One of the memes that I have read quite a few times in the past week is that the Democrats have won 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections and that the institutions of electoral government discriminate against them.
A review of the actual results of the last 8 elections does not quite support that assertion. In only 4 of those 8 elections has either party mustered a majority of voters; in the other 4 the victor won by a plurality. This to my mind betrays a fundamental disaffection (relatively speaking) for the choices given the electorate.
Here are the raw numbers:
Only in 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2020 did the winner get more than 50% of the vote. The Democratic share has actually been remarkably stable since 1992, varying between 48.2% in 2016 to 52.9% in 2008. The GOP share has been much more volatile, varying between 40.7% in 1996 and 50.7% in 2004.
The bottom line is that in the past 24 years the Democratic brand of economic moderation and social liberalism has been only slightly more popular than the GOP’s increasingly extreme brand of White Christian blood and soil hegemony.
This has led to the Democrats’ problems in obtaining a Senate majority. The first two maps below show the Electoral College vote in 1992 and 1996:
Figure 1
Contrast that with the electoral college vote this year:
Seven of those States – LA, AR, MO, IA, TN, WV, and OH – frequently if not always seated Democratic Senators. That is all gone now.
And the trend in the GOP-ization of the Mississippi Valley continued this year. First, let me show you a map of the Valley:
Next, here is a map showing the 2016 results in the Presidential race:
Note that the area of increased voting for the GOP overlays pretty well with the geographical Mississippi Valley. That only intensified in 2020.
In large part, I suspect this simply reflects the dying out of the Greatest Generation, which remembered the programs that the Democrats of the 1930s and 1940s had enacted to make their lives better; and their replacement by younger generations which know the Democrats mainly as the party of civil rights for minorities.
Now let me show you the map of the party composition of the Senate after the 2018 elections:
Since then, CO and AZ have completed flipping blue, while MS flipped back red. 44 States have Senators who completely align with their Presidential votes. 3 – ME, PA, and WI – have a GOP Senator despite voting Democratic in the 2020 Presidential election. 3 others – WV, OH, and MT – have Democratic Senators despite voting GOP in the 2020 election.
Biden won 24 States, Trump 26. And there is the problem.
In order to form a functioning governing majority, the Democratic Party must find a way to reliably bring several more States into the fold, while maintaining their somewhat tenuous grip on the “blue wall.” A year ago I addressed this issue, and little has changed since.
There are 4 Sunbelt States “on the cusp:” NC, GA, FL, and TX.
There are 6 “Exurban bleedovers:” ME (Boston), SC (Charlotte), KS (Kansas City), NE, IA (Omaha), and WV Pittsburgh and Washington DC).
What Stacy Abrams has done in Georgia needs to be implemented in all 10 of those States. There are 6 GOP-held Senate seats in those States, plus PA and WI, coming up for election in 2022:
That is where efforts need to be focused next.
The NEBM (New Economy Business Model), from a strategic perspective, focuses on particular products and processes as opposed to the old business model which was based on horizontal diversification and vertical integration ( Lazonick, 2006 ).
In particular this translates to increased investment in STEM, particularly IT and finance, along with industrialization of agriculture and either automation or offshoring of manufacturing. This pits the positive politics of racial pandering and urbanization against the negative politics of anarchy and dystopia. No one really gives a F about those that do physical labor. When the liberal party represents the capitalists then conservatives go insane.
“… racial pandering…”
[The most powerful and obvious example of this in recent events is the tragically short-sighted call to “defund the police.” Echoing BLM on this across the leftier side of our party just cost us the US Senate and Joe a much wider margin against Trump.
WTF, this stupidity was drawn directly from the Donald Trump playbook modeled after Trump’s effort to bring “greater efficiency” to the USPS. Someone should have told the BLM leadership and the far left that Donald Trump is a big liar as well as an asshole. Trump was NOT trying to make the USPS more efficient, but rather he was trying to kill it. There is no way that a bunch of shrinks and social workers are going to be cheaper crime fighters that the morons that we already hire as local police. Would our kinder, gentler cops carry firearms? WTF are people thinking? Even Bernie split with AOC on this.]
If the Dems had gotten the Senate—or if they do with the Georgia runoffs, possible but not likely—and do away with the filibuster—they might as well you know the GOP will the next time it suits them—I believe the can add DC and Puerto Rico as states even over Moscow Mitch’s most strenuous objections. That would give the Dems two and probably 4 more reliably Democratic Senators. Beyond that I do believe that the Democrats will have to look South and West for more Senators. The upper Midwest is going to be a continued dog fight at best while the plains states and the Ohio Valley appear to be lost causes for the balance of my lifetime.
“…Note that the area of increased voting for the GOP overlays pretty well with the geographical Mississippi Valley. That only intensified in 2020.
In large part, I suspect this simply reflects the dying out of the Greatest Generation, which remembered the programs that the Democrats of the 1930s and 1940s had enacted to make their lives better; and their replacement by younger generations which know the Democrats mainly as the party of civil rights for minorities…”
[Agreed. If this is racism, then it is racism against blue collar white men that are dying from economic depression of a different sort than brought us the New Deal. Well, reverse racism is still racism, but that is generally lost in liberal messaging. We are regifting a large part of the US to the Republican Party that they had given to us in 1929.]
I see no purpose whatsoever in showing a map of counties colored red and blue for election results.
It is insulting to the intelligence of any thinking person.
The US consists of fifty states, of course.
Take the 25 (or 26) that are most ‘rural’
and consider that they will likely have
GOP majorities among their voters.
Expect them to elect GOP senators,
and realize this will result in a Senate
dominated by the GOP. Then, face
the consequences of this.
Ken
the economic “moderation” of the Democrats has failed to help working people.
this might explain the results of elections better than the supposed racism etc of the people who vote for Republicans, or don’t vote at all.
add the economic failure of the Dems to their being perceived as the party of “civil rights for minorities” (never delivered) and you begin to explain the “racism.”