Althouse: "Purple America Has All But Disappeared."

March 8, 2017

"Purple America Has All But Disappeared."

FiveThirtyEight reports.

68 comments:

rcocean said...: Translation: Red State America starting to get smart and act like Blue state America. And that's a bad thing to 538.

LOL.; 3/8/17, 8:46 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Obviously. Prince died.

I am Laslo.; 3/8/17, 8:49 PM
Anonymous said...: Purple prose about Red America is alive and well.; 3/8/17, 8:56 PM
Dan in Philly said...: Also breaking, 538 is not relevant.; 3/8/17, 8:58 PM
rehajm said...: If the right spun like lefties they'd point out the overwhelming amount of red on the map.; 3/8/17, 9:03 PM
Kathryn51 said...: rcocean said...
Translation: Red State America starting to get smart and act like Blue state America.

In related news, Red State America stood up to the bullies and Ivanka Trump's clothing line notched its highest sales month. Ivanka Trump Sales Record

Glad to know that my first (and probably last) symbolic IT purchase helped fight the bullies.; 3/8/17, 9:09 PM
Michael K said...: The blue counties are getting fewer. "Closest election" to 538.; 3/8/17, 9:19 PM
traditionalguy said...: The Voting Rights Act wins. Every District shall be mandated to be drawn as a safe District for a minority candidate, which also mandates clumping majority voters into other Districts.

Nobody loses and nothing changes. And then along comes that damn Trump with his newly discovered trick of telling the truth.; 3/8/17, 9:20 PM
Sebastian said...: Purple America has disappeared because America is now red with a thin blue fringe.

The polarization makes Trump's win more remarkable: he was able to turn the few counties and states that could still be turned.

Of course, politics always was a numbers game, but perhaps more so now: parties have little chance of persuading the other side to achieve critical mass, GOTV matters most.

Good thing GOP strength is spread out--should keep the House out of lefty clutches a bit longer.; 3/8/17, 9:24 PM
Wince said...: rcocean said...
Translation: Red State America starting to get smart and act like Blue state America. And that's a bad thing to 538.

Maybe that's why 538 has a graphic that resembles an outbreak of Shingles?

"I could surface any time as a painful, blistering rash."; 3/8/17, 9:43 PM
iowan2 said...: Ive been hanging out at WAPO. So 538 cant be accurate. Demographics had nothing to do with this election, the Rooskies did it. How those rasckely Rooskies corrupted the voters in some states and not others has to be some impressive targeted mind games.; 3/8/17, 10:15 PM
Static Ping said...: When one party decides that its entire platform is to "other" various people it has decided are deplorable, it is not terribly surprising. People do catch on eventually that you hate them and act accordingly.; 3/8/17, 10:16 PM
RichardJohnson said...: The link mentioned Loving County. Years ago in my job, I needed to communicate with the Chief Appraiser of the Loving County Appraisal District. I e-mailed and called and got no response for several days. I had been calling the phone number for the Chief Appraiser. I changed tactics and called the main number for the Loving County Appraisal District. The woman who answered the phone told me the Chief Appraiser was "probably down at the cafe. I soon was able to communicate with the Chief Appraiser.; 3/8/17, 11:07 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: Surprising how close the map for 2012 looks to 2004. In 2016, Trump got the most votes for a Republican ever, a fact which has gotten lost in the noise. As things stand, I expect it will take at least a decade for Democrats to get back into the White House. That's why there's so much venting.; 3/8/17, 11:12 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Sean Trende did a beautiful job a couple of months ago analyzing the changes in all the regions over the last 3 decades. He even convinced me that 2016 wasn't all that much of a shock as the trends were there to see even in the previous two elections, but were just hidden under the extraordinary turnout of minorities for Obama in 2008 and to a less extent in 2012. Republicans increasingly win large majorities in small towns to mid-sized cities, whereas Democrats increase their shares in the mega cities over time. This shows up as polarization in the blue to red maps.; 3/9/17, 1:39 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: A couple thoughts. First, the Dems may be in geographic trouble. While they do fine with the popular vote, nation wide, they tend to be concentrated very heavily in a small number of states. Maybe they can flip a couple states with big cities, like FL, TX, or AZ, but it isn't going to be easy. They have one more election before reapportionment, and if they don't turn around their losses at the state level, they could get locked in for another decade. Making things worse, the Republicans are going to control the Decennial Census this time around (and the denizens at that agency have already been caught going against Trump). Which means at least some control over who gets counted and how.

