October 1, 2012

The Dirt Gap: 2012 version

Obama appears to be winning in the Electoral College in almost all models, but Nate Silver's 538 blog has a map up of what the electoral college results would look like if Obama's lead deteriorated:
But suppose there is a deterioration in his polls between now and Nov. 6 — or that the polls have overestimated his standing across the board. And so Mr. Obama wins the states where he has at least an 85 percent chance of victory in the forecast, but no others. Then we’d be left with the following map ...

This distribution of states would produce a 269-269 tie. I'm not particularly interested in trying to forecast this election, but I am interested in what drives the results. This map is useful because it shows the red-blue divide in a perfectly even election. That's not a realistic scenario, but it is a useful one. The Red-Blue map came to major prominence during the protracted 2000 election in what was virtually a tie.  

What we see once again is the dirt gap phenomenon I identified after the 2004 election. The Democrats carry the Northeast coast, the Great Lakes states, and the West Coast, while the Republicans carry the interior and the Southeast coastal states.

I noted in 2005 that:
Let's look at the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the country. Of the ones in blue states, 73 percent of their population lives in cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, where physical growth is restricted by unbridgeable water, compared to only 19 percent of the population of the biggest red state metropolises, such as Dallas, Atlanta, and Phoenix. 
The Law of Supply and Demand controls housing prices. The greater supply of available land for suburban expansion in red metropolises keeps house prices down.

Lower housing prices make for more affordable family formation, which makes the "family values" party more appealing.

Just looking at the map, it's easy to make up off the top of my head plausible sounding geographic explanations for the handful of anomalies. 

- The largest is why the coastal states of the Southeast are redder than the coastal states elsewhere. That's because cities tend to be inland out of hurricane range. Galveston was the metropolis of the Texas coast until the 1900 hurricane, after which Houston took over.

- Indiana is a red state that touches the Great Lakes, but the city of Gary area is rather depopulated, and other areas near Lake Michigan are more likely low cost exurbs of Chicago.

- New Mexico doesn't have many illegal immigrants, but it does have lots of Hispanics and American Indians. 

- The most curious anomalies are Minnesota and Vermont. Minnesota touches the Great Lakes at Duluth, but is largely inland. I guess you could call it the Moynihan Memorial Canadian Border Effect.

- Oregon isn't really a coastal state (Portland is well inland), but it pretends to be using zoning laws against exurban sprawl.

- In the noncontiguous states, huge Alaska and small Hawaii are the expected colors.

But, that's about all it takes to explain away the whole map, which suggests my electoral model continues to have some explanatory power.

121 comments:

DaveinHackensack said...

New Hampshire voted Republican in 5 straight presidential elections from 1972 to 1988, and since then it's voted Democratic for 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections. What do you think explains that?

Anonymous said...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/01/election_effectively_over_it_s_time_to_start_worrying_about_2013

Anonymous said...

Obama is a hard-liberal but ran as a center-liberal. Very clever.

Romney made his career as a center-conservative, but ran as hard rightist in 2008 and 2012 primaries. He lost the trust of moderates while failing to gain the trust of conservatives.

Anonymous said...

"New Hampshire voted Republican in 5 straight presidential elections from 1972 to 1988, and since then it's voted Democratic for 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections. What do you think explains that?"

Decline of old industries made people dependent on government. And influx of new creative class meant more dems.

GOP has serious lack of talent. Most of the creative talents in technology and science and law and government are liberal. Since liberals control intellectualism and culture, most smart people--in all fields--see liberalism as synonymous with intelligence.

GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people.

Anonymous said...

"This distribution of states would produce a 269-269 tie." - Biden VP 2012.

"New Hampshire voted Republican in 5 straight presidential elections from 1972 to 1988, and since then it's voted Democratic for 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections. What do you think explains that?" - NH transitioning demographically from having space for families to not having space for families perhaps. atleast going on the model above.

Pop growth figures from the wiki:
1950 533,242 8.5%
1960 606,921 13.8%
1970 737,681 21.5%
1980 920,610 24.8%
1990 1,109,252 20.5%
2000 1,235,786 11.4%
2010 1,316,470 6.5%

agnostic said...

To test the coastline vs. inland idea, we need higher resolution:

Voting map by counties

Looks pretty good, although some kind of quantitative test would be worth it.

There still is a big puzzle in the Southeast, though. Most of the coastline is red, while the strips of blue are more inland.

Anonymous said...

There are maps that make each the size of each state portray how many electoral votes it has, ie: tiny Alaska, big Massachusetts.

2012 Electoral College Map

Maps of the 2008 US presidential election results

Cartogram

Anonymous said...

"GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people"


Sooooooooo, you're saying that only smart people are voting these days? LMAO!

Anonymous said...

If Romney don't win this election is because America really turned a corner.

n/a said...

"There still is a big puzzle in the Southeast, though. Most of the coastline is red, while the strips of blue are more inland."

Not that big of a puzzle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_%28U.S._region%29

WMarkW said...

The coastal/inland dichotomy also explains the Democratic party conundrum about why the poorest states votes Republican -- with plenty of land available to build more housing, being poor in Kansas isn't as bad as being poor in New Jersey.

Anonymous said...

New Hampshire voted Republican in 5 straight presidential elections from 1972 to 1988, and since then it's voted Democratic for 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections. What do you think explains that?

Uhh, demographics?

[Was thst a trick question?]

Evangelical gun nut neoconfederate ass tattoer the dumber said...

There still is a big puzzle in the Southeast, though. Most of the coastline is red, while the strips of blue are more inland.

The blacks can't afford to live on the coasts.

[Plus they can't swim...]

Anonymous said...

to agnostic:
"There still is a big puzzle in the Southeast, though. Most of the coastline is red, while the strips of blue are more inland."
This pattern is rather easily explained: (1) the remnant of an inland rural plantation belt that is today black majority and (2) a string of older declining cities that were established along the "fall line" at the head of navigation of the numerous medium-sized rivers of the southeast.
The coast is dominated by white retirees and the piedmont was never overly black and is now still somewhat industrial/commercial and was untill recently moderately prosperous.

sunbeam said...

I came late to this party (meaning this site), so maybe all this has been hashed out before.

But in one of your recent threads there was a link to an article about Republican voting by whites being linked to the fraction of population that was black.

I suspect that the map looks similar, with the only anomaly being the West, between the coast and the Mississippi. That will make a big map, but if you adjust it for population it will appear less anomalous.

