The Red, the Whites and the Blue

"The whole business stopped making sense some time ago."
Ann Davidson in the New Yorker, on the Republican presidential race.

Echoing my own opinion expressed some months ago, Jonathan Chiat observes: "But now [Ben] Carson actually is running for president. Or is he? It is hard to tell. Conservative politics are so closely intermingled with a lucrative entertainment complex that it is frequently impossible to distinguish between a political project (that is, something designed to result in policy change) and a money-making venture.

"Declaring yourself a presidential candidate gives you access to millions of dollars' worth of free media attention that can build a valuable brand. So the mere fact that Carson calls himself a presidential candidate does not prove he is actually running for president rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to build his brand. Indeed, it is possible to be actually leading the polls without seriously trying to win the presidency. And the notion that Carson could be president is preposterous."

In recent weeks, the media consensus seems to be that neither Trump nor Carson are serious contenders, although Frank Rich for one doesn't believe their lackluster performances in this week's debate will rattle the polls much (and weirdly enough, Fox News agrees.)  Yet there's also conventional agreement that they are expressing deep anger that's not going away.

That anger is found mostly in the white working class, in the Red States. Election results last week renewed the impression that despite then-Senator Barack Obama's bravado proclamation in 2004,  America is largely divided into red states and blue states, with further divisions just as stark within them.

Population losses and gains as well as movement (sometimes to blue states for jobs or for a sympathetic community; sometimes to red states for lower housing and other costs) are reinforcing the division.

The anger and the reasons for it--leading to political paradox and frustration--are pretty ably analyzed in this post-election piece by Christian Science Monitor staffer Patrick Jonsson.  That government has let such people down should be sobering to those who support public solutions to common problems.  The reason for Trump and Carson can partly be found in the impression that this segment of the electorate is suspicious of both parties, including Republican ties to big business.

The plight of the lower middle class is real, and has not been successfully addressed by either party, or by either public or private sectors.  That's one very sobering message.

There were other factors in this particular election.  Lots of post-election day political stories blaming President Obama for GOPer gains in various places, like Kentucky.  But as other analysts show--particularly Chiat in a very perceptive column--as well as John Cassidy in the New Yorker) the results are kind of like global heating--a powerful force that exaggerates normal variations.  The normal weather variations include gains by the out-party in a President's last term.  Global heating is the ongoing demographic division of America and its political consequences.  It's at least as old as Blue States and Red States of 2000, though likely trending that way 20 years before that (i.e Reagan), and it's getting more permanent and pervasive.

Democrats and progressives did make gains this year, but in Pennsylvania for example, a presidential Blue State that has enough of a white lower middle class and a strong enough centrist tradition that state government usually switches parties every 4 or 8 years.  An unusual number of vacancies in the state Supreme Court led to a highly contested election, and the Democratic candidates won all the open seats, and with young judges, so a progressive cast seems guaranteed for years to come.  Pennsylvania is a light to medium Blue State that may be becoming a dark Blue State. There were similar victories in places like Colorado, transitioning to Blueness.

Of course, it is in a sense President Obama's fault as his color makes it easier for GOPer candidates to exploit racial hatred and xenophobia.  The deep Red deep South spreads into what used to be called border states, and Kentucky and Tennessee are absorbed completely.

The national political parties are another factor. As Cassidy's piece points out, GOPers have done a better job for some years in identifying and supporting young leaders, and generally building local politics.  Labor unions used to be a big factor in cultivating young leaders and organizing locally, but since their decline, the Dems haven't done so well.  Barack Obama and other individual candidates inspired new people to become involved, but that enthusiasm and loyalty wasn't always transferred.

There are some unsettling and worrisome factors beneath all this.  The split between rich and the rest has layers.  The ultra rich are GOPer primarily.  Some of them have as extreme views as this year's leading GOPer candidates.

 But there is also a split between the college educated urban upper-to- middle middle class, and the white not-so-educated, not so urban lower middle class. The former trends Dem and vaguely progressive (though there's a weird and naive brand of libertarianism among the new techies.) The latter is now defining the GOPer party as angry, fearful (with a lot of paranoia) and prone to the kind of simplistic explanations that tend to support totalitarian regimes, even while disguised as revolts or revolutions.

What awaits analysis--or at least, any I've seen--is comparing the white lower middle class with the non-white segments.

There are battles ahead between the Red and the Blue, and they could get out of control under the pressure of events--such as effects of the climate crisis. Jonsson's piece offers some hope in this regard, as he emphasizes ties to local communities as still strong in red states.  (Then again, the racist violence unleashed in New Orleans by Katrina can no longer be covered up.)  In any case, over time and mostly through elections, or in emergency situations, the Red and the Blue are in a battle for more than political power--maybe even the nation's soul.