Kinda a long thread title, but...
Anyway...for a few centuries, from the 1600s to the 1800s, New England's culture was pretty monolithic (relative to contemporary times); its population was of mostly English ancestry, with some French Canadian in the Northern part but otherwise, pretty homogenous.
Obviously, the 1800s changed that, with the arrival first of large numbers of Irish Catholics and later, in the late 1800s/early 1900s, many immigrants from Italy, Poland, and other Southern and Eastern European countries. Many of these immigrants were also Catholic, as well, in contrast to the native Yankees, who were descended from the Puritans and other colonial English who had arrived in the 1600s and 1700s, and had been almost entirely Protestant-Congregationalists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, as well as some Unitarians and Quakers among them.
For a few centuries, New England's culture was dominated by these Yankees or "WASPs". By the late 1800s, this meant, politically, that New England was very much a stronghold of the Republican Party (which had emerged, above all else, as
the Yankee/WASP party). Most of the Catholic immigrants, especially the Irish, were attracted to the Democratic Party's laissez-faire attitude towards religion, compared to the more distinctly moralistic, Protestant GOP, which had not-insignificant hostilities among certain segments towards Catholicism (particularly immigrant Catholicism). No, the Republicans were certainly not nearly as bad as the Know-Nothings in this regard, but it can't be denied that these was a general attitude of hostility towards the Irish and other Catholics from many Republican-voting Yankees, in New England and elsewhere, that the Catholic immigrants and their children definitely picked up on.
OK, so the basic, general political divide in New England by the early 1900s was between Republican Yankees and Democratic Irish Catholics (and others). However, that historical divide is obviously not reflective of current reality, as the population of Yankees/WASPs in New England has dwindled (proportionally, and probably in raw numbers too), the "mainline" Protestant churches (which have also shrunk dramatically) have become more liberal politically, and the Catholic Church is a huge cultural presence as well (though many New England Catholics aren't really religious anymore.
) Furthermore, the old religious and ethnic lines have mostly crumbled, as it is now (and has been, for some time) pretty common for Catholics and Protestants (or more likely, their secular descendants) to marry each other, for example, and live in the same neighborhoods or go the same schools. In addition, there's also a fairly significant Jewish population in certain parts of New England, which, as they are often (mostly) secular Reform Jews, have contributed to a multi-ethnic, religiously diverse, and overall much more secular culture than in the past. Furthermore, whether they're secular or religious, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish, or something else entirely, New Englanders, as a group, are pretty well-educated (perhaps, the most well-educated regional population in America?), which makes sense, considering the long history of education in the region.
With all that being taken into account:
which of these cultural attributes makes New England (and maybe more broadly, the Northeastern US) pretty overwhelmingly Democratic in contemporary times, especially relative to much of the rest of the country?Whew, that was a long post.
