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Thursday, December 17, 2020

One Zipcode To Rule Them All ...

Perhaps I exaggerate. But not by that much. It's more like, a relative handful of zipcodes to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.

That's the idea behind Michael Lind's interesting article:


The ZIP Codes That Rule America

The real divide isn’t between red states and blue states or cities and rural areas. It’s between mega-rich political donors and everyone else.


The article is quite lengthy, but most of it is absorbed in a largely academic speculation on the possibilities for adding, combining, and subtracting States from the Union. However, Lind's overall point is that, as long as there's still one country, none of that matters much, if at all. Not the numbers of senators, not where they come from. None of that matters because the money that controls the politicians--binds them in the land of Mordor, if you will--will still come from the same relative handful of zipcodes. Voters will vote for the rhetoric that they like, but the politicians they elect will largely follow the will of their donors--most of whom don't even live in the same states as the politicians.

Lind begins by briefly conjuring up the recurrent debates in American life about reconfiguring the shape of our Union for political purposes. But then he gets down to brass tacks--who really rules America and where they live:


Would any of these changes make much difference in American politics, all other things remaining equal? Probably not. If you look at a county map of national election results, it is clear that for the most part there are only blue big cities and college towns in a sea of red that includes working-class outer suburbs and many small towns. This is not a “rural-urban” divide, since the red-blue Republican-Democrat divide increasingly occurs within metropolitan areas, with the Democrats getting the well-to-do neighborhoods and the Republicans the less affluent ones.

Also, contrary to public perception, “urban” and “minority” are not synonyms. Most Black and Hispanic Americans are not poor and do not live in inner cities. Most are working class and live in the suburbs and exurbs where most white working-class Americans live. While majorities of Blacks and Latinos vote for Democrats, in this and previous elections we have seen a growing percentage vote like most working-class whites for the Republicans. Immigrants clustered in big cities can be expected to follow a similar trend, as they or their descendants move to the suburbs and assimilate. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is gentrifying and getting whiter and more upscale.

...

The donors to American politicians in all 50 states are concentrated in a few ZIP codes. ...

A former Democratic senator from the Midwest told me a few years back why he got out of politics: “I got tired of the fundraising. They [the Democratic National Committee] give you a list of these rich people in New York, San Francisco, and L.A. No matter what state you’re from, you have to fly out there and grovel before them. They don’t know anything about your state or its people. All they care about is their pet issues.”


Who are these big donors? What are their pet issues? They're the Globalist elite--the Soroses and Gateses and their ilk, and we should have a pretty clear idea of their "pet issues." You see those pet issues peddled in the woke media, and the issues that they dislike get canceled.

 

And the donors have far more influence on public policy in America than the voters do. In a famous article in Perspectives on Politics in 2014 titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin I. Page of Northwestern [concluded] "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”


That reminds me of Jeeves' famous characterization of Bertie Wooster: "By no means intelligent. Mentally he is negligible – quite negligible." I can imagine that that's about how most of us rate in the eyes of our masters.

 

The progressives who think that only the Electoral College and the malapportioned Senate are preventing the United States from adopting Swedish-style social democracy are living in a fool’s paradise. So are Republicans who think that the GOP answers to its voters, rather than its donors. Most big Democratic donors are neoliberals who do not want Medicare for All or strong labor unions and most big Republican donors are libertarians who do not want low-wage immigration or access by multinational corporations to cheap labor in China and elsewhere to be restricted. Most politicians follow the preferences of their donors, not their voters, ...

...

... to the extent our influence is limited to voting, most of us are just renters in American politics. The donors, wherever they happen to live, own it.


Possibly the Big Picture of What Happened In 2020 is that our masters got fed up with the shenanigans of us proles and told their paid lackeys in the political parties to just put a stop to it. No More Trump! If you need a pandemic to get the job done, we'll arrange that for you. Riots in all the cities--it's a deal. Just get the job done!


20 comments:

  1. TPTB used to stay behind the scenes and pull the ropes, without exposing themselves.

    Lately they have started taking the risk of getting out into the open. Why?

    "Group Overseeing $10 Trillion, Called 'Guardians for Inclusive Capitalism', Signs Partnership With The Vatican"

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/group-overseeing-10-trillion-called-guardians-inclusive-capitalism-signs-partnership?commentId=d7c9ed53-e47a-4b64-8ac9-17964ace3413

    ReplyDelete
  2. For more on the pathology of so many Upper middle class types (disproportionately females), see alt-Right blogger Whiskey in *2012*, at
    http://whiskeys-place.blogspot.com/2012/01/charles-murray-and-white-class-divide.html :

    "Angelo Codevilla argues in the American Spectator, that the Ruling Class of America, Republican and Democrat, all go to the same national schools, share the same interests, intermarry, and form the same social class.... the entire Elite political system is dependent on sustained good times for everyone, to smooth over the massive TRANSFER of wealth and opportunities, from average *white* people to non-Whites (and elites)…
    There is a word for people who hold such views. The natural basis for the *Super Zips**. The Ruling Class. The New Elites....
    Specifically, White professional women."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Some perspective on the legislative successes of white professional women:

      Petrarch: Jeffrey Epstein's Cuties

      Delete
  3. Money is not everything in politics. And Trump did a lot to change the GOP. Trump has done a great service by showing the true biases and beliefs of our politicians.

    John McCain’s commercial of “just build the dang wall” to get re-elected vs his actual actions still upsets me. I hate hypocrisy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Powell case updates with the and USSC

    Michigan and Georgia were accepted but gave a response date of Jan 14th.

