James K. Galbraith - America's Democratic Future

[Kid Berwyn]

1. Thank you! Excellent article!

From Galbraith:

…There is a great irony in how US presidential elections now play out. The states with the greatest growth in income inequality since the early 1990s – including California, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts – invariably vote Democratic. And the states where inequality has grown less largely (though not entirely) vote Republican. This pattern has been clear for decades, and it grows stronger with each presidential election.

What explains it? It is not about attitudes toward inequality – most people don’t know (or care) about inequality levels in their home state (which we computed for our study). Rather, it is that the Democratic Party has become a coalition of two major groups representing the tails of the distribution: high-income urban professionals and low-income minorities. The Republican strongholds are in exurbs, small towns, and the countryside, in the middle of the income scale. Republicans thus dominate where inequality is lower, and Democrats where it is higher. It is a simple, consistent, and compelling pattern.

Continues…

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/america-electoral-map-turning-democratic-by-james-k-galbraith-2022-01