So, why did McCain do best, relative to George W. Bush in 2004, in states like #1. Tennessee, #3. Arkansas, #5 Oklahoma, #7 West Virginia, #9 Kentucky, and #10 Alabama?
Here's a map by counties, with counties where McCain improved relative to GWB in 2004 the most shown in reddest red.
Before reading onward, can you figure out why this pattern exists?
Hint:
The pattern should be quite obvious to anybody who has read David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed on the four types of Brits in America.
Spoiler Alert:
John McCain, a pugnacious Scots-Irishman, did best in counties full of pugnacious Scots-Irishmen.
Tennessee, home of Andy Jackson, was the state where McCain improved on Bush's vote the most.
(The other four states in McCain's Most Improved Top Ten are driven by obvious special factors: #2 Louisiana by the decline in number of blacks due to the hurricane; #4 Alaska by Palin's status as a Favorite Daughter; #6 Massachusetts by favorite son John F. Kerry no longer being on the ballot; and #9 Arizona by McCain being a Favorite Son.)
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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53 comments:
Lefties are posting that map claiming that the answer is racism - that's where the most deeply racist voters are. That thesis is not incompatible with yours, however, imagining a certain counterfactual could help:
Imagine that Colin Powell had been the Republican candidate, and someone like Tom Vilsack or Phil Bredesen (a white governor) had been the Democrat's candidate. The Democrat would still have won, especially because of the market crash. Let's assume it would be by about the same popular vote percentage. Would Colin Powell have outpolled Bush in those same areas?
As Michael Barone noted back during the Democratic primary, Jacksonians also voted for Hillary (I think Bill is Scots-Irish, not sure about his wife).
What kind of man allows his grandmother to get hassled and then takes the side of the bum doing the hassling?
The answer: a dishonorable man.
What the hell happened to the Democratic party?
"These are the times which distinguish the real friend of his country from the town meeting bawler and the sunshine patriot. While these are covering their conduct with the thinnest disguises and multiplying excuses to keep them at home, the former step forth and proclaim his readiness to march."
-- Andrew Jackson
"Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?"
-- Barack Obama
Good question, Anthony, but the Dems, and possibly the GOP, could have run Henry Earl and won, given the media's reluctance to criticize a black man this election.
The Palin thing is hard to figure out, for a Canadian. Chick card trumps race card up here.
F=Mr, feminism is a function of the top marginal income tax rate. Show me a country with a high marginal tax rate and I will show you a nation of bulldykes, bastard children, and pantywaists. With Obama looking to hike the top tax rate I'm recommending to invest in vibrators, abortion clinics, and China.
As a Scots-Irish American I will just say that no one will ever take away our freedom.
It's not about racism. I very much like Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell and former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts. These people are defenders of freedom.
I do not, in general, like the politics of the New York and New England people and their two client tribes, the blacks and Hispanics. They are operating a corporatist thief-state whose depredation is likely to get worse in an Obama administration.
Obama is the smiling face of the thief-state. Another advantage he brings is that he is also nearly immune from criticism due to his race.
Like blacks, the Scots-Irish voted for their own.
Can the disproportionate amount of young unmarried white women who voted for Obama (opposed to male and married whites) be called the Dunham Effect?
Steve,
The Scots-Irish made up a very small percentage of Americans in the 18-19th century. All the white Americans I have known have had at least two or three ancestors from different European countries. Is this true of your readers?
Jockney
(A jockney is a Scottish born Londoner. Rod Stewart is what we call an Uncle Tam. He was born in Islington, north London.)
Historic pedanticism: Tennessee, although Jackson's home, was actually a Whig-leaning state after Jackson left politics. James K. Polk, like Al Gore, failed to carry his home state in 1844. Kentucky, the home of Whig leader Henry Clay, was even more Whig. In 1852 Franklin Pierce soundly defeated Winfield Scott, and Scott carried four states - Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. (I think it's safe to say that we'll never see THAT combination again.) Bell, not Breckinridge, carried Kentucky and Tennessee in 1860, and from 1877 to the 1950s East Tennessee was the only Republican stronghold in the former Confederacy.