I know Mormons have to influence this, but Western Republicans have to be the closest to having actual Libertarian beliefs of all Republican voters. Despite that though, I bet they favor Protectionism and Immigration Control as much as the Southern ones would (I'm speaking of the voters, not the party reps).

The major differences being social issues like the role of religion and marijuana legalization.

Peter A said...

Over the last 30 years New Hampshire has had a huge influx of immigrants from "down south", i.e. Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut. Most of the growth has been centered around the seacoast and Nashua, and housing prices in those areas are now fairly high since both the seacoast and commuting distance to Greater Boston limits how far north or inland people are willing to go. NH fits Steve's theory pretty well.

peterike said...

The larger urban centers are also dense with single women (single white women in particular), and as we know single women vote Democratic because of media-driven status whoring. Urban centers also attract gay men and metrosexuals, two other key Democrat groups.

Cities are also where many "creative" workers congregate, all of whom have been through the required years of university Leftist brain-washing.

Cities are where Jews congregate.

And of course, all big cities have their black and brown ghettos where the Dem votes reach 100%.

Given these incredible levels of Liberalism, many otherwise middle-of-the-road or even moderately Right people who arrive in large cities are driven Left by the incredible level of social pressure and conformity enforced there. If you have never lived in a Liberal hot-bed (e.g. New York, San Fran, Chicago...) then you can't appreciate the intensity of the social pressure. It's just a given that you're a Liberal Democrat. If you dare profess any crime-think of even the mildest sort -- simply expressing some doubt about Obama say -- you will be subjected to a level of disdain and social disapproval that is a thing to behold.

It is VERY hard to stand up under this. Most people simply shut their mouths.

Peter A said...

"Obama is a hard-liberal but ran as a center-liberal. Very clever."

No, Obama is a centrist liberal by instinct who has consciously fooled both leftists and the far right into believing he was a hard-liberal. As a result the far left never really turns on him no matter how much he bends to Wall Street, cuts social benefits, continues American imperial adventures, increases deportation of illegals, waters down the healthcare plan, etc.

At the same time the opposition keeps foaming at the mouth about an imaginary Communist-Muslim Antichrist, who bears no resemblance to the President we've had for the past 4 years. As a result most moderate Americans have decided conservatives are quite simply insane.

Obama is a brilliant master of images, maybe the best we've ever seen in the Presidency. Too bad he's a fairly mediocre leader.

Anonymous said...

Nice try, Anon 12:58. Probably 50% of the population growth in New Hampshire are expats from Massachusetts (Massholes, as they call them up there). MA residents have been moving up to NH for the past 20 years to escape the onerous tax burden here, and then proceed to elect the same sort of tax-and-spend pols they had in MA.

There's been a recent backlash, and NH currently has a GOP-dominated legislature and a five-term moderate Democrat governor who's retiring. So of course the state's GOP voters guarantee the election of another Democrat by nominating a virulently anti-abortion candidate.

Kelly Ayotte, currently a NH Senator, would have been a shoo-in for governor if she hadn't won the Senate seat.

Orthodox said...

What happened to New Hampshire? Massholes. They flee high tax Massachusetts, move to low tax New Hampshire, dislike the lack of services and try to pass income and sales taxes.

Same thing happened to Vermont. 60s liberals from NYC all moved in and turned it from a hard-right conservative state that sent Coolidge to the White House, to a hippie commune. Oddly, they still have the most lax gun laws in America.

The Free State Project is trying to do to NH what the left did to Vermont, but they are fighting a rising tide of Massholes.

gmr said...

Inland southern areas may be highly black and thus that explains their blueness.

Jim Bowery said...

What that model doesn't predict is the abject stupidity of the Republican Party in attempting to depopulate its base by increasing the cost of family formation, while replacing their base with Democratic-voting immigrant labor.

Where is a model for that?

Marlowe said...

So Republicans do well in states with lebensraum? And Democrats prosper in high scarcity ones? Presumably with resources in short supply the state becomes vital to securing the necessities of life for ones kith & kin - so if ones racial gang has sufficient leverage it can extract what it needs.

Mark said...

I live in Indiana. I think we've only stayed a red state because Hoosiers are very traditionalist and the tradition was to always vote Republican. The national Republican party now, though, isn't really the same party as the the old Robert Taft Republican party that appealed to Midwest isolationist and frugal small government sentiments. As older Indiana voters who just voted Republican out of habit died off, the party has lost strength in Indiana in recent years. Hoosiers will still vote for the older type of Republican locally (i.e. Mitch Daniels) but they aren't going to vote for the Republican party nationally much longer because it doesn't really represent their beliefs anymore.

Anonymous said...

"New Hampshire voted Republican in 5 straight presidential elections from 1972 to 1988, and since then it's voted Democratic for 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections. What do you think explains that?"

Probably a combination of things, but living in northern New England myself, one striking thing is how religion is in free fall. Even among those who might be sympathetic to the GOP, the party is seen as a largely Southern and Midwestern Christian party.

Josh said...

There still is a big puzzle in the Southeast, though. Most of the coastline is red, while the strips of blue are more inland.

That's where the rural blacks live.

Josh said...

Idiocracy took over the gop.Creationists, Zionist Evangelicals, pothead and gun nut libertarians, neoconfederate ass tattoers, joe the dumber, palin, limbaugh, etc

Actually, the people who took over the party where the super smart neoconservatives and the wall street crowd.

Anonymous said...

"The largest is why the coastal states of the Southeast are redder than the coastal states elsewhere. That's because cities tend to be inland out of hurricane range."

I wouldn't completely discount this as a factor, but the much bigger reason is because this is the Old South, which is full of people who consider the Democrats against them in a way that the Republicans aren't.

Anonymous said...

Sparsely populated Vermont used to be diehard Republican up through the 1980s- I don't have time to double-check, but if memory serves, Vermont's electoral votes went GOP every Presidential election except 1964 until about 1988 or 1992. Part of the problem with Vermont is that, being a rural Whitopia within easy driving distance of lots of big Northeastern cities, it is a resettlement destination of choice for affluent, ultra-progressive SWPL types from overcrowded MA, NY, NJ, and the like. In my experience, most native-born blue-collar Vermonters are actually fairly conservative types, fond of stock-car-racing, deer hunting, and mass-market-beer.

