Birds of a Feather

MSN.com has a story about the sorting-out that progressives and conservatives have been doing in regard to where they live. Author Reid Wilson casts the story in economic terms - the prosperous cities and suburbs voting Clinton vs. the not-so-prosperous countryside voting Trump.

Wilson's interpretation of what's happening isn't entirely wrong or right; some of each I think. He gives basically no weight to cultural issues - the countryside's rejection of the urban 'social justice' and multicultural globalism agendas.

My favorite part of the article is a map which shows the counties which voted 80% in favor of Trump (371) or Clinton (17). Many of Trump's supermajority counties are in a swath that runs north from TX and OK thru KS, CO, NB, WY, ND, SD, and MT. Mine is one of the WY counties.

Nearly 59 percent of Americans - almost 187 million of us - live in counties that voted for Clinton or Trump by 20 or more percentage points. An incredible 1,559 counties gave Trump more than 70 percent of the vote in 2016, and 99 gave Clinton the same percentage.

That's a marked contrast from the 2000 election, when another Democratic candidate also won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College. That year, George W. Bush took 70 percent of the vote in just 546 counties. Al Gore won the same percentage in 46 counties.

Wilson assumes (perhaps "hopes" would be more accurate) young people who move to the city and vote progressive will continue to do so lifelong. Considerable evidence suggests people become more conservative as they grow older.

He also assumes or hopes minorities will vote progressive forever more. Hispanics and Asians may do nothing of the sort, many don't now.

My suggestion is to concentrate on Wilson's demographics and skim his analysis. The former is data, the latter is opinion with which you may disagree. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.