Sunday, December 4, 2016

Election Musings

Further musings on the election just completed. Liberals and progressives convinced themselves that any sane, thinking person would vote for Clinton. She got a lot of votes but did not win.

Now they feel like this isn't their country after all, a disquieting feeling conservatives have known too well for the last 16 years. If their behavior is erratic, that helps explain it.

Plus, they look around the world and see things going south in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Not only does the U.S. not seem like their country, they don't see another that looks better, unless it's Canada.

The Canadians, bless them, are picky about who they give residency to, favoring the wealthy and those with STEM  skills. That bars most progressives with basically worthless social science or victim-group studies degrees.

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The New York Times has an article about who votes in what numbers. It turns out income, education and age are all positively correlated with propensity to vote.

It makes sense that the poor often don't vote as they don't pay income taxes or property taxes. They do, however, pay sales and fuel taxes, vehicle license fees and the so-called "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco. Some of these are 'invisible' as they aren't called out separately on receipts, as is sales tax.

Black voter participation is high in their figures but these end with 2012. Without Obama on the ballot it may have fallen significantly in 2016.