The Woodchuck-versus-Flatlander divide can explain a lot about Vermont politics. Burlington, for example, was unsurprisingly the original political springboard for Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders- it's a growing, fairly affluent college town which is a favored destination for rich people from out-of-state because it scores highly on most quality-of-life metrics. In contrast, the most consistently Republican city in Vermont is probably Rutland, a slowly decaying post-industrial town filled with ethnic Catholics.

That said, a lot of the apparent anomaly of both Vermont and the American Southwest may also be cultural, in the sense that David Hackett Fischer described. Vermont is in Yankee New England, while the Southwest was settled by the Scots-Irish "Borderers", the classic example being Davy Crockett leaving Tennessee to go fight in Texas (some Scots-Irish did settle in Vermont in the colonial period, but probably not enough to make a difference to the prevailing Yankee ethos). This suggests that, even with equal economic and geographic conditions, Texans will always tilt more to the right than Vermonters.

Ed said...

"New Hampshire voted Republican in 5 straight presidential elections from 1972 to 1988, and since then it's voted Democratic for 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections. What do you think explains that?"

You are overthinking it. The entire United States voted Republican in 4 out of 5 straight presidential elections in 1972 to 1988, and the Democrats just barely got their one victory. Since then the country as a whole has voted Democratic in 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections -for the purposes of this sort of analysis the Democratic popular vote plurality in 2000 counts.

Most states still vote the rest of the way the country has voted. The only difference since 1988 is that the Cold War featured four landslide reelections of incumbent presidents where just about every state was carried by the incumbent. That seems to have been a Cold War thing and partisan splits are more consistent. But alot of states will fall in line with the rest of the country. Which means that geographic-based electoral analysis usually overthinks things.

You get a better picture of state voting habits by looking when they last voted for the popular vote loser. In the case of New Hampshire, the result is split, they went Republican in 2000 and Democratic in 2004, the only state to do so. But the rest of New England, like the rest of the Northeast, last voted for a losing Republican presidential candidate in 1948, when the Northeast was still more Republican than the rest of the country (Hoover carried New England in1932). For Massachusetts and Rhode island, you have to go back though to 1892.

Anonymous said...

Dave in Hackensack, maybe it's because far southern NH has become a Boston exurb in recent years.

Camlost said...

There still is a big puzzle in the Southeast, though. Most of the coastline is red, while the strips of blue are more inland.

The South's inland blue areas are on one of the following:

1. majority black urban areas (Columbus, Atlanta city limits, Birmingham city etc.)
2. University towns or state capitols (lots of gubmint jobs)
3. areas with lots of relocated Northern whites (Raleigh/Cary, NC)

Paul Mendez said...

Creationists, Zionist Evangelicals, pothead and gun nut libertarians, neoconfederate ass tattoers, joe the dumber, palin, limbaugh, etc

Warmist, race-deniers, homosexuals, potheads and gun-fearing suburbanites, neohippy ass tattooers, ObamaPhone parasites, Dean, Maddow, etc.,

Double-Ughhh!

Anonymous said...

http://vrizov.blogspot.com/2012/10/denby-david-doomsday-something.html

http://www.tnr.com/print/article/books-and-arts/magazine/107212/has-hollywood-murdered-the-movies

Truth said...

"What do you think explains that?"


Somali Immigrants. Oh wait, they don't vote.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Sailer your political posts never fails to bring the libertarian spammers blasting social consevatives. As if our Founding Fathers were not social conservatives. Yes please more decadent godless liberalism as THE solution.

I doubt these spammers know any social conservatives in real life.

MDR

sane_voter said...

Well if it's a tie, and no electors are faithless, Romney should win as it is thrown into the House of Representatives. each state gets one vote and the GOP presently leads that with 33 state majorities. That is unlikely to appreciably change with this election, escpically if the presidency ends in a tie.

NOTA said...

The parties have to appeal to the average person. So any smart person who votes for one or the other party is basically going to have to excuse a certain amount of stupid rhetoric that is said to win over the ill-informed voters. Republicans who can count can pretty easily figure out, for example, that there is no risk whatsoever that Muslims are going to impose Sharia law on us. (There aren't very many of them, they're not especially rich or powerful, and they're widely despised.) Mostly, they just discount that goofy rhetoric as BS for the rubes, while still thinking of themselves as intelligent people voting for a hard-headed party. Indeed, what little good opinion I have of Romney is almost despite his rhetoric--given where he's gotten in his life, he must be smart enough to know that a lot of what he has to say while campaigning is nonsense.

Creationism is a fun topic, though. I linked to a gallup poll awhile back that showed that about 60% of Republicans were young-Earth creationists, and about 40% of Democrats were. This doesn't exactly fit the rhetoric of the Republicans being the party of creationism. (All kinds of similar issues turn out not to break across party lines in polls the way they do among the media-appointed spokesmen and pundits who represent those parties. Why, it's almost like the respectable media are in the business of projecting a distorted picture of the world.)

For the overwhelming majority of voters, questions of evolution, global warming, various competing macroeconomic theories about how to get out of the recession, the safety of nuclear power, genetically modified foods, pesticide residues, and vaccinations are all team-membership markers about which they are not entitled to an opinion, being wholly ignorant of any relevant information. What fraction of liberals who confidently (and correctly) put down knuckle-dragging creationists actually have any idea why evolution has to be true?

Anonymous said...

"New Hampshire voted Republican in 5 straight presidential elections from 1972 to 1988, and since then it's voted Democratic for 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections. What do you think explains that?"

There was finally enough spillover from MA libs who hate the high taxes of Taxachusetts and fled to live over the border.

Just another case of progressives who say, "Do as I say, not as I do."

Anonymous said...

"GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people."

Funny that the "smart people" are so dumb, huh?

Anonymous said...

Indiana has the same voting patterns as Ohio and Illinois: the cities vote mostly democratic, the burbs and country mostly Republican. But Indiana doesn't have a Chicago, a Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati, so the ratio of city to burb/country is weighted differently.

Paul Mendez said...

GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people.

Democratic Party is the dumb warmist, race-denying, blank-slatist, economically illiterate, innumerate party. Horrible brand that repels smart people.

Automatic_Wing said...

Southern New Hampshire becoming a suburb of Boston prolly has something to do with the state switching from R to D.

heartiste said...

steve, if political ideology is partly or greatly inherited along genetic pathways, as some recent scientific evidence is suggesting, then could the dirt gap merely be a proxy for ideologues of leftist disposition coalescing by choice into densely populated areas that aren't conducive to childrearing? the genetic compulsion and the ecological pressures may reinforce each other in a feedback loop such that highly dense areas with expensive land augment leftie feeling and emotional commitment, which further pushes them from considering the boundless joys of wiping snot from puffy faces.