On the topic of ethno-centric political interests: The Jewish billionaire financier of the GOP now finds himself in big financial trouble.
Las Vegas Sands Plunges on Default, Bankruptcy Risk
The Left has Soros and the Faux Right has, until lately, had Adelson. That's called defining the spectrum of acceptable political discourse. And it's achieved fundamentally with money and not op-ed columns (something vdare.com will never understand).
Adelson's troubles are good news for conservatives. Because liberalism, multiculturalism, open borders etc. are the kind of strings that come attached with Adelson funding. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Of course, Adelson's attempted neocon takeover of the GOP (modeled on the neocon takeover of National Review) went "unnoticed" by the Christian base of the Republican Party. Maybe because no Fox news stories about Adelson's program of Straussian subversion ever got past the censors.
Isn't that hilarious? Funny how a slick casino sharpie shoves aside the family values religious conservatives with only a wallet stuffed full of degenerate gambling profits. At this rate of decline maybe in another twenty years a known cocaine kingpin will be the major funding figure for the GOP. Or more likely, an Israeli ecstasy dealer.
This guy Adelson is old; so he might not make a comeback. But others will take up Adelson's cause. Why wouldn't they? This country is spread-eagled and ready for the taking in the South Africa style.
Just a note from someone who lives in the area. In rural areas especially, the Scotts-Irish who remain tend to be those who never moved on, to points further west, in search of economic opportunities, etc. They have been selected in a special way, and are especially well-represented among the so-called low information voters. I can't tell you how many country folk around here believe Obama is a Muslim -- of course some of Steve readers may believe that too, or things equally paranoid.
I am of scots irish extraction, and I hate mccain....but given the two choices i voted for him, but if say tom Tancredo were running i would have voted with enthusiasm. I dont think the high vote is because mcain was scots irish, its because we won't vote for someone who doesn't like our guns and bibles.. higher than bush? maybe because obama was more of a blatent threat.
Well, I too live in the area. I'm a phi beta kappa poli-sci grad and order of the coif law school grad -- I'm also of Scots-Irish heritage and perhaps one of those who "never moved on...." I know a whole hell of a lot about Obama thanks to Steve and my voracious appetite for gathering information. Travis put it best: Obama is a dishonorable man. I have a deep loathing for him. Perhaps, though, I should disclose that I voted third party because McCain is NOT one of us either.
Louisiana and Alaska are also, of course, oil and gas producing states.
- Fred
Of course, Born Again Democrat! The only reason anyone might vote for McCain is because they are stupid and paranoid, and think Obama is a Muslim! Not because he's to the left of 80% of the American people, or an almost totally unknown quantity in politics, or has the thinnest resume of any Presidential candidate in American history, or was a minion of the Chicago machine, or hangs out with former Communist terrorists, or attended the church of the Rev. Dr. G.D. America, or favors partial birth abortion. After all, who in their right mind could pass up a package like that? They must just be stupid. Obviously the only explanation.
For God's sake, why don't you guys get a new schtick? The "stupid Republican" gag has been running for what, 75 years now, so if you guys are hot for change, change that. The assumption that the only reason anyone could disagree with you is stupidity is pretty damned arrogant.
Born_again_Dem -- Obama might well have visited extensively and spent time in a Mosque in his Columbia years. No one seems to have noticed him on campus or in the innumerable left-wing groups that were operating at the time, in contrast to his Harvard and Occidental years where he was BMOC.
He wrote in Dreams that he was alone and lonely at the time, and perhaps he did spend time with guys who later went on to oh I dunno, plot bombings and such with the Blind Sheik. He certainly was SOMEWHERE and no one knows exactly where those two years. I don't think he was at his apartment playing Nintendo.
As for the Single women giving Obama the vote, yes.
Alternet has a story and links to how unmarried women voted for Obama 70-29.
