Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide is Splitting America

[freefair]

It used not be a lot more nuanced and varied, now its become like the situation in most other modern nations, with conservatism dominating in terms of land size (though for social rather than economic reasons, in the UK its the ruralities that have most of the wealthy people in).

[freefair]

And you also need to account for the existence of five Conservative constituencies in inner London, a list that includes one of their safest seats anywhere.

Yeah, "Kensington and Chelsea" and "Westminster South and the City" are ultra-rich areas. Aristocratic you could say. Like I said, it's economic interest.

[freefair]

Indeed, the modern US political parties leave little room for "economically leftist social conservative" and "economically conservative social liberals"(who aren't hardcore libertarians).The trouble is that being affluent, educated and open minded and urban, and being poor, traditionalist, nationalistic and rural go together far too well for either parties platform to be electorally consistent.
An "Dark Green" party could easily storm rural areas, and likewise a "Orange/Yellow"
party could storm the urban areas.
Somewhere like San Francisco Bay could go
EC-SLP- 45% (could absorb the Libertarian party but be more moderate than them)
EL-SLP- 30%
EC-SCP- 15%
EL-SCP- 10%
Whereas a pro coal EL-SC candidate in rural West Virginia..
EL-SCP- 65%
EL-SLP- 15%
EC-SCP- 10%
EC-SLP- 10%

[freefair]

Don't forget, post 1992, nearly all "presidentially" Democratic leaning states have been net contributors to the federal budget, while federal level GOP states have been net drains. Of course, pre Clinton, the same was true in reverse. Such is the nature of the realignment that has taken place in US politics. Whereas, I don't think anyone really disputes that most  European right-wing party voting areas are net contributors to their national budgets (ie Bavaria, Surrey, Stockholm, Lombardy). The areas with many very middle class ethnic minorities like Indians, "far east" Asians and Jews also lean to the right in Europe. Republican under performance in these famously prosperous and intellectual minorities is a particularly damning sign for the party.