Cultural Signifiers

[Samof94]

Another good example is vegetarianism/vegan as well as anything animal rights related, especially is the person is a woman or non-binary.

[Roronoa D. Law]

All of these "cultural signifiers" seem to only apply to White people (Whole Foods are noticeably absent from minority areas) which may be problematic since, under the current alignment, the Democrats' national electorate is probably minority-majority

Nike is the only one that comes to mind. We tend to go to the same places as White Republicans in the south. The main reason we don't eat at Cracker Barrel and Dennys is because they discriminated against us. As for Arbys, Black people don't like roast beef.

[Orser67]

Cracker Barrel vs. Whole Foods is maybe the most commonly talked about cultural signifier among chains.

What about those of us who have never been in either of these places in their life?

It's really more about proximity (and what the presence of those chains says about the communities that voters live in) than actually going.

See e.g.:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/senate-control-could-come-down-to-whole-foods-vs-cracker-barrel/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/27/upshot/democrats-may-need-to-break-out-of-the-whole-foods-bubble.html
https://twitter.com/redistrict/status/796425689360637952?lang=en

[Indy Texas]

All of these "cultural signifiers" seem to only apply to White people (Whole Foods are noticeably absent from minority areas) which may be problematic since, under the current alignment, the Democrats' national electorate is probably minority-majority

Yes, because your party is so racist and nativist that nearly everyone else self-selects out of it by default.

Can we not?

This is worse than Fuzzy Bear shouting BLM out of context.

It's a basic fact and relevant to this discussion.

If you include nonwhite voters, you're making the data a lot noisier.

Ex. Take someone who goes to church every Sunday, loves eating steak and chicken and thinks vegetarianism/veganism is a bunch of nonsense, drives a big full-size SUV, and is generally put off by a lot of progressive rhetoric around sex and gender issues.

If they're white, they're a Republican. If they're black, they're a Democrat.

[Hydera]

Here's the 2016 swing map.





Here's a map of modern family viewership.



And a map of Duck Dynasty viewership.


Variables that signify white voters voting Republican: Masculinity, Religiosity, ruralness.

Variables that signify white voters voting Democrat: Education, social liberalism, density.

[RINO Tom]

Okay, you can’t just use swings for something like this ... that makes an area that went from 80% Republican to 65% Republican fall under a “Democratic” signifier, even though it’s still a bright red place...

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Bone-deep hatred for the Harry Potter series is an interesting example of a cultural signifier that someone is either hard left or hard right. You have to get into why they hate it to know which.

As to Sleater-Kinney, I know who they are and in many ways I guess I fit the profile of someone who "would" listen to them (upper-middle-class white leftist, lives in a heavily white-liberal area, LGBT and friends with mostly lesbians), but in practice I couldn't even name any of their songs for the life of me. Maybe Vampire Weekend is an example of a bougie "coalition of the ascendant" center-left-to-left band that I do listen to?

[Tintrlvr]

Cracker Barrel vs. Whole Foods is maybe the most commonly talked about cultural signifier among chains.

What about those of us who have never been in either of these places in their life?

You're probably just a figment of your own imagination.

[Tintrlvr]

Here's the 2016 swing map.





Here's a map of modern family viewership.



And a map of Duck Dynasty viewership.


Variables that signify white voters voting Republican: Masculinity, Religiosity, ruralness.

Variables that signify white voters voting Democrat: Education, social liberalism, density.

Modern Family doesn't work so well because it only accounts for urban Democratic voters, i.e., rural Democratic voters such as black voters in the South, Native Americans in the Plains/Mountains and Hispanics in the Southwest don't show up. But Duck Dynasty is interesting in that rural minority voters also don't watch, so it's overall a quite strong correlation. Still seems to fall off a bit out West, though - the Central Valley of California is too low, e.g., and Arizona is off. Perhaps a climatic issue.

[Indy Texas]

Bone-deep hatred for the Harry Potter series is an interesting example of a cultural signifier that someone is either hard left or hard right. You have to get into why they hate it to know which.

2000s: Harry Potter is a satanic liberal plot to turn our kids away from Jesus and teach them witchcraft.

2020s: Harry Potter is drivel written by a transphobic reactionary bigot who will poison our kids' minds with her hate.

