"One can easily demonstrate that the Republicans have become the party of the dumb proletariat and the Democrats the party of the mentally ill bourgeoisie purely from data. Whether that is causal, or simply related to the modern differences in rural and urban living, has not been studied."
"...buy the author a bottle of SSRIs"
You get a dollar a month for life for this. Keep talking and take my money.
It might be speculative bullshit but it feels INCREDIBLY intuitively prescient. Of course our intuitions are absolutely shite at assessing large scale long term phenomena, and as you say black swans might change everything, and I'm a material-left leaning, socially very liberal, European who doesn't have a realistic feel for US culture anyhow, but as things stand now, this should be OBVIOUS (to Dems) and why it isn't completely baffles me. It's like they didn't really WANT to win (or, alternatively, as if they really believed in their own propaganda which seems more disturbing).
As a European, do you see similar culture war mechanics erupting around you? I've seen some compelling images of farmer protests in France and the Netherlands in the past few years.
Another European pitching in here. I'd say the issues are very similar across Europe and the US, but depending on the political/electoral system in each country, the dynamics play out differently.
You're more likely to see these kinds of dynamics in countries where the political system pushes towards 2-3 major parties, where the winner takes all, like France or UK vs ones where you have 10+ different parties (think factions within Democrats or Republicans) that then need to form a coalition in order to cobble together 51% of the vote, like Germany, Netherlands and most other European countries.
In the latter situation, you'll often have 2 parties that are natural allies, and a third or even fourth one that's more at a distance. The marginal extra party that offers the last few percentage points to get to 51% will actually be in a position to ask a lot, and have outsize influence.
The result is you get either a largely left or largely right wing coalition, either ramped up or watered down based on what the marginal third/fourth party is like,
plus the third/fourth party's hobby horse issues thrown in to keep them on board. Israel I believe works the same way.
As a german, and in opposition to Steven, I'd say you see very similar dynamics across the west full stop.
We traditionally had the following serious parties: CDU(/CSU) (conservative center right), FDP(libertarian centrist), SPD (old workers party center left), Die Linke (far left), Grüne (eco left). As you can see there always has been only one large right-leaning party ("there should be no major party to the right of the CDU" was for a while even official policy), which always meant that the CDU had an outsized amount of votes. Under Merkel however the CDU moved significantly left, leaving a complete right-leaning vacuum. This resulted in the creation of the AfD, the first serious right-leaning contender of the CDU, and the BSW, the first economically left, culturally right party.
The AfD is obviously being vilified by the media the same way the republicans are in the US, and ALL other parties are determined to keep it out, up to and including using illegal measures. In turn the AfD increases its share since they're simply perceived as the only option if you want policies like the "border is being enforced at all". In some parts they're already reaching 30%+. The BSW is a bit harder to pin down, but looks likely to continue the CDU's strategy of complaining a lot about the cultural left, but then de-facto continuing their policies anyway. It will probably fully replace die Linke in the next few years.
So overall it's looking like it will be "AfD vs everyone else" in the coming years, maybe "AfD + BSW vs everyone else" or more unlikely "AfD + CDU vs everyone else".
Well, you're kind of proving my point right? It's unlikely that you'll get a 50-50 split, it's more likely 33-33-33 or some other combination. I'm not German, but isn't one of the big political problems in Germany that the non-AfD block is barely able to stick together, because they're so different? So the non-AfD block is not converging at all, but falling apart.
This is what you get in countries with more than 5 political parties, it's shaky unstable coalitions that spent more time infighting than doing anything, cos coalitions are not built by natural allies, but parties that are increasingly very different. It's a problem, but it's different from what's happening in the US.
The non-AfD block has been converging for more than a decade even before the AfD existed, which in fact is the reason *why* the AfD exists. The CDU in particular kicked off the refugee crisis, but the SPD also has all but abandoned any semblance of being a worker's party, the FDP nowadays signs off most privacy intrusions ...