"GOP is the dumb creationist party."

Dem is the dumb free cell phone party. we can play this game all day, champ.

theakinet said...

The Economist says men are moving toward the GOP, while women (esp. single ladies) are moving toward the Dems. Basically, to fully exploit the Sailer Strategy the GOP needs to go after married couples and single (non-black) men: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/10/campaign-and-gender-gap?fsrc=gn_ep

Related http://www.electionstudies.org/nesguide/toptable/tab4b_4.htm

alexis said...

To test the coastline vs. inland idea, we need higher resolution:

Voting map by counties

Looks pretty good, although some kind of quantitative test would be worth it.

There still is a big puzzle in the Southeast, though. Most of the coastline is red, while the strips of blue are more inland.


No puzzle there. The two strips you are looking at are examples of the not-perfect-but-useful "geography is destiny" model. The strip in w MS is the Missisippi Delta, the one that runs through E MS and W AL is the "black belt". Both are loamy soils good for cotton, thus high black populations as a legacy of slavery/sharecropper days.

ernestine said...

Sailer keeps touting 'affordable family formation' as some sort of stability serum, but how stable are these families that form in the so-called Red States?

Anthony said...

New Mexico has Indian reservations which function like large lakes.

Pat Boyle said...

I think you can more or less guarantee that the polls will prove to have been at least misleading.

My remembrance of the timeline was something like this. Romney was a little ahead in the national polls. The White House called up several of the polling organizations express their displeasure. The polls then began to show that Obama was ahead.

I suppose it could all be an innocent cooincidence. I'm keeping an open mind on the question of unicorns too.

Albertosaurus

Beecher Asbury said...

GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people.

And the democrats are the party of the NAMs which means the overwhelming number of sub 100 IQ people in America are democrats.

Anonymous said...

The Albion Seed

Anonymous said...

American conservatism. It's as though American puritanism repressed sexual lust and this energy came to be expressed thru unfettered material lust. So, the Gilded Age and then the yuppie age.



Anonymous said...

Well, your dirt gap will apply until Texas turns democrat due to immigration.

Once that happens, I don't see how Repubs can ever win the Presidency ever again.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/30/1114634/-Projecting-Texas-The-Coming-Democratic-Plurality

Anonymous said...

This is my wish.

GOP and American conservatives have played it nice and easy cuz they hoped to win. So, we had 'compassionate conservatism', moderate McCain, and whitebread Romney.

Look, it's over. GOP cannot win, and American conservatism is finished as a political power that can dominate. And the problem isn't only demographics. It's elitographics. Liberals won the culture/intellectual war--not necessarily cuz they're right but because cons are so dumb and no less truthful. What with NR and Weekly Standard as the voice of conservatism, conservatism is libearlism lite anyway.
In the 80s, there was hope that the yuppies--lawyers in love of Jackson Browne's song--would become conservatives. But when Democrats adopted GOP free trade and pro-rich-ism, yuppies went to the Dems since they were socially liberal.
GOP was doomed then. There was the Gingrich backlash in 94, but GOP turned out to be too stupid to use it to their advantage.

So, what can American conservatism do if it can't win nationally? It can still play a potent force as a political critic. And to do this, we must stop being nice. And it won't matter anymore since we can't win nationally. There would be nothing to lose. If there's nothing lose, you can finally say what needs to be said. And so what if you're called a 'racist' or 'antisemite'? We can't win nationally anyway. But we can weaken the liberal elites through stinging criticism. And there's no need to be scared since we can't win anyway.
Romney keeps playing nice in hope of winning. But suppose there's 100% that cons won't the presidency in the next 50 yrs. Should we play nice? Or should we play hard and critical? What is there to lose?

Bob Arctor said...

"GOP has serious lack of talent. Most of the creative talents in technology and science and law and government are liberal."

Given that foreign policy, the economy, banking, immigration, justice, and just about everything else about modern America is a giant unmitigated disaster it's a wild stretch to call our current ruling class "talented," unless you mean talented at parasitism, which admittedly they are quite adept at.

"GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people."

As far as IQ is concerned, I'm reasonably certain that all those "dumb" suburban feel good mega-church evangelical types in the GOP utterly clobber, by double digit margins, the bulk of the Democrats hardcore voter base.

Svigor said...

"New Hampshire voted Republican in 5 straight presidential elections from 1972 to 1988, and since then it's voted Democratic for 4 of the most recent 5 presidential elections. What do you think explains that?"

Decline of old industries made people dependent on government. And influx of new creative class meant more dems.


Translation: dems fight harder against the native population, so invaders are all dems.

GOP has serious lack of talent. Most of the creative talents in technology and science and law and government are liberal.

Translation: I'm too dumb to know better than to argue from authority.

Since liberals control intellectualism and culture, most smart people--in all fields--see liberalism as synonymous with intelligence.

Translation: I think smart people are stupid (i.e., they think arguing from authority makes sense).

GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people.

Translation: blacks give 90%+ of their votes to dems, and dems are the "smart party," so blacks must be smart.

Anonymous said...

The problem with the GOP is that smarter whites side with dumb blacks and browns.


There's zero evidence that this is the case. But then, your argument is all about you feeling good about yourself rather than about accurately describing reality.

Now tell me again about all the really smart liberals you worked with in that video store ...

Svigor said...

American conservatism. It's as though American puritanism repressed sexual lust and this energy came to be expressed thru unfettered material lust. So, the Gilded Age and then the yuppie age.

Your boringness. It's as though boringness was crapped out of the a-hole of the universe, and took the shape of a person. So, you came into being.

dirk said...

Nah, the politics of the Gulf states are better explained by the inherent politics of workers in the oil industry, which is fiercely anti-Democrat simply because the Democrats are in fact in favor of many regulations which would be deleterious to the oil industry.

As an example: most of your single, under-30, college-educated, white-collar workers at Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, Conoco, etc. and the many lesser-known oil-services companies lead the same bike-riding, recycling, SWPL life-style as their liberal counterparts in Portland or Austin, but their career choices bias them irrevocably against identification with the Dems.

The politics of the many blue-collar oil workers in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, of course, goes without saying.

It's the economy, stupid.