[Crumpets]

The UW vs. WSU rivalry used to be a decent analogue for local Washington politics (adjust maybe by saying that anywhere with 35%+ support for WSU would vote Republican). With Pullman trending to the left and the Pacific coast trending to the right, though, that probably won't last much longer, even if all the stereotypes about UW supporters being the same as stereotypes of Democrats and the stereotypes of WSU supporters being the same as stereotypes of Republicans will probably persist.

[RINO Tom]

The UW vs. WSU rivalry used to be a decent analogue for local Washington politics (adjust maybe by saying that anywhere with 35%+ support for WSU would vote Republican). With Pullman trending to the left and the Pacific coast trending to the right, though, that probably won't last much longer, even if all the stereotypes about UW supporters being the same as stereotypes of Democrats and the stereotypes of WSU supporters being the same as stereotypes of Republicans will probably persist.

Intrastate college football rivalries are interesting measures, I love it!  I do wonder how many states you could do a similar thing for, provided the breakdown is SOMEWHAT close.  In states like Illinois (ILL over NU), Iowa (IOWA over ISU), Tennessee (TENN over VU), etc. where one school dominates the other in terms of fans, it's not quite as fun of a comparison.

- I imagine a somewhat similar pattern holds for Oregon and Oregon State as you mentioned?  I've heard that phrased as "Hippies vs. Farmers" before.  With that said, Oregon does dominate Oregon State, so you'd need a similar adjustment to what you had.

- While both fan bases probably lean heavily Republican, I'd guess Ole Miss fans would be significantly more Republican than Mississippi State fans?  A gal I met from Mississippi once told me that Mississippi State was more the "people's school" and had more fans, and that Black Mississippians were much more receptive to cheer for Mississippi State.

- Similar to MS, I imagine both SC fan bases skew heavily Republican, but I would imagine Clemson fans are much more Republican than South Carolina fans?

- Again, while both skew Republican, I imagine that Texas A&M fans are MUCH more Republican overall than Texas fans.

- I'm willing to bet UVA fans are much more Democratic on average than VT fans in Virginia.

- Arizona is really interesting ... it seems UA is more popular in more Hispanic areas than ASU is, so maybe ASU more Republican?

[Indy Texas]

The UW vs. WSU rivalry used to be a decent analogue for local Washington politics (adjust maybe by saying that anywhere with 35%+ support for WSU would vote Republican). With Pullman trending to the left and the Pacific coast trending to the right, though, that probably won't last much longer, even if all the stereotypes about UW supporters being the same as stereotypes of Democrats and the stereotypes of WSU supporters being the same as stereotypes of Republicans will probably persist.

Intrastate college football rivalries are interesting measures, I love it!  I do wonder how many states you could do a similar thing for, provided the breakdown is SOMEWHAT close.  In states like Illinois (ILL over NU), Iowa (IOWA over ISU), Tennessee (TENN over VU), etc. where one school dominates the other in terms of fans, it's not quite as fun of a comparison.

- I imagine a somewhat similar pattern holds for Oregon and Oregon State as you mentioned?  I've heard that phrased as "Hippies vs. Farmers" before.  With that said, Oregon does dominate Oregon State, so you'd need a similar adjustment to what you had.

- While both fan bases probably lean heavily Republican, I'd guess Ole Miss fans would be significantly more Republican than Mississippi State fans?  A gal I met from Mississippi once told me that Mississippi State was more the "people's school" and had more fans, and that Black Mississippians were much more receptive to cheer for Mississippi State.

- Similar to MS, I imagine both SC fan bases skew heavily Republican, but I would imagine Clemson fans are much more Republican than South Carolina fans?

- Again, while both skew Republican, I imagine that Texas A&M fans are MUCH more Republican overall than Texas fans.

- I'm willing to bet UVA fans are much more Democratic on average than VT fans in Virginia.

- Arizona is really interesting ... it seems UA is more popular in more Hispanic areas than ASU is, so maybe ASU more Republican?

