Progressive Policy Helps “Red” States
Alec MacGillis had an interesting piece in The Washington Post over the weekend making the case that universal health care would constitute a net transfer of resources from blue America to red America. I think, however, that it’s best to think of this as part of a more general phenomenon. Democrats normally favor policies that shift resources from rich people, who tend to vote Republican, to people of more modest means, who tend to vote Democratic. But the more Republican-friendly states are poorer than the Democratic-friendly states. So Democrats who enact progressive redistributive policies tend to be shifting resources to Republican geographical areas. It’s important, however, to keep the people and the places separate. For example, here’s Andrew Gelman’s chart of the Bush-Kerry vote among people in the bottom third of the income distribution:
And here’s the top third:
MacGillis’s piece highlights the ways in which this aspect of American politics makes certain kinds of change difficult. In effect, there’s nobody in the Senate representing the specific interests of the large number of poor people in the deep south. Qua voters, those people are loyal Democrats, so the Republican politicians who represent those areas can comfortably write them off. But the Democrats are hopeless in the region.
27 Responses to “Progressive Policy Helps “Red” States”
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June 1st, 2009 at 11:37 am
You left out the chart in the middle. Why could that be?
June 1st, 2009 at 11:42 am
Democrats normally favor policies that shift resources from rich people, who tend to vote Republican, to people of more modest means, who tend to vote Democratic. But the more Republican-friendly states are poorer than the Democratic-friendly states.
I know this is true, but I’m missing some really basic political science insight that any regular reader of political blogs should have long since absorbed, but why is this the case? Why don’t more rich blue states favor the GOP, and why don’t more poorer red states favor the Democratic party?
June 1st, 2009 at 11:45 am
there’s nobody in the Senate representing the specific interests of the large number of poor people in the deep south.
Don’t be ridiculous, Matt. Everybody knows poverty builds both character, and a properly patriotic skepticism of liberal “science.” It is VERY much in the interests of all people — rich and poor alike — not to have their minds corrupted by big city, Europe-loving liberals.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:02 pm
American politics is mostly class warfare fought in proxy terms.
MLKjr was developing an exposition of this concept when he was murdered.
Republican leaders, DLC types and most senators are forever obfuscating the real issues and reaping the rewards. If issues like health care, education or climate were clearly stated in class terms, we could make more progress. But a lot of people would experience an epiphany.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:07 pm
See those blue States where the rich vote Democrat? They really piss off the GOP, which is why they have so much ire towards NYC limousine liberals and Hollywood. They are the traitors to their class.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Jasper, check it… the ecological fallacy.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
In effect, there’s nobody in the Senate representing the specific interests of the large number of poor people in the deep south. Qua voters, those people are loyal Democrats, so the Republican politicians who represent those areas can comfortably write them off.
Here is a much better set of Gellman maps, from 2008, with sliding scales, and breaking out non-Hispanic whites:
Rich, Poor, White Maps from Gellman
The upshot is that Matt is only part right: the remaining “red state” Republican Senators in the South and interior West may be able to write off poorer Hispanic and/or non-white voters, but poorer non-Hispanic white voters are crucial to their coalition.
Which is part of why they really need Obama and his allies to “fail” in noticeably improving the economic situation of those voters, because if their loyalty ever shifted, the GOP may slip below regional status all the way to extinction.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:13 pm
There are also conservatives in blue states who feel they have no one to represent them.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Looking at the bottom chart, it’s suddenly clear to me why I’ve only ever lived in New York, Massachusetts and California.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
What a wonderful question. Perhaps because the richest among us are really Democrats, not Republicans? Like say the Kennedy’s?
June 1st, 2009 at 12:54 pm
In effect, there’s nobody in the Senate representing the specific interests of the large number of poor people in the deep south. Qua voters, those people are loyal Democrats, so the Republican politicians who represent those areas can comfortably write them off. But the Democrats are hopeless in the region.
In effect, there’s nobody in the Senate representing the specific interests of the large number of conservative people in Southern Californian (Orange County/San Diego). Qua voters, those people are loyal Republicans, so the Democrat politicians who represent those areas can comfortably write them off. But the Republicans are hopeless in the state.