Anonymous said...

"GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people."

"And the democrats are the party of the NAMs which means the overwhelming number of sub 100 IQ people in America are democrats."

No, Democratic Party is not the party of Nams. It is the party that exploits the Nams. At the top, liberalism is the party of intelligent Jews, creative gays, Silicon Valley inventors, etc. Nams are useful to smart and affluent whites cuz Nams make such whites feel compassionate, tolerant, and nice. The quality at the top of American liberalism attracts smart whites. And even though Nams may not be much intellectually, many whites--libs and cons--are drawn to blackness for athleticism, music, and sexuality. And due to history of 'racism' and MLK, there is a moral cachet to blackness, which is why even cons say Thomas Sowell is the greatest mind of all time; it's so wonderful to have a black guy on your side. And the #1 religion of America is Worship of Jews and Holocaust. And Jews themselves say Holocaust is most important to their identity. So, having Jews are your side is like having god on your side. Jews should really be called Holoconiks. Since most Jews are liberal, Democrats have morality and spirituality on its side.

But American conservatism even at the top is pretty dumb. Liberals have New York Review of Books, New Republic, New York Times, Harvard, Stanford, etc. Even with all their problems, they beat Bob Jones University, megamall churches, and National Review.
There is New Criterion and Commentary, but liberals are more likely to read them than most conservatives. More liberals watch Whit Stillman than conservatives do. My liberal friends all know Whit Stillman. My conservative friends never heard of him.

And I'll bet your average liberal is more likely to know about Steve Sailer than your average conservative who watches Fox TV and listens to Hannity.

Anonymous said...

"Your boringness. It's as though boringness was crapped out of the a-hole of the universe, and took the shape of a person. So, you came into being."

How about I bore you a new a**hole?

Anonymous said...

"Given that foreign policy, the economy, banking, immigration, justice, and just about everything else about modern America is a giant unmitigated disaster it's a wild stretch to call our current ruling class "talented," unless you mean talented at parasitism, which admittedly they are quite adept at."

But here's the thing. Conservatives and the GOP are even more pro-Wall Street.
Given Obama's slavishness to Wall Street, that issue could be a winner to attract middle class voters.
But Romney is saying Obama was TOO HARD on Wall Street.
GOP is saying the superrich should be taxed less!!!!

No wonder independents and even middle class cons are either sitting out this election or going with Obummer.

Anonymous said...

Romney tells Denver Post he will not cancel amnesty policy, will then introduce new comprehensive plan, code word for more amnesty combined with enforcement measures that will never be enforced.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/romney-says-he-would-honor-immigration-reprieves-granted-by-obama/

Svigor said...

Obama the empty affirmative action suit is the perfect majorette for the dem's intellectual superiority, as imagined by our grammatically-challenged troll.

Anonymous said...

"GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people."


And yet all the data shows that Republicans are smarter and better informed on a wide range of issues, from politics to science, than Democrats are.

Anonymous said...

"As far as IQ is concerned, I'm reasonably certain that all those "dumb" suburban feel good mega-church evangelical types in the GOP utterly clobber, by double digit margins, the bulk of the Democrats hardcore voter base."

There used to be a time when suburbs used to the home of Republicans and conservatives.
No more. Their kids went to colleges and absorbed ideas from liberal professors. And with mass media, everyone watches the same pro-gay stuff on TV.
People moved to the suburbs to get away from the city. Now, the culture of urban centers enter every suburban home.
Look at most white suburban girls. Their main heroes are rappers like Lil Wayne. This is the case even in elite white highschools.
I live in a working class/middle class suburb(lots of whites and Hispanics and some blacks) but not far away are rich all white suburbs. I walked through them in 2008. Obama signs all over. and I entered the library. In the chilren's section, Obama promotion all over. and gay displays on the walls.
Old suburban ideal is gone.

When white Iowa went with Obama by a huge margin in 2008, you know it aint the same country.

Suburbs were appealing as a retreat from city life, but cities still created the culture, and the culture influenced suburban kids through TV and colleges. And even educational curriculum in local schools have to meet federal standards and that means PC.

Svigor said...

Creationism is smarter than belief in human group equality. If you're going to believe in something fantastic, at least make it unfalsifiable.

Svigor said...

And creationists are a niche, while huge numbers of dems sincerely believe in the silly human group equality. It's like huge numbers of people believing in My Little Pony.

Anonymous said...

"So, libs are admitting that demography is destiny and race/ethnicity is related to politics.

A conservative: "We should stop Mexican immigration cuz it's bad for the GOP." RACIST!

A liberal: "We should increase Mexican immigration cuz it's good for the Democrats." PROGRESSIVE!"

Well, right or wrong, the future of American politics belongs to the Democrats. Fact.

Bill White was the first salvo in the coming "battle for Texas," and thus the battle for permanent control of the Presidency.

Svigor said...

How about I bore you a new a**hole?

U mad bro? Just a bit of give and take here. Smart folks is 'sposed to like a bit of the reparte.

Svigor said...

Well, right or wrong, the future of American politics belongs to the Democrats. Fact.

Short-term. Long-term, the whole thing's up for grabs, including that term, "American." My vote's on the Mexican model.

Anonymous said...

I used to live in Massachusetts.

Some people I know moved to New Hampshire because, unlike Massachusetts a very liberal state, New Hampshire has no sales or state income tax (Mass has both and they are sky high).

I think they took their liberal attitudes with them.

I've heard people from Texas, Arizona, and Utah complaining about the same thing when new residents from the California exodus arrive.

You would think these people would have learned something but Noooooo...

Liberalism is obviouly a virus like entity capable of spreading and creating pod people not unlike in the movies Invasion of the Body Snatchers or 28 days.

Drastic action must be taken immediately such as a quarantine.

God help us all...

"It lives... Ahhhh.....help!"

Svigor said...

Anon, we get the same thing with Yankees escaping their own fouled nests. And they have the nerve to act like they're morally superior because they're too stupid to know they left their own fouled nest because they fouled it. Yankees are full of crap.

I suggest the few who aren't take up the lawyers' refrain: the stupid Yankees give the other 5% of us a bad name.

JeremiahJohnbalaya said...

It is really amazing how many times I've tried to scratch the surface of "smart" liberalism and discovered that it's just a cover for anti-Christian sentiment.

And I'd take a Christian "extremist" (b/c that's what they all are, don't you know) over an anti-Christian zealot . Any . Day . Of . The . Week.