Let's delve into this. Single women are dominated by two concerns: fitting in with their girlfriends and finding as much status with them, and finding and having sex with the most Alpha guy around.
This manifests itself with single life being dominated by the choices and concerns of twentysomething young women. Who depend on fashion magazines, celebutards, "important people" and the like to form the "correct" opinions on politics and shoes. Younger men go along because they think this will impress women and improve their chances.
Peer pressure and formation of opinions by celebrities and fashion means that young women will ALWAYS be raging Moonbat lefty. After all, besides being pretty, a young woman's main concern is having her girlfriends like her, and think she's cool. Fashion is as much for her girlfriends as it is for her ability to attract the correct men.
Men, as they get older, rely on their ability to make and retain money, to attract women.
Minion is correct, the Marginal Tax Rate means that men get priced out of the relationship market unless they are very good looking, a celebrity, or have something else going ("edgy" musician or poet, etc.) Thus a total slackerdom and throwing themselves into distractions like games or televised sports or what have you.
The argument Reps must make is to men in their Thirties, finally making money, that to get a girlfriend they MUST vote Republican in order to keep their money and impress girls. Men in their twenties make little money, and are too clueless about women, thinking that agreeing with their PC platitudes will get them success to listen to this argument.
The red counties correspond with low-housing prices, more "affordable families" but also lack of major metro areas that draw away women to pursue Mr. Big.
If women can afford to pursue a soft, West African style polygamy, in the Welfare State and also good incomes for themselves in urban areas with birth control and condoms, they will. They have. They do. This makes them uber-liberal, since their jobs give them enough money to double up with other women, and be in "edgy/hip" urban centers where there are rich and powerful men.
The problem with Steve's Affordable Family analysis is that it is not taking into account the effect of metro areas pulling in most of the marriageable young women into pursuing well, the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle which most women would want if they can swing it.
And most can.
That Obama plays the Alpha Male, with JFK-esque like Celebrity worshippers and his own Monroe, Scarlett Johannson, is just icing on the cake.
Steve --
Rev. Wright is BACK! He's on Fox News. Says Obama agrees with most of his positions. That America is more racist than ever. That he hopes to resume spiritual guidance to Obama.
Oh my. The Jerry Springer Presidency. Wright. Ayers. Illegal Auntie Z.
You called it. Wright's ego would not let him fade away.
Obama may yet rival the achievements, however dubious, of the combined administrations of Ray Nagin, Kwame Fitzpatrick, Marion Barry, Deval Patrick and David Patterson.
Yeesh. Black pols really are terrible, the result of being able to play the race card, in segregated Black cities where baiting Whitey is all that is needed to get elected. I knew Nagin very slightly, others knew him better. He was considered "smart" and the business class out of Tulane/New Orleans CBD really pushed him for Mayor, hoping he'd be a Mini-Rudy and clean up the place.
Instead he turned out to be a lazy, clueless, incompetent Richard Daley.
Obama will be worse than that. WSJ is filled with articles about every Black fixer crony of Obama wanting a position in Washington.
Imagine the nation being led by a less thug-life Fitzpatrick.
born again democrat,
I hear they get bitter, and cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them. The horror! Please tell us more about your journey into the heart of redstateness.
Steve, let's see some of your patented demographic data on the McCain belt. Here's my wishlist:
1. Obesity rates
2. Welfare rates
3. Divorce rates
4. Imprisonment rates
5. Teenage Pregnancy rates
6. Drug arrest rates
7. Meth dependency rates
8. Heart disease rates
9. Crime rates
Then compare them to Massachusetts.
Thanks.
Get to work, Steve-O!
Maybe Steve discussed it also but the View From The Right blog talked a lot this year about how Obama's election would actually awaken racial feelings in the previously post-racial highly-evolved pc white folks which is the opposite of what was predicted by most all observers.
Check out tonight's overt racial consciousness threads at two leading republican websites:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31836_A_Post-Racial_Era/
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/11/06/new-national-anthem-my-president-is-black/
The guy who runs LGF is a total anti-racist neo-conservative who usually polices his website for any whiff of racial awareness but he suddenly seems to understand the game has changed I guess in-yo-face black power demonstrations tend to wake people up.
