headed in different directions — with serious consequences for the president and his political opponents.

By Thomas B. Edsall
Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C.
on politics, demographics and inequality.

Sept. 25, 2019


A sign in Butler Township, Ohio, Nov. 8, 2016 Ty Wright/Getty Images

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, scholars, journalists and ordinary citizens battled over whether economic anxiety or racial and cultural animus were crucial to the outcome.

Soon a consensus formed, however, among most — though not all — political analysts, in support of the view that attitudes about race, immigration, sexism and authoritarianism had more of an effect on Trump voters than the experience of economic hardship.

Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State, summarized this argument in a May 2018 essay, “Racial Attitudes and Political Correctness in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Grossmann wrote that he had “reviewed nearly every academic article containing the name ‘Donald Trump’ ” and concluded:

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The dominant findings are clear: attitudes about race, gender and cultural change played outsized roles
in the 2016 Republican primaries and general election, with economic circumstances playing a limited role.
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But economic decline was — and is — a compelling factor in generating conservative hostility to social and cultural liberalism.

Let’s start with a paper Brookings released on Sept. 19, “America has two economies — and they’re diverging fast,” by Mark Muro, a senior fellow, and Jacob Whiton, a research analyst, which lays the groundwork for a more detailed analysis of concerns that help drive voters’ support for Trump.

Muro and Whiton compare a broad range of economic indicators that reflect conditions in all 435 House districts at two different junctures: in 2008 and after the midterm elections, in 2018. Over that period, the number of Republican-held districts grew from 179 to 200 and the number of Democratic-held districts fell from 256 to 235.

Muro and Whiton report that not only have red and blue America experienced “two different economies, but those economies are diverging fast. In fact, radical change is transforming the two parties’ economies in real time.”

The accompanying graphic demonstrates the divergence between red and blue America.

While Blue Districts Rise, the Red Stagnate
How economic output and income for Democratic and Republican House districts diverged over the last decade.

Links, image and more - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/opinion/trump-economy.html