Anonymous said...

Actually, Vermont has even higher home ownership than Texas 67 versus 64 percent. Texas while cheaper than the US has tight lending laws which keep home owenership down compared to Blue New Mexico which is at 67 percent and which probably is Blue because its heavily hispanic. I read the US census on home ownership. Texas most conservative counties that make it red are high in income and low in minority population and high homeowenerhsip Sailer model fits California perfectly, La has homeowership below national average while Riverside County is around 66 percent. So, La County more blue among whites than Riverside. Orange Homeownership around 61 percent while San Diego at 57 percent. San Diego has been moving into a purple county.

Anonymous said...

Romney says OKAY to illegals. He won't win any brown vote and won't gain any more white vote.
But neocons will pet him on the head, and he can pat himself on the back for his 'anti-racism'.

But where is the outrage from the conservative masses? We say GOP elites don't listen to us, but how can they listen to us when we are so silent?
Even Illegals have more guts. They marched all over to demand their 'rights'.
But we don't do nuttin'.

Anonymous said...

Well, people are mad at Evangelicals because they give us George W Bush and one group in Texas that supported Romney/Ryan is even made at Obama for deporting anchor babies along with their parents. Evangelicals don't like illegal immirgation but a lot of times they are talk into supporting the Bushes because of the social issues and so forth. In fact I feel that Rove actually had Bush appeal better to these people than Romeny campaign does.

Anonymous said...

"Once that happens, I don't see how Repubs can ever win the Presidency ever again." - The only way they can is by riding the fact that the economy will absolutely suck by then(and be a proxy for a great deal many other issues that will suck for the American people), and it will be largely attributable to structural and systemic problems that the democrats put into place.

"Bill White was the first salvo in the coming "battle for Texas," and thus the battle for permanent control of the Presidency." - I thought that Bill White had a decent shot, considering just how bad the Republicans down here are, but the hispanics still aren't voting enough yet.

stari_momak said...

Given Romney's pander, it's probably better that he not be elected. Any possible GOP resolve to stop Obama's unconstitutional back door amnesty is highly contingent on the occupant of the white house. So let's hope the GOP retains the House at least, and that Romney gets the defeat he so richly deservers (and I say that as a former supporter of the guy I thought was moderate enough and smart enough to get elected.)

Anonymous said...

I thought that Bill White had a decent shot, considering just how bad the Republicans down here are, but the hispanics still aren't voting enough yet.


I can't imagine why some people are saying that this site is being overrun by lefties ...

.. but then, I suppose this Bill White fan describes himself as "conservative" and complains that Romney is a "globalist".

Anonymous said...

Well, actullay some counties in TExas have higher incomes than Silcon Valley or San Fran. Silcon Valley has a lot of asians and hispanics that lower the income. So the upper-middle clas wealthly white voting Dem is exggerated. Most whites that vote Dem overhwemly are single white women with kids. Also, a lot of whites that are evanglelical go to christian colleges like Liberty and so forth, they are not the high school drop outs that people here think.

Anonymous said...

Romney couldn't even beat McCain among conservatives. How he's gonna beat Obama?

Obama generates excitement even now. Even those who are disillusioned see him on stage and the old magic comes back.

But when Romney secured the nomination, most cons felt.. 'the GOP establishment rigged it so he'd win.' There was ZERO excitement.

I at least respected McCain's military service. And before Palin turned out to be a major dummy, I thought she was fresh and interesting.
But Romney? Zzzzzzzzzzz. As for Ryan, he looks like Grover the muppet.

beowulf said...

If the electoral college is tied, the House picks the President and the Senate picks the Vice President, which I suppose is good news for Joe Biden.

Anonymous said...

Actually, Texans are sometimes more liberal than folks that come there from Orange County or Bakersfield . A Berkeley study shown Bakersfield to the right of Texas cities. Texas, Arizona get these folks more conservative from California while Colorado and Oregon get the more liberal Californians.

Lefty said...

"Actually, Texans are sometimes more liberal than folks that come there from Orange County or Bakersfield . A Berkeley study shown Bakersfield to the right of Texas cities. Texas, Arizona get these folks more conservative from California while Colorado and Oregon get the more liberal Californians."

I don't know. A lot of the people that are moving to Austin, TX are pretty liberal, and Austin is ground zero for the transformation of Texas into California.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/america-fastest-growing-cities_n_1751549.html#slide=1343523

Truth said...

"How about I bore you a new a**hole?"

There is nothing sexier on this great planet than Keyboard Swipplemandos.

Anonymous said...

".. but then, I suppose this Bill White fan describes himself as "conservative" and complains that Romney is a "globalist". " - Touchy, all I said was that I thought he had a shot. The republicans won't lose Texas for a while, due to the whole hispanics not voting thing, but that day will come.

Re Romney from his website at http://www.mittromney.com/issues/immigration(and by the way, props to whoever re-organized the site, it looks much less shitty now):
"The current system is keeping nuclear families apart.". The system of family reunification-chain migration that the United States of America has had for 4 decades now just isn't good enough for him.

Matra said...

There is New Criterion and Commentary, but liberals are more likely to read them than most conservatives.

More liberals watch Whit Stillman than conservatives do. My liberal friends all know Whit Stillman. My conservative friends never heard of him.


Same with Eric Rohmer. Despite being an important conservative Catholic filmmaker Big Hollywood didn't even mention his passing back in January 2010. But if Adam Sandler plays golf with Bush or some C-list actor "comes out" Republican then the conservative media like Big Hollywood think it's the greatest thing ever. The Conservative Movement was too insular to understand the importance of culture to politics. They've belatedly taken an interest but they look like they are out of their depth any time they're discussing anything other than taxes.

Anonyia said...

Southeastern coastal areas are full of charming small to mid sized cities full of older wealthy (relative to the rest of the South, at least) white people. And further west on the gulf coast, as someone else mentioned it's oil industries keeping things solidly Republican.

JSM said...

"What fraction of liberals who confidently (and correctly) put down knuckle-dragging creationists actually have any idea why evolution has to be true?"

Good point. Also, what fraction of liberals who correctly put down creationists, also deny the truth of Human Evolution -- i.e., that evolution didn't stop at the neck?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it's interesting to think about why people vote the way they do. Too bad there's really no difference between the parties in terms of substance, so it makes absolutely no difference.

"Dems are the party of X"

"Repubs are the party of Y"

Both are for idiots who can't figure out that voting is pointless.

