A Country Divided-- Normal People Vs The Clueless

When I was a freshman, my college's station, WUSB, was sounding pretty sophisticated-- lots of cool jazz. But not many listeners. I applied to be a dj so I could play the new psychedelic rock that was starting to be available on tapes from San Francisco. By then I had made friends with concert impresario and band manager Bill Graham and he was sending me live music by the Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Country Joe & the Fish, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Byrds, the Steve Miller Band, The Youngbloods... I made a pitch that I could intersperse the tapes with groups like the 13th Floor Elevators, Pink Floyd, the Beach Boys and have a rockin' show. But they didn't want a rockin' show and laughed me out of the studio. The next year I was the new head of the Student Activities Board, which funded the station-- and they were happy to give me a show-- albeit from midnight 'til dawn. And what a great show it was! There were even listeners; I think I eventually knew every one of them. Many were across the Long Island Sound in New Haven, Middlesex and New London counties in Connecticut. But all the calls from Connecticut were for Charlie Daniels, Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Allman Brothers. I got the impression that Connecticut was like some kind of redneck southern bastion. At least they seemed to like The Band.

The next time I paid Connecticut any heed was when corrupt local conservative politician Joe Lieberman was trying to make a name for himself on the right-fringe of the Democratic Party. And then this morning-- it's like decades later-- I noticed that the Connecticut congressional districts are trending away from the Democratic Party. There are 5 districts and they're all Democratic and Trumpanzee lost each one of them. But... 4 of the districts' PVIs are redder now than they were 2 years ago. That's odd. The PVI changes in the country over the last two years have generally enhanced what was already there-- Democratic seats around the country have become more Democratic and Republican seats have become more Republican. California is a bit of an exception. Only one Republican-held district has become redder, Doug LaMalfa's far, far away district in the extreme northeast of the state. It went from R+10 to R+11. (Trumpanzee beat Hillary there 56.2% to 36.5%, Hillary's weakest performance in the Golden State.) But look at all the other GOP-held districts in the state (Tom McClintock s 4th CD remained R+10):

• CA-08-Paul Cook-- R+10 to R+9
• CA-10- Jeff Dehham-- R+1 to EVEN
• CA-21- David Valadao-- D+2 to D+5 (Pelosi's DCCC might win it when it become D+10 or D+20)
• CA-22- Devin Nunes-- R+10 to R+8
• CA-23- Kevin McCarthy-- R+16 to R+14
• CA-25- Steve Knight-- R+3 to EVEN
• CA-39- Ed Royce-- R+5 to EVEN
• CA-42- Ken Calvert-- R+10 to R+9
• CA-45- Mimi Walters-- R+7 to R+3
• CA-48- Dana Rohrabacher-- R+7 to R+4
• CA-49- Darrell Issa-- R+4 to R+1
• CA-50- Duncan Hunter-- R+14 to R+11

Precipitous PVI drops show how extremely vulnerable Valadao, Knight, Royce, Walters, Rohrabacher and Issa are. There's no reason in the world-- other than their own grotesque incompetence-- the the DCCC shouldn't be able to win those 6 districts plus Denham's and, if Hunter's corruption charges stick, that one as well. Off topic. Now consider the California Democrats' PVI changes. The once marginal seats are now bluer and the deep blue seats are even bluer. A few examples, first some once-marginal seats and then some super-Democratic seats:

• CA-03- John Garamendi-- D+3 to D+5
• CA-07- the crooked Ami Bera-- EVEN to D+3
• CA-24- Salud Carbajal-- D+4 to D+7
• CA-26- Julia Brownley-- D+4 to D+7 (No more excuses for voting with the GOP so often?)
• CA-31- Pete Aguilar-- D+5 to D+8 (see Julia Brownley above)
• CA-36- Raul Ruiz-- R+1 to D+2
• CA-52- Scott Peters-- D+2 to D+6
• CA-11- Mark Saulnier-- D+17 to D+21
• CA-13- Barbara Lee-- D+37 to D+40
• CA-15- Eric Swalwell-- D+16 to D+20
• CA-17- Ro Khanna-- D+20 to D+25
• CA-27- Judy Chu-- D+11 to D+16
• CA-33- Ted Lieu-- D+11 to D+16
• CA-34- Jimmy Gomez-- D+30 to D+35
• CA-51- Juan Vargas-- D+16 to D+22

