What's with all these borderline fascists?

[Torie]

Fascism is an actual thing that doesn't mean "something I don't like"

Yes, the proper term for "something I don't like" is neoliberal.

Or, if you're outside a major metropolitan area or college town, "socialist" would be the right term for that.

Or the towns highlighted in Torie's current sig.

Fair point.  The Northeast (and a few parts of the Drifess Area) are exceptions to all the traditional rules.

Just a very special part of the rural Northeast actually. The Birkenstock belt has become something of a magnet area for a certain cohort of the population, and that includes the NE corner of Columbia County in NY (lots of gays, and NYC expats who want to get back to nature, while not being too far from more cosmopolitan pleasures (30 minutes away is a nice cheap metro line right into Grand Central Station in Manhattan, rather than the more expensive Amtrak line running along the river that services Hudson)).  Outside this zone, the Dem rural performance tends to drop precipitously.  The boundaries in other words, are pretty "hard" boundaries - almost a wall as it were in many spots.

[Torie]

Fascism is an actual thing that doesn't mean "something I don't like"

Yes, the proper term for "something I don't like" is neoliberal.

Or, if you're outside a major metropolitan area or college town, "socialist" would be the right term for that.

Or the towns highlighted in Torie's current sig.

Fair point.  The Northeast (and a few parts of the Drifess Area) are exceptions to all the traditional rules.

Just a very special part of the rural Northeast actually. The Birkenstock belt has become something of a magnet area for a certain cohort of the population, and that includes the NE corner of Columbia County in NY (lots of gays, and NYC expats who want to get back to nature, while not being too far from more cosmopolitan pleasures (30 minutes away is a nice cheap metro line right into Grand Central Station in Manhattan, rather than the more expensive Amtrak line running along the river that services Hudson)).  Outside this zone, the Dem rural performance tends to drop precipitously.  The boundaries in other words, are pretty "hard" boundaries - almost a wall as it were in many spots.

I'd say it's slightly more complicated than that. A lot of the liberals here are locals who have been influenced by the people coming in (who are from all sorts of big cities, not just NYC), not to mention the fact that the migration started around 45 years ago, so there are a number of adults born in this area whose parents arrived from New York in the 1970s, for example.

Well here in Hudson, many of the locals resent the gentry liberal in-migration,  call them citidiots, and whatever the impact may be, it tends to be in the opposite direction. But then Hudson and the adjacent "urban cluster" is not in the Birkenstock belt per se, although two of its wards effectively are. But I take your point.