Malkin on the other hand is not really neo-conservative she is free of white guilt in same vein as the Italian female VP candidate Ferrarro which is par for the course because many Italian Americans despise pc wasp submission to blacks. Other ethnicities also refuse to be mau-maued by the brothas.
Welcome to the Great American Struggle For Racial Control. Without a confident stable majority racial foundation for a society any nation is a powderkeg that will eventually explode. That is what history tells us.
Usually I dismiss race war talk but if we have a 100 year depression right now anything can happen. Anything.
And then lets compare all of these factors anonymous lists(obesity, welfare, crime, drugs, etc) for McCain voters and Obama voters as a whole. Any guesses as to what we'll find?
So what was up with Jim Webb leading the charge against fellow SI'er John McCain in Virginia?
The Scots-Irish do shadow on the the borderlands of the US African American population.
Jeff W: As a Scots-Irish American I will just say that no one will ever take away our freedom.
William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Michael Klonsky, Cass Sunstein, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, George Soros, Rashid Kalidi, Jeremiah Wright, and Louis Farrakhan all beg to differ.
Seriously, Jeff W - if you intend to remain true to that sentiment, then you have no idea the fight you're about to enter.
Whoever countered those stats about the McCain Belt needs his head checked; I'm sure the fat, uneducated, diabetic, meth-addicted white people went for McCain.
There is no such thing as "Scots-Irish". The so-called Scots-Irish are merely people of Scottish descent whose ancestors lived in Ireland for a couple of generations. The correct term is Scottish-American.
"Imagine the nation being led by a less thug-life Fitzpatrick."
Why imagine, we can just look back over the last 28 years.
And then lets compare all of these factors anonymous lists(obesity, welfare, crime, drugs, etc) for McCain voters and Obama voters as a whole. Any guesses as to what we'll find?
I don't know that comparing the Obama and McCain voters as a whole tells you that much - you need to segment. I'd guess that high obesity, welfare, crime and drugs (OWCD for short) black and hispanic voters were heavily Obama, and those are two very OWCD groups. I'm sure that rural obese voters went for McCain, but I don't about OWCD white in general. Is there many urban OWCD white who vote Democrat?
intellectual pariah
I am a single white woman, under 40, and I voted for Obama and against McCain for the following reasons:
1. Obama is a Democrat
2. Obama, while unlikely to fulfill all his campaign promises, is still more likely to do SOME of the things he said he would. Specifically, I think he will be more likely to withdraw troops from Iraq in a timely manner, reform health care, and provide more funding for "the safety net." He's more liberal than people think he is, but our system of checks and balances should rein in his worst excesses. McCain planned to tax health care and do other things I found unpalatable.
3. Obama appears to be a bright man with a cool, calculating style that will serve him well on the world stage. I prefer his personality and style to hotheaded McCain. I don't want McCain's itchy finger near the red button or in control of whether we attack Iran. This, I suppose, is where we come to your pseudo-scientific argument about lineage and personality style. McCain is Scots-Irish and reportedly has a fiery temper. Obama's maternal lineage is primarily English, according to Wikipedia, and of course Kenyan. I come from North Dakota, which has been settled by and has a culture heavily influenced by Germans and Scandinavians. I am half Scandinavian-American with a bit of Dutch, German, English, Irish, French and Scots thrown in. Cool-headed practicality is the best description of their preferred approach. And, yet, they voted mainly for McCain, just not as frequently as they voted for Republicans in 2000 and 2004. Still, I think my liking for Obama and his cool style is perhaps influenced by the state where I grew up and my own personality.
Steve, what is that deep red dot in Colorado?
Or, to continue the comparison game. Why not compare the most Democratic district, Washington, DC, 93% Obama with one of the most Republican, Utah at 63% McCain? Care to guess which one has higher obesity, crime, welfare, etc? Hmmmm...
