Why We Vote As We Do

With the exception of two school years (Spokane) and one summer (Burns) spent in the Far West (“Settlement largely controlled by corporations or government via deployment of railroads, dams, irrigation mines; exploited as an internal colony, to the lasting resentment of its people.”), I have lived my entire life – Eugene, Portland, Eugene again, Seattle, Arch Cape, back to Portland, Santa Rosa, and again Portland – on the Left Coast. (“New Englanders [by ship] and farmers and fur traders from Appalachian Midwest [by wagon]. Yankee utopianism meets individual self-expression and exploration.”)

My mother grew up in Mason City Iowa, the center of the Midlands (“Culturally pluralistic, founded by English Quakers. Ethnic and religious purity were never priorities; community-oriented and distrustful of government intervention.”) She came to the Left Coast during World War II. Family lore has it that at the end of the War, my father chose to be mustered out of the Air Force on the West Coast because he was given a travel allowance to get back home to the East Coast where he was inducted. (If that’s not true, it’s illustrative anyway.) He and mom settled and raised their family on the Left Coast. He came from the Deep South (“Established by slave lords from English Barbados as a West Indies-style slave society. Modeled on slave states of the ancient world – democracy was the privilege of the few. Fights for rollbacks of federal power, taxes on capital and the wealthy, and environmental, labor and consumer protections.”), Tampa, on the Gulf Coast of Florida, right on the border of the Spanish Caribbean (“Legacy of the maritime component of Spain’s New World empire with hub in Havana.”)

Whew. The above, and more, comes from Colin Woodard via The New York Times. Mr. Woodard is the author of “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.” Mr. Woodard’s thesis is that red-state and blue-state voters are not divided by rural versus urban, but rather by the several European cultures that settled the various regions of the U.S.

Woodard further postulates that persons who move from one region to another, generally assimilate into their adopted culture. In mother’s case, it’s probably true. Of Irish, English and Norwegian heritage, her Midlands tendencies morphed into Left Coast “utopianism” and even more so “individual self-expression.” Father, not so much. His Spanish and German, Deep South heritage did not adapt as well to Left Coast traits. “Privilege of the few” and antipathy to “federal power, taxes … environmental, labor and consumer protections” became more pronounced, exhibited by selfishness and racism. My mother voted Democratic, my father Republican.

So what does this all mean? According to Mr. Woodard, Trump-style Republicans could be in trouble come November 2018. Counties in rural Midlands and Yankeedom (“Puritan legacy; perfect earthly society with social engineering, individual denial for common good; assimilate outsiders; vigorous government to thwart would-be tyrants.”) that in 2016 voted for the current occupant of the White House after twice giving their vote to Obama, may see promises to bring back manufacturing, rebuild infrastructure, protect workers from imports and immigrants and replace the vilified Affordable Care Act with “something terrific at a fraction of the cost” as empty campaign rhetoric. Or as the lies they were.

Vote.

The more people who vote, the worse Republicans do. It will take a lot of votes to overcome gerrymandering, voter suppression and Russian meddling.

For more detail on the eleven nations of the U.S., click here to read Colin Woodard’s summary.

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