We'll obviously have to wait, but an eventual 50-50 split between two mostly solid, hostile blocks seems like the most likely outcome at this point.
While the theory fits recent observation, I'm not sure it will last. One side has kids and has started to pay attention to politics and the politicization of everything. It's not statistically valid, but I have noticed that my conservative friends are much more aware of politics at every level than was the case 10 years ago. The Communists (as opposed to blue collar union Democrats) have always been politically aware as Power (or politics) is their religion. The summary of my theory is that the side that wants to be left alone is discovering that's not an option and winning the power struggle is the only option.
If Trump wins and the Republicans do not get a significant loss in the mid-term elections, I'm going to predict the theory does not hold water for the long term with a national shift to the Republican Party. I will also predict that if Kamala wins and the Dems do not suffer a significant mid-term loss, there will not be another Republican president for the foreseeable future as the system will have proven it can pick a known turd, polish it for an election and enough people will accept it. Kamala is the perfect test case for this, as she was pulling down Biden's numbers before he pooped his pants at the debate.
How does the increasing urbanization of the population affect the application of the theory? It seems you are assuming 50% urban, 50% rural. 80% of the population is urban now and minus the Covid inspired slowdown, urbanization will continue with forecasts indicating a peak of ~90%. Florida at >90% urban seems to indicate that the Urban/Rural divide is not the only division.
A superb question. Shiri's Attractor does not necessarily dictate that the 50/50 split must be urban/rural, just that it must be 50/50. We have fallen into an urban/rural divide because it's the most natural cultural divide into which to fall.
Postulating that a new 50/50 divide were to emerge, which is entirely possible, whichever side of that divide had more rural support would win. So it's in both of the cultures best interest to court the rural side in their cultural divisions.
Thanks for the answer. I'm not sure there is any reason to believe the 50/50 split will be maintained. In this election, had Republicans picked anyone else, they would beat Obama's biggest margin. At least I think that's the case. We'll never know.
On a practical level, an appeal to rural voters and their concerns would cost the Democrats their current base. You can't ban agriculture, mining, oil, guns... and appeal to the people for whom that is their livelihood and recreation.
I've read everything you have posted here. Your unique apolitical, numerical analysis appeals to the H&H engineer in me. Wonder why.
After a second read, I still find no flaws in the reasoning provided conditions remain the same. I'm just not convinced conditions will remain the same.
At some point, the System may succeed in their efforts to determine who may or may not appear on ballots. Their attempt at that during this cycle, and in the future, may change how the population at large views things. What seems certain tends to change.
Until one party has a successful midterm election after a successful presidential election, I will believe your theory is holding true.
Since I have your attention, I'm infinitely more interested in whether you have done statistical analysis of gun ownership and age. I mentioned this in a previous comment on your "guns and protofascism" post. The relevant portion is:
despite your well reasoned previous articles on the expansion of firearm ownership to different groups, time is on the other side. Gun ownership is 1/3 less prevalent in the 18-29 demographic. If the trend continues, in a couple of generations, there will be a large enough majority unfriendly to gun ownership to repeal the 2nd amendment.
The rural/city split is simple: people are using their life experiences to view the world. If you live in a city, your life experience is people, and all the things that happen in a city. In the country, you have plants and animals, land and weather. You can talk people around, lobby the mayor, all kinds of people things. In the country, you don't get much say about the weather. Both city and country live in reality -- but not the SAME reality. Is it any wonder they want different things, and don't realize the Other Guy has equally strong reasons for wanting something else?
If you want more detail, the answer is 42. Now all we need is the question. I got most of my questions back in the forties and fifties. They haven't aged any more gracefully than the answers.
"One can easily demonstrate that the Republicans have become the party of the dumb proletariat and the Democrats the party of the mentally ill bourgeoisie purely from data. Whether that is causal, or simply related to the modern differences in rural and urban living, has not been studied."
"...buy the author a bottle of SSRIs"
You get a dollar a month for life for this. Keep talking and take my money.