Or:
In effect, there’s nobody in the Senate representing the specific interests of the large number of conservative people on Long Island and upstate New York. Qua voters, those people are loyal Republicans, so the Democrat politicians who represent those areas can comfortably write them off. But the Republicans are hopeless in the state.
Gimme a break, for godness sakes.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Something that shouldn’t be ignored in this discussion is that many red states heavily rely on the inefficiencies within the American healthcare nonsystem. The economies of TN and KY, in fact, extremely heavily rely on for-profit hospital chains and assisted living facilities, for just one example.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:59 pm
John’s right regarding the rich – the rich vote is split culturally, with rich people who live on the West Coast and in the Midwest and New England voting Democratic because the political culture of those regions is one in which Democrats predominate.
If anything, what these maps show us is a strong regional identity that often cuts across class and even racial divisions, such that working class whites vote Democratic in the North but not in the South, and that poor whites vote Democratic everywhere except the South and Mormon country.
What this shows about the Democratic Party is that it essentially a coalition of the poor, working class, and the sections of the middle and upper classes who share the political culture of Democratic strongholds – albeit growing weaker as you go up the income scale.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I agree, Matt, but what is new here? Universal health care and other Democratic policies leads to the re-creation of the Reagan Democrat population.
Red-state children would benefit from these policies until they were old enough and wealthy enough to pay into them, and then they would turn their backs on them.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I should clarify that it’s the headquarters of healthcare firms that are predominately found in red states. Thus,
1. the inefficiencies within American healthcare nonsystem occur comparatively evenly across the country.
2. The red states, since they tend to have older populations (i.e., on Medicare) as well as higher portions of their populations in the US military and other red state make-work programs, are actually under-exposed to those healthcare ineffiencies. (Or rather, the red states don’t pay out of their pocket to cover the inefficiencies, the federal government taxes the blue states and covers the inefficiencies for them)
3. the profits from those inefficiences, however, are harvested into corporate headquarters predominately located in the red states.
In effect, the American healthcare nonsystem is partially a tax upon the blue states to enrich a layer of red state healthcare moguls, who in turn have major voices in the politics of their states: Bill Frist’s family founded HCA, Phil Breseden was a healthcare mogul, etc.
It’s true that this doesn’t help most of the population of the red states very much, but it does help the political class of the red states immensely.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
In effect, there’s nobody in the Senate representing the specific interests of the large number of conservative people in Southern Californian (Orange County/San Diego).
Not if they only care about abortion, that’s true. But the rich , no matter where they live, have at least 98 senators defending their interests.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
In effect, there’s nobody in the Senate representing the specific interests of the large number of poor people in the deep south.
Because our politics remain race-based rather than class-based, as does our collective approach to poverty.
Qua voters, those people are loyal Democrats, so the Republican politicians who represent those areas can comfortably write them off. But the Democrats are hopeless in the region.
Not necessarily. In Tennessee for example, Medicaid is enormously popular, because it’s an actual policy that helps real people in a tangible way. Republicans would commit political suicide if they decided that Tenncare were “socialized medicine.”
What the Democrats don’t get (and ironically the Southern Democrats the most) is that once the public option (or even single-payer) becomes available, “socialized medicine” would no longer be a political issue. It would be impossible for Republicans to try to kill it, because poor and middle-class people would recognize the impossibility of trying to live without it, and they would then vote Democratic.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:35 pm
From DTM’s maps, and to put his point another way, the explanation for the southern pattern is racially polarized voting.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I didn’t see Halfdan’s comment. Word.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
What a wonderful question. Perhaps because the richest among us are really Democrats, not Republicans? Like say the Kennedy’s?
Well, you could think that, or you could look at the data that shows the richer you are, the more likely you are to vote Republican.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:58 pm
To all the people noting that Republicans/conservatives who are a minority in “blue states” with Democratic Senators are also unrepresented in the Senate:
You are missing Matt’s point. He was just trying to explain what was holding up policies that would shift resources from rich people to poor people, and his attempted explanation was that rich people in the South were using their captive Senate seats to block these policies.