Let me point out that most of these rural Scotts Irish, being poor, are not Republican. Rather, as in every state, the poor tend to vote Democrat, as a study referenced by razib over at GNXP recently pointed out. But they made an exception in the case of Obama.
I thought you might be referring to the rise in Mexican immigrants to the Old South.I dont think anyone took much ethnic pride in McCain;he is a poodle and a sell-out. As others have noted,McCain thought that the ass-kissing he got from the press because he was a "maverick" was do to his sterling character;As the Monty Python skit goes, "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!!" The press rallied around O'bama to an amazing degree. (You dont suppose Michael Palin is any relation...)
"And then lets compare all of these factors anonymous lists(obesity, welfare, crime, drugs, etc) for McCain voters and Obama voters as a whole. Any guesses as to what we'll find?"
Sure, go ahead. I'm not worried about Democratic- or Republican- voters as a whole. I'm worried about an area of the country that for the past 90 years has used corrupt, thug politicians- first Dem, then Rep- to STEAL Federal tax dollars from educated and prosperous states and funnel to their ass-backward counties to pay for their food stamps and workfare jobs and pork and countless worthless kickbacks and other handouts. And then they have the gall to whine about Socialism when they are the number one beneficiaries of it. Even more than the "inner cities." I want MY Federal tax dollars to help MY state-not to help Bubba and Betty Lou (in)breed more tax parasites.
Oh, and Steve- let's see the Appalachian IQ index while you're at it.
So, why did McCain do best, relative to George W. Bush in 2004, in states like #1. Tennessee, #3. Arkansas, #5 Oklahoma, #7 West Virginia, #9 Kentucky, and #10 Alabama?
Lowest White IQ average in the nation?
Show me a country with a high marginal tax rate and I will show you a nation of bulldykes, bastard children, and pantywaists. --Minion #4403743
OK: The United States, during the World Wars and right up to the Reagan era. Or Japan, from the Occupation to the present day.
Japanese bastards, Eisenhower pantywaists... Excellent analysis, Minion.
What the hell happened to the Democratic party? --Travis
Less than you think. It's always been the party of multiracialism and class envy. That they were once pro-white/anti-black and are now pro-black/anti-white is not change-- it's switching sides. Same game plan, opposite goal posts.
Don't forget, too, that a) Obama is part Scots-Irish, too and b) he betrayed his fellow blacks with his votes for "amnesties", even more painfully than McCain and Biden did whites.
I do not, in general, like the politics of the New York and New England people --Jeff W
The "New York and New England people" put up strong resistance to the income tax, which the Scots-Irish supported. Glad to know which side you're on with this issue!
Born Again, you just gave away that you don't live in Tennessee -- the rural and poor rural folks here absolutely are conservative and thus vote for the candidate perceived as such, unless he's clearly incompetent. As to incompetence, we had a Republican gubernatorial candidate, Van Hillary, who ran against a much more competent Democrat -- an emigre from Connecticut by the name of Phillip Bredesen no less -- and lost. Bredesen is now in his second term in an overwhelmingly Republican state. And yet our state house just went Republican majority for the first time since Reconstruction, though this has been coming for some time. Harold Ford, Jr. polled well here because he wasn't perceived as the Marxist, collectivist that is Obama. So ease out, as we say here in Dixie, and get a clue about that of which you speak.
The Scottish vs. Scots-Irish distinction is cultural. The Scots-Irish left Scotland prior to the English conquest and the cultural revolution that ensued. Aside from his temper (possibly deriving from PTSD) and his militarism, McCain doesn't seem very SI to me. His pandering to Hispanics in particular would be anathema to the clannish SIs.
A lot of so-called Scots Irish Americans are actually the descendants of the Border English. As are a lot of the Ulster Scots. It's all just revisionist fantasy. No one used this terminology 50 years ago.
That red dot in Colorado is Saguache County, but it's a mistake. Saguache County was 63-35.5 for Obama in 2008 and was 56.9-41.9 for Kerry in 2004. Which means that the county actually had a shift for Obama slightly above the national average.