The typical intrastate college rivalry pits the public university that was originally the "arts and letters" university or the "normal school" (for educating teachers) against the "agricultural and mechanical institute" (originally intended to train farmers in the latest agricultural techniques and train engineers for things like railroads and mining and bridges). Usually that results in the stereotype of the former being pretentious and hoity-toity and the latter being a bunch of slackjawed uncouth yokels.

State	Arts & Letters/Normal	Agriculture & Engineering
Texas	Texas	Texas A&M
Alabama	Alabama	Auburn
Oklahoma	Oklahoma	Oklahoma State
Mississippi	Ole Miss	Mississippi State
Virginia	UVA	Virginia Tech
Kansas	Kansas	Kansas State
Indiana	Indiana	Purdue

That skews things to the extent that:

-If you're going to major in STEM, you'll probably go to the ag/mech school.

-The arts & letters university is typically the more academically selective flagship and as a result attracts more students intending to go to grad school or students from out of state.

-The arts & letters university is a more logical choice to major in liberal arts/humanities.

-Their STEM focus makes the ag/mech student body skew more male, but typically not as overwhelmingly so as some smaller private engineering-focused colleges.

-UT is much more demographically reflective of Texas than Texas A&M is (UT gets a lot of Hispanic students and out-of-state students from all over the country; TAMU is much whiter and gets most of its out-of-state students from the South); their fan base is probably still quite Republican due to the existence of the older cohorts of alumni and the bandwagon effect for people who never went there

-Arizona State attracts underachieving privileged white kids from California and Texas, which no doubt skews things in the Republican direction; the University of Arizona AFAIK does not have that reputation

[Sol]

The UW vs. WSU rivalry used to be a decent analogue for local Washington politics (adjust maybe by saying that anywhere with 35%+ support for WSU would vote Republican). With Pullman trending to the left and the Pacific coast trending to the right, though, that probably won't last much longer, even if all the stereotypes about UW supporters being the same as stereotypes of Democrats and the stereotypes of WSU supporters being the same as stereotypes of Republicans will probably persist.

Intrastate college football rivalries are interesting measures, I love it!  I do wonder how many states you could do a similar thing for, provided the breakdown is SOMEWHAT close.  In states like Illinois (ILL over NU), Iowa (IOWA over ISU), Tennessee (TENN over VU), etc. where one school dominates the other in terms of fans, it's not quite as fun of a comparison.

- I imagine a somewhat similar pattern holds for Oregon and Oregon State as you mentioned?  I've heard that phrased as "Hippies vs. Farmers" before.  With that said, Oregon does dominate Oregon State, so you'd need a similar adjustment to what you had.

- While both fan bases probably lean heavily Republican, I'd guess Ole Miss fans would be significantly more Republican than Mississippi State fans?  A gal I met from Mississippi once told me that Mississippi State was more the "people's school" and had more fans, and that Black Mississippians were much more receptive to cheer for Mississippi State.

- Similar to MS, I imagine both SC fan bases skew heavily Republican, but I would imagine Clemson fans are much more Republican than South Carolina fans?

- Again, while both skew Republican, I imagine that Texas A&M fans are MUCH more Republican overall than Texas fans.

- I'm willing to bet UVA fans are much more Democratic on average than VT fans in Virginia.

- Arizona is really interesting ... it seems UA is more popular in more Hispanic areas than ASU is, so maybe ASU more Republican?

The typical intrastate college rivalry pits the public university that was originally the "arts and letters" university or the "normal school" (for educating teachers) against the "agricultural and mechanical institute" (originally intended to train farmers in the latest agricultural techniques and train engineers for things like railroads and mining and bridges). Usually that results in the stereotype of the former being pretentious and hoity-toity and the latter being a bunch of slackjawed uncouth yokels.

State	Arts & Letters/Normal	Agriculture & Engineering
Texas	Texas	Texas A&M
Alabama	Alabama	Auburn
Oklahoma	Oklahoma	Oklahoma State
Mississippi	Ole Miss	Mississippi State
Virginia	UVA	Virginia Tech
Kansas	Kansas	Kansas State
Indiana	Indiana	Purdue

That skews things to the extent that:

-If you're going to major in STEM, you'll probably go to the ag/mech school.

-The arts & letters university is typically the more academically selective flagship and as a result attracts more students intending to go to grad school or students from out of state.

