25 Years From Now. . .

[minionofmidas]

Re: Erc's maps?
They're the 1948 and 1972 results, of course, but why were they posted? Why not 1980 and 1956, say, sticking with the 25 years theme?

[minionofmidas]

It's an interesting analysis, factor, yes.
I'll agree the other maps are much too cautious (and much too stuck on keeping the two parties roughly similar, btw.) Just look at King's every-24-years timeline.
Some minor points (to Al as well as you): I don't think the law & order rhetoric and especially the anti-immigration rhetoric we're getting over here is really socially conservative. Certainly it doesn't appeal only to social conservatives. Nor is it to any extent whatsoever founded on christian teachings.
And I don't even want to try and count how many times I've pointed out that Pinochet's government did not, never had any intention to, govern according to the rules of neoliberal economics. Pinochet nationalized all the utilities and most major industries - something Allende had wanted to do but had not dared. And he didn't pay compensation if the owners happened to be Chileans. (Which provided an extra bonus for the government when much of it was sold off again towards the end of and just after Pinochet's reign.) The copper mines, Chile's main export and until quite recently only really relevant export, had been under state control for donks before Allende, and remain so now. What he did do is boost private agricultural exports (wine and fruit, mostly), by easy state-guaranteed credits to entrepreneurs.
As I said, very minor to your argument, actually.

[minionofmidas]

I won't pretend to be an expert on Pinochet, I know very little about him... and I hadn't seen your previous posts, I didn't intend to discount them.

I didn't just mean on this board, or on the net at large.

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He certainly did sell himself like that.

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Well, to a certain extent that's true of course...although they were not the policies that Milton Friedman, the IMF etc have since been touting everywhere.

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Their version of the story - the neoliberal myth, if you prefer.

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no.

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yes.

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yes.

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not sure.

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Late in his term. After having nationalized them before.

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ditto

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yes.

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You'll notice that Pinochet was in office from 1973...and throughout the first two years or so of his administration, GDP fell IIRC. Most of this increase probably occurred in the 60's...if these figures were 1950-70, they would have to be considered extremely low.

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Forty percent is a hell of a lot. Not sure if that figure is genuine.

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true.

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Which are largely a myth

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Most of the copper mines was in Chilean government's hands (the army's, in fact) long before Allende. But yeah, Allende nationalized the rest. They remain in government control now.

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This had been the primary reason for the external (mostly American) opposition to Allende's government. Much of the internal opposition to Allende's policies was from business sectors, and recently released US government documents confirm that the U.S. funded the lorry driver's strike, [6] (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,260382,00.html) which was to a significant degree responsible for the chaotic situation just before the coup."

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true enough. The CIA also tried to engineer a coup a while before the actual coup, and spoke to Pinochet in that context. That the actual coup was actively CIA-supported (which most people around the world believed at the time) is not true, however.

[minionofmidas]

NC has moved righter over the years...

Well not really.  It has fluctuated a bit but is really very stable. 
Democrat vote percentages in NC over the last 25 years:
2004 - 43.58%
2000 - 43.20%
1996 - 44.04%
1992 - 42.65%
1988 - 41.71%
1984 - 37.89%
1980 - 47.18%

That's almost grotesquely stable! I note the Dem increase between 92 and 96 had no effect whatsoever in NC.

[minionofmidas]

You'll note there was a big swing in NC between 1980 and 1984 - while national movement was minimal. As far as NC is concerned then, how about 1984 as the true realigning election?

[minionofmidas]

I love how everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that the issues and thus, political alignments are going to change.  Also, if any one party is getting killed badly in the elections, they will eventually change their possitions until they are once again electable.  The only issue is "where in that cycle will we be at this time"?

That is why I see to major rise in third parties.  If either of the two major parties lose a significant amount of their base to one of the third parties, one of the two will find a way to take those votes away from the third party.

Anyway, these maps show a lack of imagination, above all, (except The Factor's map).  Not really even imagination as they do the lack of ability to anticipate how conditions will change.

Well, obviously. None of us is a soothsayer, after all.
But yeah, those who posted maps seem to be th ones imagining very little change. Perhaps because, the more change you envisage, the less feasible making a map appears.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, I've read that already.

[minionofmidas]

This is a general trend map.  On the whole, I think that the states in blue are treanding more conservative (when you balance economic and social issues) and the red states more liberal.  The grey states will remain about as is.

The three major trends that I see causing the conditions my map perscribes are:

1) The conservative party (presumably the Republicans, but not nessesarily) will break into the inner-cities and start picking up a better percentage of the vote, as more older cities begin to renew themselves.

2) The liberal party will gradually start to do better in areas that have large suburban populations and as the inner-ring suburbs of the old cities become the new depository for all of the problems that haunt the inner-cities now.

3) General population patterns.

This is a trend map, right? So red means "more liberal than now", but not necessarily on the Liberal side?
It's an interesting map, and they're interesting assumptions up there that may be true (although the COnservative party would have trouble getting the, presumably largely "Latte Liberal" vote of those new City conservatives), but there are some states that I'd definitely disagree on even on these assumptions. New Hampshire and Vermont I'd put in Red. Rhode Island in Blue. New Jersey in Grey. And so on. Georgia in Blue.

[minionofmidas]

If states voted on economic issues 25 years from now, PA would be solidly for the right wing economic party. The Philly Burbs already make up 25% of the state. By that time, they could make up nearly 50% of the state.  Here's a map of the growing suburbs.

Green is dying cities
Yellow is growing suburbs
Orange is stagnant rural areas

It's an interesting map...although I think some of those stagnant rural areas are more like dying and some of those dying cities are more like stagnant.