Partisan preferences: difference between past and present

[All Along The Watchtower]

I find it interesting that during the New Deal years of the 1930s (and even for a long period after), the divide between the parties was very much based on blue collar vs white collar occupations, workers vs management, poor vs rich.

Nowadays, the partisan divide seems to have less to do with income levels/economic status and more to do with other factors like educational levels, race, urban vs rural, etc. Furthermore, on a regional scale, the parties have changed and realigned to an extent that many former Republican-voting areas are now Democratic, and vice versa.

What are some of the things that help to explain this?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

The strange thing is it's not blue-collar vs. white-collar, poor vs. rich any longer as it is in most western democrasies like Britain, Sweden, Germany.

[Link]

What are some of the things that help to explain this?

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Southern Strategy.

[krazen1211]

Government was much smaller in the 1930s. Numerous departments that exist today did not then, including the trillion dollars a year the government dumps on health care. Naturally as the public has become more polarized, the parties that they elect have become more polarized.

Gallup polling shows that Democrats are becoming more liberal, and that independents and Republicans are becoming more conservative over the last decade or so.

The South of course is systematically insulted by the base of the Democratic party. See the last post. Naturally they changed their voting habits.

The North meanwhile has fewer Protestants than the South and plenty of academics who like to boss people around and think they know what's best for everyone.

[freepcrusher]

well to say it in a way that doesn't reek of partisan hackery of the two previous posters I will say this: The issues have changed. We are a different country then we were half a century ago. I would argue that we are becoming a post-materialist country. For the most part, people don't have to worry as badly about having a place to live and pot to piss in so people begin thinking about other issues based upon lifestyle. New issues such as the environment, abortion rights, gay rights, etc have become more intriguing issues and have changed the definition of what it means to be a republican or democrat.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Government was much smaller in the 1930s. Numerous departments that exist today did not then, including the trillion dollars a year the government dumps on health care. Naturally as the public has become more polarized, the parties that they elect have become more polarized.

Gallup polling shows that Democrats are becoming more liberal, and that independents and Republicans are becoming more conservative over the last decade or so.

The South of course is systematically insulted by the base of the Democratic party. See the last post. Naturally they changed their voting habits.

The North meanwhile has fewer Protestants than the South and plenty of academics who like to boss people around and think they know what's best for everyone.

Yeah, those white Southerners are totally innocent themselves.

Please.

[krazen1211]

Yeah, those white Southerners are totally innocent themselves.

Please.

That's not really relevant one way or another.

[Hash]

The strange thing is it's not blue-collar vs. white-collar, poor vs. rich any longer as it is in most western democrasies like Britain, Sweden, Germany.

Ironically the EU country whose voting patterns are closest to the US is France. You have a good number of well-educated, affluent suburban places voting for the left and you have a fair number of poorer, blue-collar manufacturing or old mining areas voting for the right (though it is not solid, as 2012 will show us). I think Italy may be similar, with Milan's old Red Belt being iirc pretty right-leaning now, but France's case is pretty unique in Europe and comparable to what's going on in the US.

[Iannis]

The strange thing is it's not blue-collar vs. white-collar, poor vs. rich any longer as it is in most western democrasies like Britain, Sweden, Germany.

Ironically the EU country whose voting patterns are closest to the US is France. You have a good number of well-educated, affluent suburban places voting for the left and you have a fair number of poorer, blue-collar manufacturing or old mining areas voting for the right (though it is not solid, as 2012 will show us). I think Italy may be similar, with Milan's old Red Belt being iirc pretty right-leaning now, but France's case is pretty unique in Europe and comparable to what's going on in the US.

I think that all the countries are becoming more or less like USA. In Italy there's a bigger and bigegr divide between urban and rural electorate. Milan was 15 years ago more rightist, while now the countryside in the north, even where communist used to win, is more conservative than Milan itself, which is shifting towards the left. The same in Germany, UK, Austria, Belgium, etc, even Spain in recent elections. Only Sweden remains probably as exception.
As a further consideration we have to remember, anyway, that also old geographical traditions remains, so in Italy rural and urban areas in the center are more leftist than urban and rural in the north!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually the primary reason for the apparent increase in rural/urban electoral cleavage in most European countries over the past four decades or so is the fact that many rural areas that had radical political traditions have become markedly less rural. Nothing is so damaging to the socialist cause as an influx of middle class people with urban lifestyles and values. Which is not like the U.S.A. at all.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Actually the primary reason for the apparent increase in rural/urban electoral cleavage in most European countries over the past four decades or so is the fact that many rural areas that had radical political traditions have become markedly less rural. Nothing is so damaging to the socialist cause as an influx of middle class people with urban lifestyles and values. Which is not like the U.S.A. at all.

The only state that has anything that mirrors that is Minnesota and arguably Wisconsin.

[tpfkaw]

The urban vs. rural thing already existed in the 1930s (as did the North vs. South, but reversed).