-The arts & letters university is a more logical choice to major in liberal arts/humanities.

-Their STEM focus makes the ag/mech student body skew more male, but typically not as overwhelmingly so as some smaller private engineering-focused colleges.

-UT is much more demographically reflective of Texas than Texas A&M is (UT gets a lot of Hispanic students and out-of-state students from all over the country; TAMU is much whiter and gets most of its out-of-state students from the South); their fan base is probably still quite Republican due to the existence of the older cohorts of alumni and the bandwagon effect for people who never went there

-Arizona State attracts underachieving privileged white kids from California and Texas, which no doubt skews things in the Republican direction; the University of Arizona AFAIK does not have that reputation

This is true for NC State and UNC as well.

[Hydera]

Modern Family doesn't work so well because it only accounts for urban Democratic voters, i.e., rural Democratic voters such as black voters in the South, Native Americans in the Plains/Mountains and Hispanics in the Southwest don't show up. But Duck Dynasty is interesting in that rural minority voters also don't watch, so it's overall a quite strong correlation. Still seems to fall off a bit out West, though - the Central Valley of California is too low, e.g., and Arizona is off. Perhaps a climatic issue.

Its only good as a weird 'a-ha' thought in regards to white educated voters in 2016 swinging towards Hillary.  




Its strange to think of but back in 2012 a lot of Romney voting suburban precincts voted No to banning gay marriage in North Carolina, despite the 61% in support in the state overall. These are also precincts where a high percentage of people said they migrated from a different state. The suburban educated precincts of america that might of supported the GOP because of their association with voting republican as synonymous with economic success, having less support for bans on gay marriage was a future predictor of the places that republicans fell back in 2016 compared to 2012.

I hope im wrong but the thing that scares me is how politics is sorting itself on cultural lines. The amount of cultural suburbanites voting republican will switch but so will cultural rural americans further turn towards the GOP.





Duck Dynasty and other white cultural signifiers don't show up amongst black americans in the south for the reason that it appeals to a white rural audience, like the amount of chinese and indian americans you find in cities who like country music is a minuscule amount for the same reason.  

 


Here's a show named Empire that i've personally never have heard of before. Theres a strange amount of native american areas that watch it but most of it is correlated with the demographics of black americans.

[pikachu]

I think listening it certain kinds of music is a dead giveaway. For an obvious example, Sleater-Kinney’s fans are almost always left-leaning due to their politics and Carrie’s preferences towards women. The fact they are from the Pacific Northwest doubles down on this. Their fans tend to also be people who like other female indie musicians, middle to upper class, white, female, and often LGBTQ. Sleater-Kinney is also pro choice as well and supports black lives matter.   

Literally who the hell is Sleater-Kinney

Seriously?

I checked the name on Google after writing that, but I literally have never heard "Sleater-Kinney" anywhere else in my life.

(by the way, I am not sure musical acts are necessarily cultural signifiers, for example plenty of left-leaning people listen to Kanye)

I was kind of joking about Sleater-Kinney. They’re not exactly a household name but neither are they particularly obscure, but I understand that someone like yourself who (correct me if I’m wrong) is more into metal and prog hasn’t heard of them.

As to music, I think it can have some correlation to political views. Hip-hop suggests more liberal views, or at least more pro-Democrat, as the listener base is African-Americans and younger whites. Similarly alt rock/indie also leans left and country right. Classic rock is harder to pin down; it is most popular among white male boomers (a generally Republican group), but it does enjoy very wide and ubiqitous popularity.

Obviously it is lazy to assume someone’s political views based off of musical tastes and there are loads of exceptions, but there are some implications to be made both from demographics of listeners and the general attitude/philosophy of the music.

I think your analysis is correct.

In any case I am not actually into metal, I just have a massive Metallica crush. I am more into prog rock, though.

For music, the conservative equivalent is obviously country, especially since it's not just listened to in the South anymore.