A second thought though is that this election, like the previous two, wasn't purely a blue/red sort of contest. Trump pulled a lot of traditional working class, esp white, Dems, while losing a bunch of traditional upper middle class Republicans. I saw this in MT, where I voted, where Crooked Hillary was despised for her unpatriotic duplicity, while back in the western suburbs of Denver, in CO, where I grew up, a traditional Republican stronghold, none of the Republicans I know there really like Trump. No matter how duplicitous, or how liberal, Clinton is one of them. Trump isn't. I suspect that Silver and 538 picked up some of this with his statistical comparison between 1st and 2nd slots on ballots in different precincts in different states. Thus, Democrat Gov Steve Bullock could win reelection by 4 in MT while Trump was winning the state by double digits. I the result may be to have made the latest map in that article a little more extreme than the real situation. Maybe.; 3/9/17, 2:50 AM
Chris N said...: Grimace is purple. Grimace works for McDonalds. Has McDonalds all but disappeared?

Fact-check with a 'deep data dive' at 11; 3/9/17, 4:08 AM
stlcdr said...: Yet another Red Russia connection?

When the blues double down on stupidity, it's not surprising people of not even modest intelligence step away from it. Indeed, it seems that the democrats have more than their share of intellectuals who believe they are smarter than everyone else. Amazing.; 3/9/17, 4:25 AM
Jaq said...: I think the problem here for Democrats is that they haven't scolded, insulted, or otherwise demonstrated their disdain clearly enough to Americans who live outside of the city.

They should double down on their policies of funneling government resources to urban areas! Have you ever driven down the East Coast and noticed how much more luxurious the infrastructure is as you near Washington, DC. You can see the billions that have been spent on highways there, for example, and the expensive architecture that cronies of the government like and can afford. Get over a hundred miles outside of DC, and we are back to run down. It is obvious that DC has been sucking money out of the rest of the country and spending it on itself.; 3/9/17, 5:34 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Why does that recurring map depict Alaska as about half its real size, and Hawaii as maybe 30% bigger than it really is?; 3/9/17, 5:56 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: America's churches are all purple, but that's because it's Lent.; 3/9/17, 6:39 AM
lane ranger said...: In the analysis of county level voting, 538 somehow managed to overlook Trump's margin over Hillary: 2,623 to 489.; 3/9/17, 7:10 AM
Curious George said...: "Left Bank of the Charles said...
As things stand, I expect it will take at least a decade for Democrats to get back into the White House. That's why there's so much venting."

8 years. Or 12 years. But not a decade.; 3/9/17, 7:10 AM
Phil 314 said...: Purple disappeared because its not part of the map key.

I note that I grew up in a county that (according to the article) for the first time went overwhelmingly for the Republican (Oneida County, NY) and now live in a county that would be purple if it were part of the map key (Maricopa County, AZ). And yet my politics has moved more to the right as I've aged.
But I'd rather live in Maricopa County. And one big reason why many others would want to live in Maricopa County:

Jobs.; 3/9/17, 7:23 AM
JRoberts said...: News Flash: MSM laments the disappearance of "Purple America"

In other news: Man with bloody club laments disappearance of baby seals; 3/9/17, 7:26 AM
Danno said...: The term I have seen and read about is the blue team is "self-gerrymandering", based on both the Voting Rights Act and in their propensity to pile into and live in the hipster cities. Go blue, go!!; 3/9/17, 7:27 AM
Henry said...: One of those maps that is scaled to population would help spotlight the fact that the blue fringe holds a lot of people.; 3/9/17, 7:32 AM
Danno said...: And just now, a clown at NewRepublic has decided a BlueExit is in order.

https://newrepublic.com/article/140948/bluexit-blue-states-exit-trump-red-america; 3/9/17, 7:44 AM
Bob Ellison said...: RE: the BlueExit concept: who would benefit? That New Republic writer got into all sorts of stuff and links about how really, California and New York are the makers, and Iowa and Texas are the takers. That's a big talking point on both left and right.

No, seriously. California is a taker. New York is maybe half and half.

If the blue fringe could manage to de-fringe from the USA, that blue fringe would go full Greece. Not happy.

Texas and Pennsylvania and Iowa would do fine.; 3/9/17, 8:24 AM
sykes.1 said...: If the BlueExit were limited to the 50 or 60 Clinton Archipelago counties, not states, the remaining 3,000 plus counties would do just fine.