Any one find it slightly ironic that the McCain belt would probably be considered the most paleoconservative region in the country, but McCain was the Republican candidate most offensive to prominent paleos? (Or at least second to Giuliani)
It's weird how us Scots-Irish seem to be the only people with innoculation against the Obamavirus. I'm not sure McCain's personal qualities tell the whole story - I don't like either of them.
In the British isles, Scots-Irish (Ulster Protestants) definitely are culturally distinct from most other Scots, though we have close connections with west coast Scots especially. We do exist, and the American Scots Irish are our genetic and cultural kinfolk. In origin we are a mix of northern Irish/west Scottish (my mother's family are a native Irish clan); the Settlement added border Scots, some east coast (Aberdeen) Scots, and border English.
We are obviously very different from the guys who today wear tartans and toast Bonnie Prince Charlie*, although William Wallace was actually a borderer and kin to us.
*Well, my mother's clan is a sub clan of the MacDonalds, who were with Charlie at Culloden. They refused to charge, though.
In the US revolutionary war, the American Scots-Irish (Protestant) were strongly anti-British, whereas the (often Catholic)highland Scots in America were Loyalists fighting for King George.
Anyway, I find the idea that we don't exist really stupid. Admittedly most Tennesseeans I've met don't _know_ they're Scots Irish, but then some of them don't know that in Britain we speak English, either - I was charmingly complimented for my command of the language.
The Scots-Irish do shadow on the the borderlands of the US African American population.
Is that map correct? I find it amazing how little contact most non-black Americans have with black Americans on a regular basis. You can spout stats all you want, but until you bear witness to the amount of social dysfunction within the "black community", you really have no idea how bad it is. Believe it or not, Sailer is the best friend Black Americans have in this country. No joke. As the Hispanic population grows, it's only going to get worse for the vast majority of black Americans who can't succeed as athletes, entertainers, or politicians. This whole discussion about whether fat white slobs in the Ozarks are worse than the fat white slobs in "Southie" is very Stuff White People Like.
Scots-Irish descendants are more or less synonymous with modern native white Southerners so I think focusing on the South's cultural affiliation with the Republican party offers a better explanation that imaginary racial solidarity with McCain.
That said, I grew up in the conspicuous white blip in otherwise red North Alabama which is Huntsville - famous for Wernher von Braun and NASA...and engineers of mostly German descent originally trained in the North.
"Scots-Irish" is really a backwards term. It should be "Irish Scots", i.e., Scots who lived in Ireland for a while. (On the other hand, "Irish Scots" might also be used for Irishmen resident in Scotland today. Like the ones who threw up on my backpack at the Glasgow hostel the night Celtic lost to Rangers.)
My sister married not one, but two Scots-Irishmen. They're polar opposites-- one sullen and taciturn, the other genial and outgoing. The latter, her present husband, is classic S-I, but had never heard the term until I told him.
They remind me of the Earnhardts, who are mostly S-I despite their German name. (Lots of intermarriage in the Appalachians.) Dale was like my first brother-in-law; Dale Jr like my second. I think the race tends to extremes; e.g. both patriotism and rebellion.
Steve if you look at the map of AZ you will notice that the northeast of the state went more for McCain than it did in the past. This means that McCain pulled more of the Indian vote than Bush did in 2004 from the reservations. If you look at this map of AZ counties you will se that the two counties that McCain won are named the Navajo and Apache counties. This map of AZ shows the three reservations in that part of the state, containing the Navajo, Apache and Hopi Indian tribes. From what I have heard the various tribes try to avoid each other and have pretty clear stereotypes of each other, and try to differentiate themselves as much as possible. The Navajos are usually Democratic and the Hopis are usually Republican. The two tribes are not even in the same time zone because of this mutual hatred despite being in the same state. However, I know the Navajos at least are pretty conservative on many things and chose not to have an Indian casino on their land because they thought it was morally unacceptable.