For brands, I agree with Chick-fil-A as a proxy for the group that OP stated.  Living in perhaps the epicenter of those types of voters, you would be amazed at how long the lines at Chick-fil-A get (they often back up traffic on nearby streets).  Another cultural signifier I would add on the right is college football.  There's a reason that Trump has taken such an aggressive stance in favor of college football being played.  It might not get as much attention, but college football's fanbase is basically just as conservative as NASCAR's or golf's.

https://www.businessinsider.com/politics-sports-you-like-2013-3

Idk if college football's a cultural signifier for the right as much that's just a reflection of it being really popular in the South and no one in BosWash caring, which imo more reflects the history of sports and universities in both regions more than anything cultural.

[Kamala's side hoe]

The UW vs. WSU rivalry used to be a decent analogue for local Washington politics (adjust maybe by saying that anywhere with 35%+ support for WSU would vote Republican). With Pullman trending to the left and the Pacific coast trending to the right, though, that probably won't last much longer, even if all the stereotypes about UW supporters being the same as stereotypes of Democrats and the stereotypes of WSU supporters being the same as stereotypes of Republicans will probably persist.

Intrastate college football rivalries are interesting measures, I love it! 

- I imagine a somewhat similar pattern holds for Oregon and Oregon State as you mentioned?  I've heard that phrased as "Hippies vs. Farmers" before.  With that said, Oregon does dominate Oregon State, so you'd need a similar adjustment to what you had.

The contrast seems more relevant for Washington than Oregon. UW and WSU are on opposite ends of Washington state; UO and OSU are both in the Willamette Valley, west of the Cascades. I don't feel like the OSU people I know are significantly more GOP-leaning than the UO people... There are definitely more right-leaning individuals in that group, but I also know more OSU grads than UO grads in general. The people who I thought of as Republicans or GOP-leaning generally went to other schools like George Fox or BYU.

Re: football rivalry- UW has historically dominated the Apple Cup by a more overwhelming margin (74-32-6) than UO in the Oregon Civil War (66-47-10).

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I think listening it certain kinds of music is a dead giveaway. For an obvious example, Sleater-Kinney’s fans are almost always left-leaning due to their politics and Carrie’s preferences towards women. The fact they are from the Pacific Northwest doubles down on this. Their fans tend to also be people who like other female indie musicians, middle to upper class, white, female, and often LGBTQ. Sleater-Kinney is also pro choice as well and supports black lives matter.   

Literally who the hell is Sleater-Kinney

Seriously?

I checked the name on Google after writing that, but I literally have never heard "Sleater-Kinney" anywhere else in my life.

(by the way, I am not sure musical acts are necessarily cultural signifiers, for example plenty of left-leaning people listen to Kanye)

I was kind of joking about Sleater-Kinney. They’re not exactly a household name but neither are they particularly obscure, but I understand that someone like yourself who (correct me if I’m wrong) is more into metal and prog hasn’t heard of them.

As to music, I think it can have some correlation to political views. Hip-hop suggests more liberal views, or at least more pro-Democrat, as the listener base is African-Americans and younger whites. Similarly alt rock/indie also leans left and country right. Classic rock is harder to pin down; it is most popular among white male boomers (a generally Republican group), but it does enjoy very wide and ubiqitous popularity.

Obviously it is lazy to assume someone’s political views based off of musical tastes and there are loads of exceptions, but there are some implications to be made both from demographics of listeners and the general attitude/philosophy of the music.

I think your analysis is correct.

In any case I am not actually into metal, I just have a massive Metallica crush. I am more into prog rock, though.

For music, the conservative equivalent is obviously country, especially since it's not just listened to in the South anymore.

For brands, I agree with Chick-fil-A as a proxy for the group that OP stated.  Living in perhaps the epicenter of those types of voters, you would be amazed at how long the lines at Chick-fil-A get (they often back up traffic on nearby streets).  Another cultural signifier I would add on the right is college football.  There's a reason that Trump has taken such an aggressive stance in favor of college football being played.  It might not get as much attention, but college football's fanbase is basically just as conservative as NASCAR's or golf's.

https://www.businessinsider.com/politics-sports-you-like-2013-3

Idk if college football's a cultural signifier for the right as much that's just a reflection of it being really popular in the South and no one in BosWash caring, which imo more reflects the history of sports and universities in both regions more than anything cultural.

"The history of sports and universities in both regions" very much is a cultural difference, though, it's just not "cultural" in the sense of being about sumptuary habits or tastes in media.