PS. In my own rural Ohio country there was not a single Democrat running for county office, although the nearby small city does have a Democrat mayor and city council.; 3/9/17, 8:30 AM
Henry said...: From the new republic article:

Go ahead, end your federal Amtrak subsidies. In their place, we will build fantastic, new high-speed rail systems of our own.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Seriously, there is absolutely no reason California, New York, New England can't do all those things the author says they should do. Free health care, free college tuition, free energy. These states and regions have economies as big as most countries in Europe. Go for it.; 3/9/17, 8:57 AM
chickelit said...: "Purple America" is a promise bespoken by Obama's purple lips.

Isn't about time he reasserted himself into American politics? Stooges like Nate Silver need him.; 3/9/17, 9:03 AM
Henry said...: BTW,

There's nothing the matter with Kansas; 3/9/17, 9:12 AM
kentuckyliz said...: The term I have seen and read about is the blue team is "self-gerrymandering", based on both the Voting Rights Act and in their propensity to pile into and live in the hipster cities. Go blue, go!!

They could be redlining, too. Drawing a red line around their blue cities and saying, you Red people, stay out of our cities! Behaviorally it's the otherizing and shunning and harassment of Red people in their Blue Zones.

Go ahead, Bluexit. Set up a generous welfare state and we'll emigrate our government-dependents to you and keep the productives. I know you'll love to take our immigrants and refugees. Boom.; 3/9/17, 9:28 AM
kentuckyliz said...: The final nail for Purple was Hillary the Loser suit.; 3/9/17, 9:29 AM
MadisonMan said...: Purple America has simply learned to keep its mouth shut.

Hide in plain sight!; 3/9/17, 10:09 AM
Rance Fasoldt said...: Back in the day, Republicans were represented as blue, Democrats as red. I posit that the change came when Democrats became uneasy about the color red making them appear to be closer to the Communist point of view. Which was uncomfortably true.; 3/9/17, 10:21 AM
Static Ping said...: If there was a Bluexit, you do have to wonder how much certain members of the new blue coalition would enjoy getting bullied by the large cities, given the red counties would no longer be available for that purpose. An extremely liberal but small state like Vermont probably would not enjoy the demands of New York City, Boston, etc., especially if those cities opened the borders and then declared that Vermont had to pay their fair share for the policy. Oh, and Vermont would have to give up their guns, of course, and who does not enjoy being eaten by the wildlife. Then again, maybe New York would just buy out the locals and repopulate with vacation homes for the elite, which frankly they have already done part way. I never really imagined that Connecticut and Rhode Island would want to go back to the old colonial days with Massachusetts and New York trying to annex the rest of New England.

Out in California, it would be amusing to see the citizens of San Francisco and Los Angeles suffering from permanent drought caused by eco-policies shortly before the area is annexed by Mexico. Silicon Valley meets the drug cartels would be a battle for the ages.; 3/9/17, 10:25 AM
tcrosse said...: Bluexit would be a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Donald Trump will not be President forever. It's possible that eventually the Economic Royalists of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood will have the country back.; 3/9/17, 11:09 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Bluexit!

I say go for it. But let's first experiment with a smaller move -- Calexit. Cal could become kinda like old Texas, an independent nation. You guys in the other 49 states would thank us, because your electoral college prospects would greatly prosper, less 55 blue electoral votes.; 3/9/17, 11:14 AM
gerry said...: And remember the Roe Effect: the blue area inhabitants abort themselves into oblivion.; 3/9/17, 11:20 AM
Seeing Red said...: This is what happens when wailing banshees won't shut up and mind their own beezwax.; 3/9/17, 12:13 PM
Seeing Red said...: Cali can feed itself. I'm not so sure about NY.

Oh, man, they could try and ship food to each other but those border taxes to the flyover states in between.; 3/9/17, 12:17 PM
Jim said...: Henry at 8:57 nailed it. Why haven't CA, IL, VT for example, decided to go single payer health care? There is certainly as much scale as Norway or Sweden?; 3/9/17, 12:18 PM
Darrell said...: I look forward to the day when Trump can win all 538 Electoral College votes.; 3/9/17, 12:54 PM
Scott said...: Seeing Red said...

Cali can feed itself. I'm not so sure about NY.