With pleasure, and I will commit to spending it on beer as intended.
It might be speculative bullshit but it feels INCREDIBLY intuitively prescient. Of course our intuitions are absolutely shite at assessing large scale long term phenomena, and as you say black swans might change everything, and I'm a material-left leaning, socially very liberal, European who doesn't have a realistic feel for US culture anyhow, but as things stand now, this should be OBVIOUS (to Dems) and why it isn't completely baffles me. It's like they didn't really WANT to win (or, alternatively, as if they really believed in their own propaganda which seems more disturbing).
As a European, do you see similar culture war mechanics erupting around you? I've seen some compelling images of farmer protests in France and the Netherlands in the past few years.
Another European pitching in here. I'd say the issues are very similar across Europe and the US, but depending on the political/electoral system in each country, the dynamics play out differently.
You're more likely to see these kinds of dynamics in countries where the political system pushes towards 2-3 major parties, where the winner takes all, like France or UK vs ones where you have 10+ different parties (think factions within Democrats or Republicans) that then need to form a coalition in order to cobble together 51% of the vote, like Germany, Netherlands and most other European countries.
In the latter situation, you'll often have 2 parties that are natural allies, and a third or even fourth one that's more at a distance. The marginal extra party that offers the last few percentage points to get to 51% will actually be in a position to ask a lot, and have outsize influence.
The result is you get either a largely left or largely right wing coalition, either ramped up or watered down based on what the marginal third/fourth party is like,
plus the third/fourth party's hobby horse issues thrown in to keep them on board. Israel I believe works the same way.
Very helpful thank you!
As a german, and in opposition to Steven, I'd say you see very similar dynamics across the west full stop.
We traditionally had the following serious parties: CDU(/CSU) (conservative center right), FDP(libertarian centrist), SPD (old workers party center left), Die Linke (far left), Grüne (eco left). As you can see there always has been only one large right-leaning party ("there should be no major party to the right of the CDU" was for a while even official policy), which always meant that the CDU had an outsized amount of votes. Under Merkel however the CDU moved significantly left, leaving a complete right-leaning vacuum. This resulted in the creation of the AfD, the first serious right-leaning contender of the CDU, and the BSW, the first economically left, culturally right party.
The AfD is obviously being vilified by the media the same way the republicans are in the US, and ALL other parties are determined to keep it out, up to and including using illegal measures. In turn the AfD increases its share since they're simply perceived as the only option if you want policies like the "border is being enforced at all". In some parts they're already reaching 30%+. The BSW is a bit harder to pin down, but looks likely to continue the CDU's strategy of complaining a lot about the cultural left, but then de-facto continuing their policies anyway. It will probably fully replace die Linke in the next few years.
So overall it's looking like it will be "AfD vs everyone else" in the coming years, maybe "AfD + BSW vs everyone else" or more unlikely "AfD + CDU vs everyone else".
"Economically left culturally right" is something that I'm not sure is even possible in the USA.
This is exactly what Trump has been attempting, though, right? Tariffs, tax giveaways to hourly workers, unabashedly running up the debt, etc.?
Well, you're kind of proving my point right? It's unlikely that you'll get a 50-50 split, it's more likely 33-33-33 or some other combination. I'm not German, but isn't one of the big political problems in Germany that the non-AfD block is barely able to stick together, because they're so different? So the non-AfD block is not converging at all, but falling apart.
This is what you get in countries with more than 5 political parties, it's shaky unstable coalitions that spent more time infighting than doing anything, cos coalitions are not built by natural allies, but parties that are increasingly very different. It's a problem, but it's different from what's happening in the US.
The non-AfD block has been converging for more than a decade even before the AfD existed, which in fact is the reason *why* the AfD exists. The CDU in particular kicked off the refugee crisis, but the SPD also has all but abandoned any semblance of being a worker's party, the FDP nowadays signs off most privacy intrusions ...
We'll obviously have to wait, but an eventual 50-50 split between two mostly solid, hostile blocks seems like the most likely outcome at this point.
