The demographic divide is geographical
Monday May 12, 2008
Categories: Culture, Politics (general)
As a follow to that great thread about college and culture, let me direct your attention to a provocative piece from the NYT Magazine yesterday, in which political scientists Bill Galston and Pietro Nevola argue that the whole "Red America/Blue...
Filed Under: Blue America, casting stones, cognitive haves, demography, Galston, politics, Red America
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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"Cognitive Haves For Obama" - where do I get that bumper sticker?
As a ten year resident of the People's Republic of Austin ("Two Hybrids in Every Garage!"), I would suggest that higher education doesn't necessarily equate to greater cognitive ability (but it sure does seem to equate to a slavish love of higher taxes and identity politics). Perhaps it would be wise to re-read the "College Hoax" thread from a couple of days ago . . .
Well, keep in mind that Bill Buckley was surely correct when he said that he'd rather be ruled by the first 500 names in the phone book than the faculty of Harvard. Still, for lack of a better term, "cognitive elite" will suffice, yes?
cb beat me to it. Having spent so many years of my life in academia, I can vouch for the fact that "having more formal education" does not necessarily correlate to "having more cognitive ability". I think the most eye-opening (and humbling) job I had was as a bartender, where I was astonished to discover that there are lots of really intelligent, well-read people who work regular jobs and don't have a lot of letters after their name.
David J. White, according to my Moveable Type management software, your comment on this thread was the 100,000th to appear on the Crunchy Con blog. You should win a free iPod or something.
This is very similar to the sort of thing Steve Sailer has been arguing, e.g. in his TAC piece from a few months ago. I'd hate, though, to see the GOP become the party of suburbia, which if his analysis - and this one, too - is right is what's going to be the case if the party wants to survive. Yuck.
David, I think the inverse of what you said is also true: just as "regular" types can be interesting and well-read, so can the highly educated be dull and limited to one field of expertise outside of which they read almost nothing.
Rod, was that software counting cb's inadvertent double comment? :)
David - Honestly, the longer I stay in Academia the more I think it stunts a person in some substantial other ways as well. Especially in a field like mine (actually, I believe ours - if I'm not mistaken, we met at the hotel bar at one of the CAMWS meetings) in which there isn't a lot of day to day relevance. In any case, after a while most of them seem to resemble the royal family in one of Eddie's Izzards bits. "You're a plumber? What on earth is that?"
Exactly (to Rod's writing and the article about geographic polarization).
This sort of thing is exactly why, as I would argue below, the culture war is not something that even CAN be "gotten beyond." Rather, it's part of the warp and woof of everyday life, affecting everything else -- I'm tempted to say "it's permanent," and hesitate only because, a priori, I believe nothing human is.
This doesn't seem to differ much from the 2004 Judis and Texeira analysis.
Rod
"Well, keep in mind that Bill Buckley was surely correct when he said that he'd rather be ruled by the first 500 names in the phone book than the faculty of Harvard."
Didn't Bill say the first 2000 names? He was never one for exclusion.
DJ White and E Anne, your comments remind me of a joke about the Italian farmer to whom his college-educated relative attempted to describe what he did for a living as a techno-worker.
His jargon and every variant thereof returned a blank stare from the farmer - that is, until the bulb finally lit up.
"Oh!", cried the farmer. "You work *INside*!"
Or the Democrats are going to have to stiff its social liberals and become more fully a party that can legitimately accomodate social and religious conservatives.
I don't see anything in the analysis to support this. As you've said, a GOP that alienates Hispanics the way it alienates African Americans is on a demographic slide to oblivion. If Texas can turn blue in the next 30 years, why bother trying to attract religious conservatives who would just be a drag on the coalition that is the bedrock of the party?
Maybe the answer is the GOP needs to focus on economic uncertainty and push aside social conservatives. If they want to attract more people to the party, they can't continue to be seen as the party of intolerance. That's a demographic disaster, especially as young people become more open and tolerant.
I would suggest that higher education doesn't necessarily equate to greater cognitive ability
IQ, the best measure cognitive ability known, is strongly correlated with higher educational attainment.
Of course, education itself doesn't lead to higher cognitive function (IQ has a strong genetic component), but smart people do drift inexorably in that direction and few (even women and craftsmen in the sticks who may not be all that interested) slip the education net. The pressure is high as the information age is seriously short of brains: enter 1 billion Chinese, mean IQ 101-113.
"If they want to attract more people to the party, they can't continue to be seen as the party of intolerance. That's a demographic disaster, especially as young people become more open and tolerant."
I hate to say it, but I think Daniel has a point--though not the point he intended to make, perhaps.
In a culture fully immersed in the philosophy of relativism, where there's no such thing as good or evil--just what's "good" for me vs. what's "good" for you--anyone who believes in moral absolutes is simply going to be redefined as "intolerant," and the definition of "intolerant" will be "thinking that it's possible to make moral judgments or to know what is right and what is wrong."