Oh, man, they could try and ship food to each other but those border taxes to the flyover states in between.

3/9/17, 12:17 PM

Worse than that. if California, say, bails, it has zero trade agreements with anyone. Hollywood would be cut out of the US and international movie market until that was negotiated. Ditto Silicon Valley. Ditto the California Rasin Growers Association, and so forth.

Add in them having to come up with the money to create their own military to protect themselves (can't have us deplorables roll the tanks in to recreate Sherman's March to the Sea), and it's clear this is a pipe dream.

That said, the real nightmare for the Democrats is coming, since it's not exactly impossible that the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations gets nuked with several of the senior leftist justices very elderly. Add in the probability of a Republican Senate through 2020 and that could be very damaging to one of the props of their control.; 3/9/17, 12:56 PM
Jaq said...: New York State could feed itself, but I don't know how they would keep everything north of the Bronx blue.

What real things is NYC going to buy and sell?; 3/9/17, 1:03 PM
DRP said...: They're using the 1992 and 1996 elections as part of their proof that the country is becoming more polarized, but both of those elections had three major candidates for president. Of course the number of counties where candidates got more than 20% is going to be less. Perot got 19% nationally in 1992 and almost 9% in 1996. Bill Clinton didn't win a majority of voters in either election.

In other words, their math is correct, but meaningless. Their conclusions are invalid because the circumstances of the elections are dissimilar.; 3/9/17, 1:29 PM
Michael K said...: My middle daughter is negotiating a job with Apple. They are far enough along so that she is starting to think about where she could live.

She is now thinking about buying a motor home and living in that. Most Apple employees live more than an hour from work and some two hours. She would need to figure out where she could park it during the week.

Interesting to think about life in deep blue states.; 3/9/17, 1:36 PM
Titus said...: Cambridge MA went 90% Clinton and 5% Trump.

The only people I know voted for Trump are YOU people and I don't even know you...thank God.

tits.; 3/9/17, 1:53 PM
Static Ping said...: If California left, the "state" of Jefferson would want to leave, as would a lot of the inland rural counties. I suspect these counties would be where the majority of food is grown. California can feed itself. Los Angeles and the Bay Area probably cannot. There is also the matter of their water supplies which the state appropriates for the benefit of the cities and the ecopolitics rather than farmers and would, at least partially, be outside of the state's control if a counter-secession occurred. Welcome to Chinatown.

New York is a similar situation. If you exclude New York City, Clinton would have won New York State but by roughly a thousand votes. Clinton won NYC 80/20. It's pretty much the country in a microcosm with a bunch of lesser populated rural counties getting outvoted by a few urban areas that consider the rural areas to be a nuisance at best. It would not be out of the question that upstate seceded.; 3/9/17, 1:54 PM
tcrosse said...: The only people I know voted for Trump are YOU people and I don't even know you...thank God.

A message from the Master Race.; 3/9/17, 2:11 PM
n.n said...: Red Bruises - When you first get a bruise — especially one near the surface of your skin — it usually appears red. The color comes from fresh blood leaking into your tissues. Fresh blood is bright red because it contains both iron and oxygen.

Blue Bruises - Within a few hours, blood that has leaked from your injured blood vessels loses the oxygen it was carrying. As this occurs, the blood becomes darker and your bruise begins to look more bluish or purple.

Purple Bruises - Typically, over one to three days (depending in the severity of your injury), a bruise becomes more intensely purple and may even appear black. This occurs as red blood cells break down and iron is released into the injured area.

Healing Bruise Colors - Green Bruises, Yellow Bruises
-- symptomfind.com

Bruising is an interesting metaphor to describe an ideological spectrum.; 3/9/17, 2:16 PM
Achilles said...: "Purple America Has All But Disappeared."

Garbage. What disappeared is the Republicans vs. Democrats crap they have been foisting on us. Trump removed those blinders.

It is now the middle class vs. a coalition of extremely wealthy DC insiders and poor fools they buy votes from.

What really changed is many of the poor people are catching on that the uniparty in DC is screwing them over.; 3/9/17, 2:37 PM
Darrell said...: The only people I know voted for Trump are YOU people and I don't even know you...thank God.

Our other self-proclaimed lifelong republican.; 3/9/17, 2:44 PM
Achilles said...: Red Bruises - When you first get a bruise — especially one near the surface of your skin — it usually appears red. The color comes from fresh blood leaking into your tissues. Fresh blood is bright red because it contains both iron and oxygen.