In 2004 or 2006 the Democrats ran a very liberal ACLU affiliated candidate for the US House of Representatives and lost despite the seat covering the reservation being considered a safe seat. The Republican candidate had worked for years trying to get money to the tribes, was very conservative, and unlike McCain was willing go negative and run attack ads on TV smearing his opponent as an immoral liberal. I think one of the ads I saw on TV attacked her for her association with the ACLU, and all he could plausibly make it stand for.
Thanks for the Arizona info. Fascinating. I admire Indian tribes that shows some restraint when it comes to casino cash, like the Barona Indians who built a huge casino but won't serve liquor in it.
The Navajo-Hopi hatred goes back something like 600 years. The Navajos are latecomers to the New World, arriving from Siberia about 4000 years ago, long after the Hopi and most other Indians. They hung around in Canada and then suddenly invaded the southwest (the Hopi's turf) a little before the Spanish arrived.
States with the lowest IQ whites vote McCain because their populations lack education, which is a form of indoctrination.
The most educated sectors of the population are exposed to additional indoctrination because they read, watch and listen to political coverage to a greater extent; so they vote Obama like good citizens.
As for the Hopi-Navajo thing, the Navajos ("Dineh") and Apaches ("N'deh") are closely related to the Athapaskan ("Dene") natives of interior Alaska and northern Canada. To a lesser extent, they are related to Athapaskan groups in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. Even further afield are the Eyak and Tlingit.
All of these "Na-Dene" languages are related to the Yeniseian languages of Siberia. At least some of the Xiongnu (Huns) who invaded China and Eastern Europe are believed to have spoken Yeniseian languages.
The Hopis, on the other hand, speak Uto-Aztecan languages (related to the Shoshonean languages of the Great Basin and Southern California, as well as Nahuatl and other languages of northern and central Mexico.)
The language group seems to have originated in this region before the arrival of maize agriculture about 2500 years ago.
Other Pueblo groups speak isolate languages (Zuni, Keresan), or languages whose broader relationships are uncertain (the Tanoan languages of the Rio Grande pueblos).
The Navajos and Apaches seem to have arrived in the Southwest in the 1300s or 1400s, after the Puebloans dispersed from the Colorado Plateau (where Chaco Canyon and the cliff dwellings were built).
No one used this terminology 50 years ago. - anonymous
Oh really? (In case you don't want to click on the link, the reason "Scots-Irish" wasn't used much in the first half of the last Century was that the term "Scotch-Irish" was then in vogue. I surmise that the latter term sounded too much like a blend of whiskeys? Anyway, the concept of a group of Lowlanders, likely to be speaking Scots instead of any form of Gaelic, who moved to the US via Ireland, seems a pretty valid one to me.)
The Scots-Irish thesis doesn't hold water. Compare the pre-election poll projections with actual vote counts in the McCain belt.There is a clear indication of the Bradley Effect in Arkansas and Louisiana and to a lesser degree in Oklahoma and Tennessee. That is, many people in these states told pollsters they were going to vote for the African-American and then didn't. The effect was a whopping 10% in Arkansas where I live. Unless you contend that Scots-Irish Americans are pathological liers, then it is clear that both racism and hypocrisy are still prevalent in portions of the McCain belt.
In the past people voted more and more based on their own ethnicity, while in the future people are voting more and more based on the desired ethnicity of their mate(s).
As a person of Scottish and Irish descent, not Scots-Irish, and also as resident of San Diego, California, where most people are head over heels for the current president, I voted for McCain. Although, I don't really like the guy, I just voted against Obama. I knew it wouldn't make a difference anyway. I think we should be beyond making republican or democrat and ethnicity based political decisions. I don't really give a fuck about someones ethnicity, or what political party they happen to belong to, as long as they run the country well. Basically, someone with the opposite mindset of the current president. But seriously, stop attacking the republicans as all being fat and stupid, as its getting rather old and lacks substance. Have you forgotten about Utah? What about all of the blacks who voted for Obama because he is somewhat like them? Also, voting for someone only because of their savvy demeanor is not the way to go.
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