While the theory fits recent observation, I'm not sure it will last. One side has kids and has started to pay attention to politics and the politicization of everything. It's not statistically valid, but I have noticed that my conservative friends are much more aware of politics at every level than was the case 10 years ago. The Communists (as opposed to blue collar union Democrats) have always been politically aware as Power (or politics) is their religion. The summary of my theory is that the side that wants to be left alone is discovering that's not an option and winning the power struggle is the only option.
If Trump wins and the Republicans do not get a significant loss in the mid-term elections, I'm going to predict the theory does not hold water for the long term with a national shift to the Republican Party. I will also predict that if Kamala wins and the Dems do not suffer a significant mid-term loss, there will not be another Republican president for the foreseeable future as the system will have proven it can pick a known turd, polish it for an election and enough people will accept it. Kamala is the perfect test case for this, as she was pulling down Biden's numbers before he pooped his pants at the debate.
I object to your assertion that any polishing was performed on that turd. ;)
How does the increasing urbanization of the population affect the application of the theory? It seems you are assuming 50% urban, 50% rural. 80% of the population is urban now and minus the Covid inspired slowdown, urbanization will continue with forecasts indicating a peak of ~90%. Florida at >90% urban seems to indicate that the Urban/Rural divide is not the only division.
A superb question. Shiri's Attractor does not necessarily dictate that the 50/50 split must be urban/rural, just that it must be 50/50. We have fallen into an urban/rural divide because it's the most natural cultural divide into which to fall.
Postulating that a new 50/50 divide were to emerge, which is entirely possible, whichever side of that divide had more rural support would win. So it's in both of the cultures best interest to court the rural side in their cultural divisions.
Thanks for the answer. I'm not sure there is any reason to believe the 50/50 split will be maintained. In this election, had Republicans picked anyone else, they would beat Obama's biggest margin. At least I think that's the case. We'll never know.
On a practical level, an appeal to rural voters and their concerns would cost the Democrats their current base. You can't ban agriculture, mining, oil, guns... and appeal to the people for whom that is their livelihood and recreation.
50/50 split theory is in the prior article. Give it a gander and lmk what you think.
I've read everything you have posted here. Your unique apolitical, numerical analysis appeals to the H&H engineer in me. Wonder why.
After a second read, I still find no flaws in the reasoning provided conditions remain the same. I'm just not convinced conditions will remain the same.
At some point, the System may succeed in their efforts to determine who may or may not appear on ballots. Their attempt at that during this cycle, and in the future, may change how the population at large views things. What seems certain tends to change.
Until one party has a successful midterm election after a successful presidential election, I will believe your theory is holding true.
Since I have your attention, I'm infinitely more interested in whether you have done statistical analysis of gun ownership and age. I mentioned this in a previous comment on your "guns and protofascism" post. The relevant portion is:
despite your well reasoned previous articles on the expansion of firearm ownership to different groups, time is on the other side. Gun ownership is 1/3 less prevalent in the 18-29 demographic. If the trend continues, in a couple of generations, there will be a large enough majority unfriendly to gun ownership to repeal the 2nd amendment.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own-guns.aspx
I can't find this data over time to establish whether this is a persistent trend where those people tend to age into gun ownership or not.
Computerized Gerrymander ads gasoline to this fire.
The rural/city split is simple: people are using their life experiences to view the world. If you live in a city, your life experience is people, and all the things that happen in a city. In the country, you have plants and animals, land and weather. You can talk people around, lobby the mayor, all kinds of people things. In the country, you don't get much say about the weather. Both city and country live in reality -- but not the SAME reality. Is it any wonder they want different things, and don't realize the Other Guy has equally strong reasons for wanting something else?
I think there's definitely something to this, but I wouldn't call it wholly explanatory.
If you want more detail, the answer is 42. Now all we need is the question. I got most of my questions back in the forties and fifties. They haven't aged any more gracefully than the answers.