Not to wreck the point but most bruises are de-oxygenated blood leaking out into tissues and they are dark. If you have a red bruise forming you are probably calling 911 anyways because something internal is broken and it is most likely serious involving arterial bleeding. There is a less serious red blood bruise that is capillary related but that generally happens in easy bleeders and they are generally small.; 3/9/17, 2:56 PM
n.n said...: What disappeared is the Republicans vs. Democrats crap they have been foisting on us.

What should replace it, what the People voted for, and why Trump, specifically, was elected, is a merit-based system that is considerate of moral, natural, and personal imperatives.; 3/9/17, 2:57 PM
n.n said...: Achilles:

Not a point, really, but a musing in our color-obsessed political culture.

I am intrigued by the suitability of physical processes and systems to accurately describe higher-order concepts (e.g. politics, relationships, ideology, religion/morality). The only cause of chaos (e.g. unpredictability, unwieldiness) is the limits of human perception and causality. Presumably, this is the motive and justification for an ideological blue-shift, which takes on a different appearance -- and perhaps adds information -- with a bruising metaphor.; 3/9/17, 3:11 PM
Jaq said...: Cambridge values diversity too highly to allow Republicans to live there. Would ruin the neighborhood.; 3/9/17, 4:13 PM
David said...: Dennis Patten said...
They're using the 1992 and 1996 elections as part of their proof that the country is becoming more polarized, but both of those elections had three major candidates for president. Of course the number of counties where candidates got more than 20% is going to be less. Perot got 19% nationally in 1992 and almost 9% in 1996. Bill Clinton didn't win a majority of voters in either election.

In other words, their math is correct, but meaningless. Their conclusions are invalid because the circumstances of the elections are dissimilar.

Correct. Nothing to add to that.; 3/9/17, 4:18 PM
Joe said...: How much of this is a product of self-selection and how much people actually changing? I suspect that the reds are leaving blue areas as the blues are leaving red areas. I also suspect this isn't entirely about politics, but that reds tend to be middle class with families and simply can't afford to raise their kids in the dense, metropolitan coastal areas.

Further, I'm not convinced those in the 'red' places are all that devoted to the conservative side of things as much as they are responding to the lunacy of the dark blue.; 3/9/17, 4:19 PM
David said...: "The only people I know voted for Trump are YOU people and I don't even know you...thank God."

Fortunately for everyone all around.; 3/9/17, 4:19 PM
Drago said...: Titus: "The only people I know voted for Trump are YOU people and I don't even know you...thank God."

I find it highly unlikely that none of your neighbors in Wisconsin voted for Trump.; 3/9/17, 4:22 PM
The Godfather said...: As a conservative I love to see all those "red bits" on the national map, but the idea that the Republicans have a demographic lock on American government is a dangerous delusion. Not very long ago, we were being told that it was the Democrats that had the demographic momentum: They had the young people, the Black people, the Brown people (and there will be more of them voting once the amnesty kicks in), the women (or at least the unmarried ones), the college graduates (and we'll use your taxes to makes sure there are more and more of them and that they'll be fully indoctrinated), etc.

The Democrats' arguments about their future are valid, and they will kick in the next time the Democrats figure out a way to nominate a good presidential candidate. Right now they're doubling down on stupid, but you can't count on that forever. Sure, Trump would have to f*ck up royally to be beaten by Warren in 2020, but (a) he could do it, and (b) between now and 2024 the Democrats could find another Bill Clinton.

Remember, the "pink bits" on old world maps represented the British Empire, and you know what happened to that.

In other words: Good shooting, but don't get cocky kid.; 3/9/17, 4:38 PM
damikesc said...: Worse than that. if California, say, bails, it has zero trade agreements with anyone. Hollywood would be cut out of the US and international movie market until that was negotiated. Ditto Silicon Valley. Ditto the California Rasin Growers Association, and so forth.

There's also zero reason to expect the conservative part of CA to stay as part of CA. Once they split, the conservative areas can request re-admission to the US and we can easily say yes and divide up CA.; 3/9/17, 8:03 PM
sunsong said...: Gerrymandering!; 3/9/17, 8:06 PM
ELC said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/9/17, 8:57 PM
Alex said...: In other words: Good shooting, but don't get cocky kid.

You'll find I'm full of surprises.; 3/9/17, 9:43 PM