The "torture pragmatists" in the GOP have already decided that notions of good and evil are a luxury that can't be afforded in the political sphere in this day and age; in this they join the Democrats who never met an abortion they wouldn't pay for (with our money, of course). Those of us who are intolerant of evil don't have a home in the current two-party system, and I think that's going to be increasingly clear not only in this upcoming election but for the foreseeable future.
Erin:
Neither those who believe in good and evil nor those who believe in limited government are going to find any kind of political home in modern National-Socialist America. The best those of us who espouse those beliefs are likely to do is to quietly survive and maintain those beliefs amongst ourselves until the regime and its supporting population go down in flames.
I just hope that the collapse doesn't take the rest of the Human species with it. I'm not at all optimistic about that.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
Meanwhile, young people have deserted rural and older manufacturing areas for cities like Austin and Portland. Places with higher densities of college graduates attract even more, so that the gap between such communities and less-educated areas widens further. Zones of high education, in turn, produce more innovation and enjoy higher incomes, generating communities dominated by upper-middle-class tastes.
This sounds suspiciously akin to the crackpot economic theory of Richard Florida.
So, in other words, the future of the GOP is to side with that portion of white America that, despite having been a part of the ethnic group that has been econonically dominant in this country for centuries, still hasn't managed to make it to prosperity, and matches that failure to succeed with cultural resentment. Sounds like a winner to me.
Snark aside, I don't think this is a very good move for other reasons. The GOP has been successful at positioning itself as the aspirational party, that is, the party of winners and people who want to be winners. Whether or not that is true or just a cargo cult type of politics isn't what matters, that has been the Republican Party's reputation in many quarters. For the party to become self-consciously working-class or lower-middle-class in its image and worldview may backfire in that it will be seen as the party of losers, or at the very least, the party of people more interested in sour grapes than success. That wasn't the Reaganite message, and if that message becomes the GOP's message, I suspect it will lose more voters than it gains.
Also, Rod, while Dallas County is going blue, it's not just because of Latino demographics. Social conservatism isn't all that popular among the middle to upper-middle class people who party in Greenville or on McKinney Avenue, or who live in the Park Cities, whether they are otherwise fairly conservative or GOP-leaning or not, and that has an effect at the ballot box. A lot of the political changes in Texas's major cities have to do with them being major cities, with all that entails culturally, not just immigration or natural increase in the homegrown Latino population.
I live in a California county that, in 1960, was so Democratic that it was one of two (along with San Francisco) that voted for Kennedy over home-state fave Nixon.
In 1990 it was just about 50-50.
In 2008, the Republicans have nearly a 2-1 registration edge over the Democrats.
The Democrats went away because all the old union timber-mill jobs went away. The Republicans come because Bay Area retirees and others who are actively seeking a conservative place to live land here.
The self-sorting is very, very real -- but so is the "Party of Sam's Club" vibe.
There's truth in what you say, Mark. We live in the city of Dallas, and it's uncommon to find Republicans in our part of town (and we're pissed-off Republicans at that; I have no problem voting Democratic in state and local elections).
Rod,
This is the first time in a long while that I've seen the Democrats have so few factions(usually there are more thats how Bill Clinton won in 1992), and the GOP be so divided. I don't think that either party is going to be able to be unified anytime soon.
Depending on which factions of both parties are in charge the two parties right now look too much a like. Neither party is for the middle class, small business, or for small government right now. Sure there might be some crumbs thrown out to their other factions, but both parties seem to favor the wealthy(or the really poor), big government, and big buisness.
I think we are looking at yet another 50/50 election this november because of the way the parties are not different enough.
This is really beautiful.
Because of the GOP, most Americans no longer feel overtaxed;
How about: Because of the GOP and their borrow and spendpolicies, this country has incurred more debt than we've ever had in our history.
because of the GOP, rising crime rates no longer threaten the fabric of daily life;
Tell that to the officer's family in Philadelphia who's chest was blown away with a semi-automatic that would have blown through the best police armor. I guess as long as the shooting sprees largely remain in the poor inner cities, most of us don't have to worry about our guts and blood spilling on our precious fabric. GO NRA! GO NRA! The GOP and the NRA are sick!
Lower-educated regions, by contrast, tend to be more family-oriented and more faithful to traditional authority.
Maybe out there in the country that's true. But most lower educated areas that I'm familiar with involve single mothers, high crime, lots of jail time for the males, and drugs and gangs. Maybe I need to stop watching the news and reading the paper and start reading more conservative blogs so that I can feel good about our lower educated regions.