Anonymous said...

Evolutionists, of the democrat sort, believe evolution stopped when monkey became man. How many keep this gem on their bookshelves?

Anonymous said...

Creationism is smarter than belief in human group equality. If you're going to believe in something fantastic, at least make it unfalsifiable.

Indeed. And does it matter for most practical purposes whether someone is a Creationist or not?

But a flat-earth racial egalitarian can do immense damage in education and the media, in criminal justice & immigration policy.

Are doing in fact.

Anonymous said...

Creationism is smarter than belief in human group equality. If you're going to believe in something fantastic, at least make it unfalsifiable.


The problem is that, contrary to the wishful thinking that is often expressed on this site, most creationists aren't race realists either. In fact they will enthusiastically tell you that evolution is a racist theory.

Svigor said...

The problem is that, contrary to the wishful thinking that is often expressed on this site, most creationists aren't race realists either. In fact they will enthusiastically tell you that evolution is a racist theory.

It's often expressed here that most creationists are race realists? Must be on my days off.

Homo Sovieticus said he loved the party. He even said it enthusiastically. But he didn't sincerely believe that crap. He just shined on idiots (like some in present company) by saying he did.

Sincere belief in unic- er, racial equality is a libtard thing.

Anonymous said...

You guys can beat up on "Wall Street" all you want, but if I had my life to do over again, you better believe I would direct every effort at getting the sort of FIRE-sector job that would allow me to send my kids to expensive (NAM-free) schools in an expensive NAM-free neighborhood, instead of studying environmental whatever (the reason I became anti-immigration) and being exiled to a rural area of a heavily-white state, struggling to make the mortgage every month.

If my wife gets a job as a library assistant, she start at a better salary than I make in the private sector ... with three years' experience. It's not about "materialism", it's about freaking genetic survival. Being "rich" (high income) would not make me pro-immigration, but it would apparently be enough for you guys to despise me.

Mighty white of you.

tg moderator said...

We really need to think about pro affordible family formation polices. The Rebublicans should be in favor of giant housing projects in da hood for example. Jack Kemp's section 8 plan has been a disaster for the lower half of the white middle class. A single payer health care system would be much worse as far as health care quality, but it might help family formation. The sudent loan and immigration disasterss must end. The map shos that Republicans need to change policies fast and they have little time left.

Svigor said...

Obama generates excitement even now, among homosexual males.

FTFY.

Anonymous said...

Too bad Sailer doesn't turn his staus-mongering theory on the alt right. Bashing "creationist" is the bike-lanes/look at my black friend/did you see the latest episdoe of treme equivalent for the alt-right. The more some one does it the more likely they went to a state school.

Svigor said...

No, Democratic Party is not the party of Nams.

Yes, it is; thus your explanations of why it isn't fall flat.

JayMan said...

A likely explanation for these phenomena has been found. I have explained this in my ongoing discussion of what I call the "Pioneer Hypothesis".

Basically, the differences in political orientation of the different American regions stem from two broad factors. First is the colonial source stock that settled the original colonies, the Northeast being settled by Puritans and the Great Lakes area being settled by Quakers, while the South and much of the West being settled by the Scotch-Irish and those from the South and West of England (the inbred parts), as explained in Albion's Seed.

The second source, and the part that I elucidated on my blog, was natural selection as a response to colonization. Colonization of a vast area of land selects for earlier breeders, and since the religious and politically conservative tend to marry earlier and reproduce more, the people of the South and interior West evolved to be more conservative and religious as a result.

See my all my ongoing posts on the matter on blog:

pioneer hypothesis | JayMan's Blog

Noah172 said...

For all those claiming that New Hampshire shifted to the Democrats because of an influx of former Massachussetts residents:

If you look at maps of election returns, southeast NH -- Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, where the suburbs are -- lean Republican. The farther-out, more rural/small town areas of western and northern NH lean more to the Democrats (especially Grafton County, which includes some of NH's liberal university towns, such as Hanover [Dartmouth]).

New Hampshire's drift to the left probably has more to do with the state's low level of religiosity and thus social liberalism (NH has one of the highest pro-choice majorities of any state, according to polls). Also, like other Canadian border whitopias, it is so white that its residents don't need to think much about the downsides of diversity (and have the luxury of romanticizing NAMs), thus they see debates over the size of government the way that northern Europeans do: paying a little extra to help out your own kind, rather than the government taking from Us to give to Them.

Also, the GOP's embrace of neocon foreign policy and free trade Wall Street worship didn't help matters.

Anonymous said...

Obama generates excitement even now. Even those who are disillusioned see him on stage and the old magic comes back.


Wipe that jizz off your chin, stand up, and try to remember you're a man.

ben tillman said...

GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people.

Um, no. Smart people don't give a damn about brands. They might care about what others think and, therefore, pretend to reject the GOP because of the ludicrous portrait of it painted by the MSM, but obviously no smart person would base his SECRET vote on some stupid, false, media-imposed "brand".

Average or slightly-above-average people with limited powers of discernment -- now, that's a different matter.

ben tillman said...

So Republicans do well in states with lebensraum? And Democrats prosper in high scarcity ones? Presumably with resources in short supply the state becomes vital to securing the necessities of life for ones kith & kin - so if ones racial gang has sufficient leverage it can extract what it needs.

Right. It's the same with people as with insects. As E.O. Wilson said,

Endowed with the advantages of colonial life, the social insects have managed to displace solitary insects, such as cockroaches, grasshoppers, and beetles, from the most favored nest sites and defensible foraging ranges. In the most general terms, social insects control the center of the land environment, while solitary insects predominate in the margins.

"Racial gangs" -- as you call them -- dominate the densely populated, resource-rich areas of this country and extract resources from other people while the more individualistic folks in the less densely populated areas extract resources from the land.

Anonymous said...

"Obama generates excitement even now. Even those who are disillusioned see him on stage and the old magic comes back."


"Wipe that jizz off your chin, stand up, and try to remember you're a man."

You morons just don't get it. I'm talking of PERCEPTIONS and Media IMAGE, not the real Obama who I think is a pile of puss.

Polymath said...

That map is exactly what I forecast a couple of months ago. Romney probably wins Maine's 2nd CD in this scenario so he wins 270-268 (Maine and Nebraska are not winner-take-all) but even a 269-269 tie favors Romney because the House decides then.

