General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIs the Blue/Red divide effectively a class divide?
Biden rebuilt the blue wall through the rapidly growing, diverse and prosperous suburbs of Atlanta, Philly, Detroit and Milwaukee. I am not taking the cities for granted, but his growth was in increasing his margins in the suburbs and exurbs. The blue voter is more likely from a more diverse, more prosperous and more educated part of the country than the red voter.
How do we address this in the next election? Do Dems embrace that the suburbs of America is were the growth of the party lies? As people leave the cities like LA, SF and NYC for places like Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas, there is a huge opportunity to expand the map further.
Does this trend give more weight to the moderate voices of the party?
onecaliberal
(32,811 posts)SharonClark
(10,014 posts)LonePirate
(13,412 posts)Chainfire
(17,515 posts)rso
(2,270 posts)Time is definitely on our side. With each Election cycle, demographics change in our favor. It bodes well, though we will experience some troubled years until our dominance becomes insurmountable.
Aristus
(66,307 posts)Between those with class and those with no class.
Turin_C3PO
(13,941 posts)I agree with other posters in that it appears to be more a rural/urban divide. The suburbs are increasingly voting like the urban cities and yes, our efforts should be targeted there, especially in the Sun Belt and Texas.
GreenEyedLefty
(2,073 posts)There is a long history of segregation here, mostly self-segregation.
I grew up in an area that is deep red now and consider myself lucky to have escaped. Cultural conditioning is hard to overcome, but it's possible.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)Wayne, Washtenaw and Oakland counties are like a whole separate state from the rest of MI. I live in both right now and I feel like I cross a state boundary some where near Flint.
Migration into the above mentioned counties continues unabated from rural MI. People are going where the last of the jobs are located. Our counties show it in the roads. They are FAR worse than in the rural areas.
IMHO, 45 supporters fit into one of 3 categories:
1. Suburban middle and upper middle class areas that used to classic Republican.
2. Evangelicals that cross demographics. They can be found anywhere.
3. Rural uneducated rabid MAGAts.
There is a wide expanse and some have crossed from formerly reasonable to angry cultists.
SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)I know numerous college educated, upper middle class folks who buy into the bs.
Shermann
(7,409 posts)I didn't like this idea originally but am warming up to it.
Trump won with non-college educated whites, especially men. He barely wins with college educated white men, and loses badly with college educated white women.
College graduates tend to migrate to urban areas and build more wealth. But the real divide starts with higher education.
Free college is the answer! We need to get those rust belters some of dat der book learnin'.
judeling
(1,086 posts)The thing is that what ever we do will always redound to the Suburbs benefit. Trickle down's overflow gets sponged up there and bottom up flows through.
The Rural/Urban split is a class divide. It just is that it is a divided class.
Our future should be to go back to the progressive era where it was the Rural+Urban alliance that pushed the country forward.
BusyBeingBest
(8,052 posts)that category. White christian culture is still our country's default setting, even with changing race demographics. The Republicans basically own it--it's Protestant/evangelical more than Catholic, male-dominated, not necessarily overtly racist (more like a self-segregating white-flight type of habit), and resistant to higher levels of education and economic status. It's the boot-strap thing, the got-mine thing (and you'd have yours if you just made better choices and weren't so lazy), the rugged-individualist thing, the temporarily-embarrassed-millionaire thing where they identify more with business owners and management and CEO's than with workers.
tarheelsunc
(2,117 posts)Buckeyeblue
(5,499 posts)Trumpers have a great propensity to go through life with their heads jammed squarely up their asses.
These people are like a herd of buffalo following their leaders right off a cliff.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,105 posts)Runningdawg
(4,514 posts)It's a religious and educational divide.
gulliver
(13,180 posts)Most of it is based on each side responding to tropes and stereotypes about the people on the other side. We have two ears and one mouth, as the saying goes. That's because we need to listen twice as much as we need to speak.