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>I reckon electoral maps are fundamentally useless when most districts are gerrymandered to the wazoo. Littlestymear linked a map in another reply to my commen

>I reckon electoral maps are fundamentally useless when most districts are gerrymandered to the wazoo. Littlestymear linked a map in another reply to my comment that seems to break it down purely by population in clusters of 250,000: https://xkcd.com/2399/ https://xkcd.com/2399/ That map still suggests that clusters of blue in highly urban areas are surrounded by clusters of red in "less urban" areas, and never the opposite. Rural, or less urban environments have different cultures than highly urban environments, and this is readily observable. >They also do not reflect movements that are fundamentally leninist in organization, where a small cohesive nucleus of activists defines the agenda and directs action. I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by this. Please be more explicit. >Without a Fox News stoking and directing anger, there is no "red rage", and Fox people are urban people. This is a misconception. One blames the media for the information purveyed rather than the sorts of people amenable to Fox's viewpoint in their news. If there was prima facie no distinction between those who adore Pres. Trump, and those who despise him, prior to their exposure to Fox News, then this might be a tenable position, but given that there are two different demographics, both of which have access to Fox News and yet react distinctly differently to it, tells us that there are other factors at play. >What is true is that nowadays people can live in socially-isolated bubbles that do not communicate with other bubbles. This is not a function of geographical location, though, but hyper-personalized media consumption. And yet geography seems to be at play in which media bubble you end up in, as do a number of other factors. Perhaps the media bubbles are as much a function of existing divisions as the exacerbated divisions are of the bubbles?

toyg 6y ago
> Rural, or less urban environments have different cultures than highly urban environments But that is not something that changed of recent. New York has always been different from St. Louis, but both "universes" could coexist and now they seemingly cannot. That doesn't look to me like a function of geography. What has changed is that it's now easier to be an "undercover radical stlouite" in NY and viceversa. > I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by this. Trump's organization is fundamentally bolshevik in nature, with a small inner circle of "avantgarde" that decides everything and then pushes decisions down to the masses. It's why significant chunks of his own party don't like him, because there is little or no policy elaboration even slightly down the pyramid. Both Clinton and Obama did it to an extent in their first few years, but nobody has done it as much as Trump. Trump could make it stick because the social web reduces the need to cozy-up to the larger press ecosystem for his message to spread. It's the sort of qualitative jump that early-XX century parties did with radio and films, which removed a lot of influence from local bigwigs in favours of national leaders. > One blames the media for the information purveyed rather than the sorts of people amenable to Fox's viewpoint in their news. Amenable people still need to articulate and support their views to be effective, and for the message to be efficiently evangelized and legitimized. Dedicated media does that work for them. Without that work, they wouldn't be as effective. > there are other factors at play. Of course there are, but the likes of Fox are important factors. Their tone has been extremely divisive since the '90s, this is a long wave coming. > And yet geography seems to be in play in which media bubble you end up in Yes, but this was always the case and it's arguably much less so now that local papers are dying off. The point is what is changing, and geography has largely not changed; but the media landscape has, and pretty dramatically too.
api 6y ago
I presently live in the outer suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, and I saw more Biden signs than Trump signs in the last election. Poll and electoral results show the same. The population density threshold for "urban" is shifting toward less and less dense with the suburbs starting to turn blue. It really is becoming country vs. anything even remotely close to a city. The only exceptions seem to be rural college towns and hipster/artist enclaves. There are some good examples of the latter in Appalachia.

toyg 6y ago

> Rural, or less urban environments have different cultures than highly urban environments But that is not something that changed of recent. New York has always been different from St. Louis, but both "universes" could coexist and now they seemingly cannot. That doesn't look to me like a function of geography. What has changed is that it's now easier to be an "undercover radical stlouite" in NY and viceversa. > I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by this. Trump's organization is fundamentally bolshevik in nature, with a small inner circle of "avantgarde" that decides everything and then pushes decisions down to the masses. It's why significant chunks of his own party don't like him, because there is little or no policy elaboration even slightly down the pyramid. Both Clinton and Obama did it to an extent in their first few years, but nobody has done it as much as Trump. Trump could make it stick because the social web reduces the need to cozy-up to the larger press ecosystem for his message to spread. It's the sort of qualitative jump that early-XX century parties did with radio and films, which removed a lot of influence from local bigwigs in favours of national leaders. > One blames the media for the information purveyed rather than the sorts of people amenable to Fox's viewpoint in their news. Amenable people still need to articulate and support their views to be effective, and for the message to be efficiently evangelized and legitimized. Dedicated media does that work for them. Without that work, they wouldn't be as effective. > there are other factors at play. Of course there are, but the likes of Fox are important factors. Their tone has been extremely divisive since the '90s, this is a long wave coming. > And yet geography seems to be in play in which media bubble you end up in Yes, but this was always the case and it's arguably much less so now that local papers are dying off. The point is what is changing, and geography has largely not changed; but the media landscape has, and pretty dramatically too.

api 6y ago

I presently live in the outer suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, and I saw more Biden signs than Trump signs in the last election. Poll and electoral results show the same. The population density threshold for "urban" is shifting toward less and less dense with the suburbs starting to turn blue. It really is becoming country vs. anything even remotely close to a city. The only exceptions seem to be rural college towns and hipster/artist enclaves. There are some good examples of the latter in Appalachia.