That map is also identical to relaclearpolitics.com's map if you call the "tossup states" for Romney.

Romney also has a shot in the rust belt states of WI, MI, OH, PA and can offset the loss of Florida if he wins WI and OH and ME2 (the other 269-269 tie that might happen) or various other combinations.

More likely in my opinion is that Romney will win Ohio and not win all 3 of Nevada, Colorado, and Iowa (if he wins Ohio and loses all 3 of those he loses unless he can pick up NH or another rust belt state).

But because states tend to move together, the elction can be siimplified a great deal: whoever wins both Ohio and Florida almost certainly wins the election; if they split, the Florida winner is a 3:2 favorite in my opinion.

ben tillman said...

No, Democratic Party is not the party of Nams. It is the party that exploits the Nams. At the top, liberalism is the party of intelligent Jews, creative gays, Silicon Valley inventors, etc.

At the top the GOP is also the party of Jews and gays (remember Ken Mehlman?), so you have failed to say anything. Try again.

NOTA said...

Pat: Link? Evidence?

I've seen a lot of this idea that the polls are all lying in Obama's favor on the right end of the blogosphere. Assuming the election tracks well with the polls (as it usually does), what will you learn? Will that be proof that both the polls and the election were cooked?

Anonymous said...

"Idiocracy took over the gop... palin, limbaugh, etc"

The globalist overclass took over the national GOP from the late 80s onwards and because their economic policy - unlimited mass immigration to drive down wages - goes completely against the economic interests of middle class voters they had to disguise it by focusing on social issues and war-patriotism.

That's finally run out of gas as enough people, even if it's only a few percent, realise that the national GOP isn't on their side.

Anonymous said...

"If life were fair, if the media were fair, the press and the culture would point out continuously that..."

All you need to conquer a nation and colonize their country is a stealth pearl harbor attack on their media and education system and then 2-3 generations of cultural manipulation.

Japanese, Koreans etc take note.

.
"But where is the outrage from the conservative masses? We say GOP elites don't listen to us, but how can they listen to us when we are so silent?"

That would be "racist" so the same reason as above - culturally disarmed without firing a shot.

Anonymous said...

Creationists don't really mean it.

Romney doesn't really mean what he says about immigration.

They all mean what I think they mean, which is what I want them to mean.

Except they don't, and I get shellacked every time I trust them.

But, I'll continue to believe in them and vote for them.

Why? Well, of course. Because I'm a faith-based voter.

elvisnixon.com said...


10 Winning Debate Questions :Romney Can Beat Obama

If Mitt Romney continues to obey the Juan McCain/Bob Dole playbook he will meet the same fate as those RINOs.

The only path to success is to speak to the American people over the heads of our managed media. He can do so by staying with the truth and asking direct questions of Obama:

#1. If our US Ambassador had been a "person of color" and he was dragged out and raped before being brutally murdered by a mob of white Europeans would you accept that the crowd was angered by the United States allowing blasphemy such as the TV show "Family Guy"?

#2 Would you call on the Oscars to remove the blasphemer as Academy Awards host?

#3 Why does your wife use taxpayer funds to vacation in foreign lands in the most lavish possible manner/

#4 If you were unaware of the preaching of Jeremiah Wright why did you attend his "church" for so long?

#5 Seeing your addiction to apologies will you now apologize for using millions of US taxpayer dollars to create the current Libyan government and support the fanatics of the "Arab Spring"?

#6. Since you claimed that your view of homosexual "marriage" had "evolved" can you please explain why you opposed it in the first place?

#7 Why do you invite homosexuals t Easter and every Christian holiday but no homosexuals to your Ramadan or any Muslim events that you host at the White House?

#8 Do you support a bilingual or multilingual US with English merely one of many choices? Do you support Mexican illegals receiving US Drivers licenses as Governor Brown has granted in California?

#9 Will you support making homosexual Harvey Milk Day a National Holiday as it is in California? If not why not?

and the key question:

#10 How can you allow a single illegal alien to be employed in the USA while there are more Americans unemployed and underemployed than at any time since the Great Depression?


http://elvisnixon.com/2012/10/02/10-winning-debate-questions-romney-can-beat-obama.aspx

Anonymous said...

You morons just don't get it. I'm talking of PERCEPTIONS and Media IMAGE


You clearly believe that the media image is accepted as reality by most people.

Anonymous said...

Of all the multitude of problems afflicting America today, why do some people obsess about creationists? Is there a less powerful, less influential, more marginalized group of people in the country? I can't think of one. It's like freaking out about Gold Bugs, or the imminent threat that the Aryan Brotherhood are going to take over the government. It's completely and utterly detached from reality.

Anonymous said...

Can I get an amen from the last anonymous regarding the total freakoutt on creationists. BTW how did the giraffe get that neck.

MDR

NOTA said...

Anon 2:47:

I think the media image is a default worldview held by most people on topics they know little about. If you know anything about a topic, it's almost always painful to watch mainstream media coverage of that topic--the reporters are usually lucky to spell the names right. But if you know nothing at all about, say, Syria or polygamist Mormon enclaves or genetically modified food, then it's hard not to basically have the MSM picture in the back of your mind. Only some of that picture comes from news--probably much more comes from TV shows and movies, which demonstrate the worldview and its implications and model good and bad behavior for the viewers.

Anonymous said...

BTW how did the giraffe get that neck

Lamarckism

ATBOTL said...

"GOP is the dumb creationist party. Horrible brand that repels smart people."

This is very true, especially among the young.

The GOP should embrace evolution and apply it to humans.

ATBOTL said...

"Democratic Party is the dumb warmist, race-denying, blank-slatist, economically illiterate, innumerate party. Horrible brand that repels smart people."

The GOP is the same on those issues, except for obviously not supporting global warming because the cheap labor lovers don't like it, which they would do regardless of the evidence, so they won't get any credit even for being right, because that's not why they are doing it.

The GOP does have prominent politicians who deny evolution, something that many younger, well educated people I know are aware of and is a big deal to them.

Creationism is a big stick that the youth oriented leftish media uses to beat the GOP. They bring this stuff up all the time on the Daily Show, Colbert Report and other TV programs that young people watch.

Anonymous said...

Where are those transitional fossils again? Remind me of the mathematical odds of all these random acts giving us Mozart. Refresh my memory on how zero x infinity = Newton.

I am in no ways suggesting a 6,000 year old earth. I am just asking a few simple questions from dumb a-- flyover country.

MDR