This is no surprise. Geography has often influenced the economy and distribution of people. I use little subtle bits of demography in my pre-marital counseling. I ask if they are morning or night people, would they rather vacation in the mountains or at the beach, do they prefer winter or summer? All of these indicate attitudes and character that help people determine their compatability or combatability. The small indicators become larger demographic preferences.
Also to assume that one political party or another will remain constant is to also assume it will be static. That which does not change is likely dead. So the real task is determinging the tolerance, nature, and direction of changes. That was the question in the penultimate paragraph. It is the question every electoral cycle. It is the same question for a corporation at each gathering of the stockholders. And it is the question we pose each year at the annual meeting of our church members.
Total taxation has held mostly level for 30 years. The GOP stopped the growth of government, it didn't reduce it. In the meantime, Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, the Middle East, and India have slashed their taxes.
The demographic problem for the GOP can focus on one group: single mothers. They voted for the GOP in the south. But the GOP cannot balance the demands of single mothers with their conservative base. Unless they find a way to get those women married, their coalition will split.
But most lower educated areas that I'm familiar with involve single mothers, high crime, lots of jail time for the males, and drugs and gangs.
And without those areas, the Democratic Party wouldn't be much more competitive in American politics than the Greens or the Libertarians.
Other Jim @ 11:48 AM:
You overlook another group that will pose a massive problem for the GOP: the elderly. Think about it: millions of venal and self-centered Baby Boomers will be coming up to the day when they hit 62 and start being eligible for Social Security, Medicare and all the other freebies they've been told about for all these years. Time to cash in !
Combine that with the poverty problems of the single-mother-family crowd, and the demands for State-run freebies will absolutely skyrocket. Let's not forget that the people in these particular demographic groups are still, unaccountably, allowed to vote.
Meanwhile, the Red Chinese and the Wealthy Guys From South Dubai are going to run out of patience with us and stop buying the US government's T-bills. Guess who will be asked to pay more to make up the difference ?
Thee and me, brothers and sisters.
There won't be much room for tax cuts in the face of all that.
Oh, and let's not forget about all the illegal aliens coming in with their hands stuck out, either. Thanks a lot, Teddy Kennedy ! Back at you, John McCain !
American politics is gonna get SERIOUSLY wild over the next 20 years or so. Lots and lots of Solid Entertainment Value. Enjoy, kids !
Your servant,
Lord Karth
If the GOP does Huckify, I'll finally have a party to call home - - but I think it's unlikely. I was more active than usual this year, caucusing with the R's and going to the first round of conventions, and Huck was largely dismissed by the party activists I met as a "pro-life Democrat." For most of them, good public policy's beginning, middle, and end are tax cuts, tax cuts, and tax cuts, in that order. Huckabee's commitment to a viable infrastructure renders him a heretic.
Lord Karth,
That is my fear...and why I plan on moving to China in a few months.
"And without those areas, the Democratic Party wouldn't be much more competitive in American politics than the Greens or the Libertarians."
Har. And I was thinking Red States. Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma.
a landscape that has changed, in many cases, precisely because of the party's past successes. Because of the GOP, most Americans no longer feel overtaxed; because of the GOP, rising crime rates no longer threaten the fabric of daily life; because of the GOP, the free market no longer buckles under the weight of government regulation. But in these very successes lie the seeds of potential defeat.
Actually, violent crime rates and various other indicators of social distress and dysfunction rose rapidly starting in the early/mid 1960s and peaked between 1978 and 1982. That is also the period in which abortion rates, divorce rates, and gun ownership rates peaked. All those metrics have been a fairly linear decline since- and fell fastest during the late Clinton years, blipping up in the early Bush Jr years. The obvious correlation in time is loss of blue collar jobs due to the decline and shutting down of major industries. Government policies look utterly irrelevant on the charts. And the same for all the other claims of virtue.
But of course, that is to suppose that Douthat and the other fellow are trying to describe macroscopic American reality, which GOP propaganda isn't ever really about. This screed is basically only a love letter between the Party and the Entrepreneur ideal Republican voter, pointing out the perfection of their matchup.
Well, perfection as long as both take materially or psychologically (e.g. religious) colonialist attitudes to their surroundings, and agree to ignore the full consequences and real costs of what they do. After all, every period of Republican rule requires a recuperation period. The plundering/parasitism always generates large scale social, economic, and ethical damage.
"every period of Republican rule requires a recuperation period. The plundering/parasitism always generates large scale social, economic, and ethical damage."
Someone finally gets it! Keep saying stuff like that, Jillian, and you'll start being called a neo-Confederate or a Lost Causer! Oh, you weren't talking about the South after reconstruction? Sorry... ;-)
We didn't have the Big Government then to do economic reconstruction, Rob. ;-)
"We didn't have the Big Government then to do economic reconstruction, Rob."
:-) Well that's arguable, but nevertheless, I think the argument can be made that from Day One of its history, the GOP's track record has been, shall we say, problematic.
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