16 thoughts on “Great ideas”

  1. The maps significantly overstate the real size of “blue state” territory. For example, the California political map is mostly red except for a narrow strip encompassing LA and SF, and so are part of the Northeast and large parts of the Midwest (in particular, most of Illinois outside of Chicago). CNN’s red/blue political map, which shows the political orientation of individual counties, makes these distinctions clear.

  2. Jonathan is right. The map would show that God-fearing America is way, way bigger. In fact, the county map shows a an ocean of red with little archipelagos of Godless socialism here and there along the coasts or along the Great Lakes.

    But to be mildly serious, I find this whole “Jesusland” terminology offensive, which is my problem, but also inaccurate and misleading. People in red counties had all kinds of reasons for voting for Bush. Many of our fellow ChicagoBoyz probably did so, and as far as I know I may be the only one of the group who actually believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ.

    Also, Canada is not a monolith, either. Alberta would look like a shark fin on top of redstateistan.

  3. Lex, good point about “Jesusland.” What a crock that term is. It reveals much more about the people who use it than about the people they are trying to describe (trying to impugn, really).

    Good point about our northern neighbors, too. There’s a lot of Canada that has more in common with red-state USA than it does with the rest of Canada — a fact which must surely discomfit believers in Canadian superiority.

  4. I’m not sure how much longer the Democrats will be able to keep the upper mid-west, though Illinois is probably safe. I suspect you could also throw Saskatchewan and Manitoba with Alberta, perhaps the Yukon and NWT as well.

    As for the Jesusland title, that just shows how clearly the Democrats do not get it.

  5. “with little archipelagos of Godless socialism here and there along the coasts or along the Great Lakes. ”

    Good one Lex. Make that two among Chicagoboyz, however I may not be the model Christian.

  6. Jonathan, as to other areas being “red state”, Jim Bennett discusses this in his new book on the Anglosphere. He sees pan-Anglospheric political patterns. All very interesting. A review will appear one of these days … .

    Nito: Good to hear it. What a diverse bunch we are here on the blog. There is only one model Christian. The rest of us just get up when we fall down and keep going.

  7. Keep in mind that the whole Red/Blue state terminolgy is misleading in that all it takes to be designated one or the other is 50.1% of the vote.

    Take a look at this map which corrects for 1.) population differences between the states; 2.) county level differences in voting preferences; 3.)takes the county level data and the percentage of vote with pure red and blue needing 70% of the country vote.

    What becomes clear is that the whole Redstateistan concept isn’t as monolithic as people invision and that blues are quite intermixed, just missing cresting over the 50% threshold. The reddest counties seem to be located around Wyoming and Idaho.

  8. I like Kim du Toit’s map best. It puts most of Canada with the US and carves out the best red state land of all the maps I’ve seen. Check it out.
    Intolerance

  9. The whole USA went for Bush except a few cities.
    The funny thing is that the productive people in those cities voted for Bush. Only the freeloaders and college professors voted for Kerry.

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