    They rejected Arizona and Wisconsin without giving reason. I figured they would hot potato Wisconsin, it explosive.

    How's that for BS!?!?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There couldn’t be a more subtle way of saying “leave us alone and don’t expect anything” by SCOTUS.

      Delete
  5. The Supreme Court really needs to feel some heat from unhappy citizens. Not sure how it is to be done, but it must be done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. While i appreciate the sentiment phillyrich, we all have to get over this feeling that the Supreme Court is some kind of Olympus from which we can exoect salvation (or even responsiveness to citizen pressure).

      In short, let's wake up and get ready for 1775. None of us asked for this but neither did the generation that fought and died in the 1860s or the 1940s. It's fallen to us. God has ordained that we either step up to join together in the fight or cower back in comfortable but quiet anger.

      We are at war. It is an undeclared, covert, 5th generation, unconventional, unrestricted cyber and info war at the moment (attach whatever labels you like) but it is every bit a war as Pearl Harbor. The Supreme Court is not going to save us. State legislatures won't either. Congress will not. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor it came down to Roosevelt telling the nation how we would respond. Lincoln did the same after the shelling of Fort Sumter. Today it falls first to President Trump to show the American people that our institutions are corrupt and useless against our enemies, foreign and domestic, by exhausting the Constitutional remedies for a contested election. He has nearly reached that point or will by January 6th.

      After that, barring a miracle of courage by Congress to elect Trump by contingent election, it will fall to Trump to explain to We the People the war we are in and the measures he will take as C in C to win. At that point it will fall to each of us to do whatever is required to win. Yes, the military will carry a large role but we will be needed too. The enemy will not go quietly or easily. And after we win, the rebuilding may require a complete rewrite of our laws and Constitution.

      Let's stop chasing the red dot on the floor and focus on the war going on right now.

      Delete
  6. Not sure how it is to be done?
    Secession?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please ban this idea of secession from your thoughts. It is unworkable and futile. Who secedes from whom? Just what parts of the US are you willing to give away to the Chinese communists--- because there's no doubt that the first thing California will do, for example, is sign a defense pact with China and lease the ports and bases to the CCP to prevent any reconquest by red states.

      The harsh truth is we live or die together. Lincoln had it right. We either preserve this union whole or we all go down together. It is false comfort to think that any amalgamation of states would long survive against the depredations of the Chinese and other mortal enemies.

      We fight. That's what we do. God help us if President Trump doesn't pull the trigger before January 20.

      Delete
    2. Tschifty, fair points about California ports.
      Sorry for delayed reply, I was tied up all afternoon.
      Assuming no way to ameliorate that danger, what if we fought to keep CA, WA, & OR, but would still consider letting the NE states go?
      Without that latter sector being part of the electorate, the Sil. Valley/ Hollywood crowd would have much less pull in the country.

      If Trump doesn't pull the trigger before January 20,
      we'll be lucky to be able to salvage any sort of sustainable US.
      Maybe more thoughts later.

      Delete
    3. Personally I think that is pretty much bass-ackwards. These are a variation of malignant narcissists we're dealing with. They didn't do any of this maneuvering, manipulation, cajoling, or coercion just so we could walk away. They will fight, and use every means and weapon they can get their hands on to bend us to their will. No one can vote their way out of socialism. No one will be allowed to not choose a side. No one walks away.
      Tom S.

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  7. I always thought Citizens United was just another hustle or scam so the hog trough could be expanded rather than narrowed. The goal should have been a Constitutional Amendment reducing eligibility to contribute to a political campaign to U.S. citizens who are constituents of the office being sought only. No NGO's, no unions, no corporations, no PAC's, no out of state or out of district money. Flesh and blood, individual potential voters, from that particular constituency only, and limit contributions to $1000 per calendar year, non-deductible. Instead Citizens United, hailed as a "conservative" victory, opened the flood gates of Woke Capitalism, including the American Worker Displacement Act of 2020 (looking at you Mike Lee), and made the corruption that much worse. Coincidence or feature, you decide.

    Like any other anti-corruption idea it would gain no traction with professional politicians. They didn't get into this business to end corruption and they're sure as hell not going down that road once they're in. There can never be too much slop (by-the-by markups, meaning graft, are popular all over again).
    Tom S.

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    Replies
    1. https://redstate.com/setonmotley/2020/12/18/heres-warren-buffett-doing-his-george-soros-impersonation-n296214

      Davos Man revealed. How many Republican senators pick-up instantly when Buffet calls.
      Tom S.

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    2. All who have investments? IOW, every single one.

      Delete
    3. However, none of that about Buffet is news.

      Delete
    4. I rather doubt Buffet calls senators with stock tips, though "suggestions" are probably involved.

      No it isn't news but demonstrative of the lack of "roots" in leftist grass roots activism.

      Delete
  8. Breaking: UK paper reporting that Chris Miller Sec Def has ordered that Pentagon stop all further briefings to Biden team.

    Make what you will. Different glosses behind spun.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/biden-trump-transition-pentagon-b1776204.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. More examples of the corruption by our Elites.

    - John McCain provided the Steele Dossier to Carl Bernstein.

    - Investigation started earlier.

    - National Security Letter was used to surveillance of Papadopoulos, which captured a call with a Fox News Executive.


    https://saraacarter.com/text-messages-question-the-start-of-the-russia-collusion-investigation/

    https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/17/fbi-spied-on-fox-news-and-recorded-the-phone-call-new-texts-show/

    ReplyDelete