Now I want to hop around the map a little and look at some other PVI changes that might be predictive of seat switches in 2018. What I'm not looking for are seat with tiny changes in one direction or another that are in overwhelmingy Dem or GOP districts. So, for example, it doesn't matter that deep red seats in AL-02 (Martha Roby), AL-05 and AL-06 (Gary Palmer) went down, respectively, from R+17 to R+16 and R+26. Those districts are way too red for a partisan flip even with a giant anti-Trump/anti-Ryan tsunami. On the other hand a 2 point move in swingy AZ-02, Republican Martha McSally's district, is a very big deal. The district PVI went from R+3 down to R+1, something a good Democrat-- though not conservative carpetbagger Ann Kirkpatrick-- should be able to win next year. Here are some others, where changes could prove predictive, although first I want to point out one that event DCCC would have a hard time losing again. The Miami district (FL-27) of retiring-- and Wasserman Schultz-protected-- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen went from a PVI of R+2 to D+5, one of the biggest moves anywhere.

• FL-26- Carlos Curbelo-- R+1 to D+6
• IL-06- Peter Roskam-- R+4 to R+2
• IL-17- Cheri Bustos-- D+7 to D+3
• KS-03- Kevin Yoder-- R+6 to R+4
• MN-01- Tim Walz-- R+1 to R+5
• MN-07- Collin Peterson-- R+6 to R+12
• MN-08- Rick Nolan-- D+1 to R+4
• NJ-07- Leonard Lance-- R+6 to R+3
• NJ-11- Rodney Frelinghuysen-- R+6 to R+3
• PA-17- Matt Cartwright-- D+4 to R+1
• TX-07- John Culberson-- R+13 to R+7
• TX-23- Will Hurd-- R+3 to R+1
• TX-32- Pete Sessions-- R+10 to R+5
• VA-07- Dave Brat-- R+10 to R+6
• VA-10- Barbara Comstock-- R+2 to D+1
• WI-03- Ron Kind-- D+5 to EVEN

All that said, the most common changes, by far, are that Republican seats got redder and Democratic seats got bluer. And that fits in with the findings of a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey of social trendsnamely that "divisions in America reach far beyond Washington into the nation’s culture, economy and social fabric, and the polarization began long before the rise" Señor Trumpanzee.

The findings help explain why political divisions are now especially hard to bridge. People who identify with either party increasingly disagree not just on policy; they inhabit separate worlds of differing social and cultural values and even see their economic outlook through a partisan lens.

The wide gulf is visible in an array of issues and attitudes: Democrats are twice as likely to say they never go to church as are Republicans, and they are eight times as likely to favor action on climate change. One-third of Republicans say they support the National Rifle Association, while just 4% of Democrats do. More than three-quarters of Democrats, but less than one-third of Republicans, said they felt comfortable with societal changes that have made the U.S. more diverse.

...The poll found deep splits along geographic and educational lines. Rural Americans and people without a four-year college degree are notably more pessimistic about the economy and more conservative on social issues. Those groups make up an increasingly large share of the GOP.

...Some 43% of rural residents gave a high rating to their local economy’s health, compared with 57% of urban dwellers. Among people without a four-year college degree, only 47% viewed the economy in their area as good or excellent, compared with two-thirds of people with a degree.

Both groups have been moving from the Democratic Party to the GOP.

Among people without a four-year college degree, a plurality of 44% identified as Democrats in 2010. Now, only 36% do. Among those who are college graduates, just 36% now identify as Republican, versus 41% in 2010.

While there is broad agreement that the country is riven by division, there is no consensus on why.

Fully 80% of those surveyed saw the country as mainly or totally divided. But Democrats and independents tended to see the division as rooted in economics-- the income gap between the rich and the poor. Republicans saw the split as political, with people divided based on their party affiliation, and as a function of which media outlets they follow.

So, lack of education-- and ability to think in abstracts-- doesn't stand out among political scientists as the cause? Now that's odd, since it does seem to pop right out of all the statistics. I guess it's impolite to point out that many Republicans are clueless, ignorant morons who are easy to manipulate... but that doesn't make less obvious, does it? Were you astounded to read Tuesday night about how the "well-educated" children of North Korea's ruling elites don't recognize photographs of the pyramids or the Taj Mahal? Did it seem odd to you that they believe the whole world speaks-- chooses to speak-- Korean and recognizes naengmyeon-- a buckwheat noodle dish served with tangy iced broth-- as the best food on earth. All varieties of Trumpism inevitably lead to this kind of societal dead end. Even Trumpanzee himself recognized it and realized he could exploit it, almost 2 decades before he made his ultimate grab for power.