oromagi

Even with a new president and political party soon in charge of the White House, the nation’s economic standoff continues. Notwithstanding President-elect Joe Biden’s solid popular vote victory, last week’s election failed to deliver the kind of transformative reorientation of the nation’s political-economic map that Democrats (and some Republicans) had hoped for. The data confirms that the election sharpened the striking geographic divide between red and blue America, instead of dispelling it.

Most notably, the stark economic rift that Brookings Metro documented after Donald Trump’s shocking 2016 victory has grown even wider. In 2016, we wrote that the 2,584 counties that Trump won generated just 36% of the country’s economic output, whereas the 472 counties Hillary Clinton carried equated to almost two-thirds of the nation’s aggregate economy.

A similar analysis for last week’s election shows these trends continuing, albeit with a different political outcome. This time, Biden’s winning base in 509 counties encompasses fully 71% of America’s economic activity, while Trump’s losing base of 2,547 counties represents just 29% of the economy. (Votes are still outstanding in 28 mostly low-output counties, and this piece will be updated as new data is reported.)

So, while the election’s winner may have changed, the nation’s economic geography remains rigidly divided. Biden captured virtually all of the counties with the biggest economies in the country (depicted by the largest blue tiles in the nearby graphic), including flipping the few that Clinton did not win in 2016.

By contrast, Trump won thousands of counties in small-town and rural communities with correspondingly tiny economies (depicted by the red tiles). Biden’s counties tended to be far more diverse, educated, and white-collar professional, with their aggregate nonwhite and college-educated shares of the economy running to 35% and 36%,

respectively, compared to 16% and 25% in counties that voted for Trump.

In short, 2020’s map continues to reflect a striking split between the large, dense, metropolitan counties that voted Democratic and the mostly exurban, small-town, or rural counties that voted Republican.  Blue and red America reflect two very different economies: one oriented to diverse, often college-educated workers in professional and digital services occupations, and the other whiter, less-educated, and more dependent on “traditional” industries.

With that said, it would be wrong to describe this as a completely static map. While the metropolitan/ nonmetropolitan dichotomy remained starkly persistent, 2020 election returns produced nontrivial movement, as Biden added modestly to the Democrats’ metropolitan base and significantly to its vote base. Most notably, Biden flipped six of the nation’s 100 highest-output counties, strengthening the link between these core economic hubs and the Democratic Party. More specifically, Biden flipped half of the 10 most economically significant counties Trump won in 2016, including Phoenix’s Maricopa County; Dallas-Fort Worth’s Tarrant County; Jacksonville, Fla.’s Duval County; Morris County in New Jersey; and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.’s Pinellas County.

Altogether, those losses shaved about 3 percentage points’ worth of GDP off the economic base of Trump counties. That reduced the share of the nation’s GDP produced by Republican-voting counties to a new low in recent times.

Why does this matter? This economic rift that persists in dividing the nation is a problem because it underscores the near-certainty of both continued clashes between the political parties and continued alienation and misunderstandings.

To start with, the 2020’s sharpened economic divide forecasts gridlock in Congress and between the White House and Senate on the most important issues of economic policy. The problem—as we have witnessed over the past decade and are likely to continue seeing—is not only that Democrats and Republicans disagree on issues of culture, identity, and power, but that they represent radically different swaths of the economy. Democrats represent voters who overwhelmingly reside in the nation’s diverse economic centers, and thus tend to prioritize housing affordability, an improved social safety net, transportation infrastructure, and racial justice. Jobs in blue America also disproportionately rely on national R&D investment, technology leadership, and services exports.

By contrast, Republicans represent an economic base situated in the nation’s struggling small towns and rural areas. Prosperity there remains out of reach for many, and the party sees no reason to consider the priorities and needs of the nation’s metropolitan centers. That is not a scenario for economic consensus or achievement.

At the same time, the results from last week’s election likely underscore fundamental problems of economic alienation and estrangement. Specifically, Trump’s anti-establishment appeal suggests that a sizable portion of the country continues to feel little connection to the nation’s core economic enterprises, and chose to channel that animosity into a candidate who promised not to build up all parts of the country, but rather to vilify groups who didn’t resemble his base.