Of course, as I noted above, Matt’s explanation is wrong in an important way, namely that rich people alone aren’t enough for Republicans to hold those Senate seats in the South: they need poor non-Hispanic white people too. Frankly, when you think about it, that something like this was going on was pretty obvious: it is not like rich people are better positioned to out-vote poor people in the South as opposed to say the Upper Midwest or Pacific Northwest (both also rich-red and poor-blue on Matt’s maps). Indeed, you’d ordinarily expect the exact opposite–if there was anywhere in the U.S. that poor people could simply outvote rich people, it is the Deep South.
So Matt’s maps, and Matt’s analysis, were obviously missing something big. And the maps I linked supplied the missing something–poor non-Hispanic whites in “red states” voting Republican.
Or to put it yet another way: if poor non-Hispanic whites had voted in every state at least like they voted in Indiana in 2008 (not a particularly ambitious choice if you look at the maps), the Republicans would likely lose most of the South (in fact, I’m not sure where they could win). And again, that is why you can expect them to fight tooth-and-claw to prevent anything from happening that might undermine the loyalty of poor non-Hispanic whites in “red states”.
June 1st, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Of course, as I noted above, Matt’s explanation is wrong in an important way, namely that rich people alone aren’t enough for Republicans to hold those Senate seats in the South: they need poor non-Hispanic white people too.
DTM is right, but he’s missing another point I tried to allude to earlier. Matt’s not showing the map of the middle third of the country, which breaks down similarly to the overall vote: Dems win the middle class in the northeast, west coast, and upper midwest; Republicans win in the south and mountain west.
June 1st, 2009 at 4:10 pm
DTM is right, but he’s missing another point I tried to allude to earlier. Matt’s not showing the map of the middle third of the country, which breaks down similarly to the overall vote: Dems win the middle class in the northeast, west coast, and upper midwest; Republicans win in the south and mountain west.
Well, I did link to Gellman more recent maps with sliding scales. And if you look at those maps, you are right the overall regional pattern stays basically the same. But in each region, it is largely just a more or less steady progression between rich and poor, whether you look at all voters or only non-Hispanic whites.
So in some sense all the same logic applies to the middle groups: if non-Hispanic whites in the middle income range all voted at least like they do in the Upper Midwest or Pacific Northwest, the overall map would be transformed.
June 1st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
So in some sense all the same logic applies to the middle groups: if non-Hispanic whites in the middle income range all voted at least like they do in the Upper Midwest or Pacific Northwest, the overall map would be transformed.
And if non-Hispanic whites in the middle income range all voted at least like they do in the South, the overall map would be transformed. Your point basically boils down to “if people in Republican states voted like people in Democratic states vote, Democrats would win everywhere.” I fail to see why this is an interesting point.
June 1st, 2009 at 5:22 pm
And if non-Hispanic whites in the middle income range all voted at least like they do in the South, the overall map would be transformed. Your point basically boils down to “if people in Republican states voted like people in Democratic states vote, Democrats would win everywhere.” I fail to see why this is an interesting point.
Admittedly I’m more going for true than interesting. But the point of this part of the conversation, as I see it, is to get a better understanding of what makes a Republican state a Republican state these days. And the point I am making is that it mostly depends on how poorer white people vote.
And that is relevant to evaluating Matt’s thesis. Again, I think his thesis was basically wrong: the South isn’t Republican because the richer people are outvoting the poorer people, it is because the poorer white people in the South are voting Republican.
And finally, that is relevant because it explains why Republican Senators from the South would be opposing Democratic-branded programs that could potentially undermine the Republican loyalties of poorer white people in the South. In other words, this isn’t just a theoretical exercise: I think there is very good reason for Republican elected officials to fear the potential success of Obama’s economic plans.
June 1st, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Because, for example, if you look at the map for people in poverty (under 20,000), Southern poor whites vote differently from poor whites in every other state in the country outside of Mormon territory. That’s something unique to the South, not just to Red States.
Now, things do get more broadly spread out when you go up to the 20-40,000 white voting patterns. There’s a more partisan division, with working class whites in Democratic (and also union) strongholds on the West Coast, the Midwest, and New England. And the effect gets more concentrated into the bluest of the Blue states as you go higher up the income scale.
But it is still significant that regional political culture makes rich people on the coasts and poor Southern whites vote differently from their classes (and races) in other parts of the country.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:02 am
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