If this pattern continues—with one party aiming to confront the challenges at top of mind for a majority of Americans, and the other continuing to stoke the hostility and indignation held by a significant minority—it will be a recipe not only for more gridlock and ineffective governance, but also for economic harm to nearly all people and places. In light of the desperate need for a broad, historic recovery from the economic damage of the COVID-19 pandemic, a continuation of the patterns we’ve seen play out over the past decade would be a particularly unsustainable situation for Americans in communities of all sizes.

In the end, in red counties, you’d have…

• Lots of guns
  
• lots of violence
  
• Lots of underlying racism
  
• Lots of religious bigotry
  
• Lots of excuses for why the finances and operational system of govt was failing
  
• Lots of unwed mothers
  
• Lots of welfare use
  
• …and SERIOUS MONEY PROBLEMS.
  

questions, comments, words of wisdom? 

• Gandhi was not well fed but a fairly lofty thinker
  
• I am overly well fed but I can't get my brain out of the gutter
  

how useful kritiks are on this platform. I see a lot of debates say they aren't allowed in the rules, so I was curious

• how often they are used when not banned and
  

• if people are willing to vote on them.
  

• should kritiks have a space on this platform
  

Claiming beloved princess is a common though rare tactic used by Mafia to delay the inevitable giving them the advantage of you waiting that much longer to get their partner.

• Looks like lunatic shared your outlook
  
• https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/5755/post-links/251883
  
• May be what got him killed
  

We wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for you lol.

• to what does Pie refer?
  

I don't want to do anything until we hear from oromagi

If you are silenced, place a vote on me to signify this. 

Who first decided that culture could be cancelled?

The Walt Disney Company pulled “Dumbo,” “Peter Pan,” “The Aristocats” and “Swiss Family Robinson” from its offerings for children under 7. Adult Disney Plus profiles still have access to the films with the content warning

--> @oromagi

Honestly just throwing it out because I think it makes interesting discussion. I am not looking to influence the culture of the site. Not until I learn it at least. 

Anyway I'm pretty torn on whether Grey should use his role tonight. It may confirm him but I'm not sure confirming Grey would be worth the potential killing of power roles, and we may also wish that we had his vig role later on when we've done more narrowing down of suspects.

-> @Bringerofrain

I dont wanna vig np1

I would propose banning certain topics such as what follows.

1. Nuclear war is good

2. Murder is good

3. Rape is good

4. Women are inferior to men

5. Some races are superior to others

I want to unvote but the site is sending me to the front page when I press the bold key

How many laws of pie does he have and are they written down in a single easy to find location?

Read Pie's last to messages to me. How does he know I am town falsely accusing him with no evidence and not scum falsely accusing because I don't care about evidence? 

[It] is clear that some people are genetically superior to others.

You guys are genetically superior to me, for the most part I assume.

It used to be when early marriage and monogamy was forced on people that those who are called incel's today could have lead a happy life with a good wife and some kids.

Now these guys have become genetic dead ends. Were they failed by society?

Sure female agency is a good thing, but was the cost of female agency something that resulted in a large portion of males who ended up genetic dead ends?

Some women are genetically inferior because they put on weight easier than others.

we see a push back by these women where they demand to be seen as attractive and demand others ignore their genetic inferiority. What will be the result of a society where a bunch of women are treated merely as "slump busters" and a bunch of men cannot have sex at all? 

Society was more stable when the government and social standards intervened to get these incel's from the 50s laid. (I acknowledge that the stability came at the cost of equality).

Should society save other genetically inferior people to avoid social decay such as HAES advocates and INCELs

You regularly post on the religion forum about religion and you are telling us that you have never heard of the battle of Milvian Bridge which began the creation of the Roman Church 300 years after the crucifixion?

unaltered series of scriptures to pass down generations and have rewritten verbatim.

Why/how did Romans then end up founding one of the oldest forms of Catholicism?

From the perspective of Romans and Hebrews at the time, was Jesus a cult leader?