I Am Southern and Proud of It

@MarkPaul it's not all on Obama but he did alot to cause more.

@MarkPaul

Mark ... do the things mentioned cause division ... or in division, are these things people rally around?

That said, 95% of the division in the country is explained by location ... identity politics barely has a 50% correllation.

@Mountainlady16 Something you will learn in life... no single person regardless of their title has that much power.

@questionWeaver I think you might be giving "location" a bigger role than it deserves while minimizing the impact that good old-school critical thinking (regardless of location) has on an individual's mindset.

@MarkPaul

More than 1/2 of hillarys vote came from just 5 metroplexes

Hillary won 95% of the cities

Trump won 90+% of the counties

Location explains almost the entirety of the vote.

Identity politics is a losers view of the electorate.

It is most simply rural values (ie guns) vs urban values(no guns)

@questionWeaver You might be over-simplifying the data. Hillary's electoral college loss had as much to do with the failure of her campaign to recognize specific states that have traditionally been Democrat strongholds, in areas with a concentration of people who have felt neglected by their Democrat roots. In other words, like a puppy who is left all day alone tears up a house to make a statement to its owner, these people felt that making an "instinctual" statement would get the attention they felt they had been missing.

Although sadly, not Clinton herself, many in her circle acknowledge they would have been better served if they had her visit those states. While you might jump on that to shout out, "that's location," it's really more about taking for granted voters who were thought to be "in the bag."

@MarkPaul those states are also some the ones that biggest screw overs by obamacare and Obama's regulations

@Mountainlady16 They are also the same ones, now, that are giving their Senators and Representatives holy hell for repealing it (for those that are still holding town halls).

@MarkPaul yeah complete idiots while insurance company after insurance company pulls out.

@MarkPaul just black trouble makers and illegals probably no proof they even live in the district

I get the state thing

Match the census bureau county definitions of urban .. non-urban with the counties Trump took ... he won 2,800+ ... less than 2% are urban

Look at Hillaries 300 counties, less than 10% are not urban

This is where the vote broke

... in Hillaries urban counties she picked up 90+% of the vote ... everybody

In Trumps counties, he ran upper 70%.

Statistically, nothing else comes close to explaining the vote ... not ethnicity, sex, religion, education ... nothing.

People in Grayson County TX, voted just like people in all the non-urban counties voted.

People in Miami voted just like Philly, NYC, Chicago, LA

It was the most classic urban non-urban divide ever.

@Mountainlady16 OMG... so you automatically jump to the conclusion that it's black people and illegals? I supposed you also think they illegally voted in the election for Hillary... you probably think there are... what... about 3 million of them, more or less...?

People did not divide on issues ... they divided culturally! City - non-city

@questionWeaver SO, you're saying people in non-cities generally thought Hillary could not be trusted and people in the cities thought she could or she wasn't as bad as Trump. Alternatively, people in the non-cities bought into the idea that a self-serving rich guy from New York City was intently interested in their interests and that him saying, "he loves the uneducated" was a reason for them to really around him while people in the cities saw through his BS and stayed away?

No ... I am not saying that at all ... and the stats do not correlate with that.

All that trust, education, fbi, stroke, liked him not liked him thing ... is a media invention ... and the primary reason they missed the results by so so much.

They bought into their own silly.

City people were always going to vote for the big government person ... they live a life of subways, huge concerts in the park, rules, regulations ... they always vote big goverment.

Outside the cities, they vote liberty, individualism, local issues.

Hillary made it easy when she called these people deplorable ... that she did not want their vote.

Trump just said, then vote for me.

The vote broke right along those lines ... perfectly along those lines.

Hillary (and goofy Jeb before her) spent hundreds of millions talking about why Trump was bad ... totally wasted money.

She always had 90% of the city vote ... and in the end, she was less popular outside the cities than when she started ... all the money wasted.

Rural voted rural

Urban voted urban

Hillary only campaigned urban
Trump only campaigned non-urban

@questionWeaver You make it sound like urban life just cropped up (overnight style) in 2016. I don't think you are giving the dynamics of the campaign or the stupidity of the voters (regardless of who they voted for and where they live) enough credit. I get the convenience of attributing this all to an urban/rural divide, but it's just not that simple. As for the polls, Clinton won the popular vote by about the same margin as they predicted. It's the electoral college contraption that really got in the way of the people's choice.

The urban exodus has been occurring for a long time.

Urban real estate is limited. Cities grow no longer.

AC, roads,electric and good cars have made rural /suburban living desirable.

Demographicly, it is a long term trend ... all the net gain in congressmen is occurring in rural areas, reducing urban congressional representation.

Reflecting the population shift, 8 more electoral/congress seats pop up in red rural areas in 2020 ... with blue cities shrinking 8.

Since 1992, each election cycle has seen an increase in counties picked up by the conservative candidate ... even when they lost.

At some point, the demographics of rural power would exceed urban ... it was just a matter of time.

Hillary just speeded it up with the deplorable comment.

Nobody was picking the "better" candidate ... we all picked the one that represented us ... rural picked Trump ... Urban picked Hillary.

And that is how it played out on election day.

As to california and the electoral college ... mathematically, it is a dispersion of voters you need to win .. mathematically a lot of votes in just a few cities ... will no longer win.

It is the candidate that achieves the wider distribution that will win.

For the next 20 years, this favors the conservative ... for the first time in 100 years

@MarkPaul no rural ppl just don't support babykilling and freaks

@questionWeaver There are many problems with your assessment, but the most glaring one is, Trump isn't a conservative; he's not a Republican; and he certainly isn't a friend of rural residents. Perhaps you bought into his gimmick he's a successful businessman because despite his high volume of bankruptcies he heavily donated to Clinton and Schumer prior to him becoming a sleazy politician. Perhaps you invested into his sudden "change of mind" defense on most issues that are at the heart of conservatism to support your theory.

In truth though, many people were fooled by a message they found too "tasty" to pass up the way many people just can't seem to believe that Nigerian General they get an email from wants to share millions of dollars with them if they only give up their social security and bank account numbers.

The fault is not in our location; it's in our greed to believe in the unbelievable no matter where any of us may live. And urban congressional representation is more of a function of modern day gerrymandering than your convoluted claim the USA is becoming more rural (presumably as people head back to farms and dirt roads) "Green Acres" style.

@MarkPaul and Clinton is a friend to the rural Americans and small towns

@Mountainlady16

@Mountainlady16 The problem and the issue isn't whether Clinton and I are friends of small towns. It's that despite the evidence, you think Trump is and you create Lenin-like statues of him to show your love and loyalty to him.

@Mountainlady16 she wanted to carry on Obama's job killing policies that destroyed economies in much the rural south. She wanted bring in illegals and refugees by the thousands which took even more jobs away.

@MarkPaul he's getting rid job killing policies and working on getting rid job killing healthcare policies. Unemployment in my county is 12 percent all our schools are title 1

@Mountainlady16 Trump wants to protect his business interests, get more and more media attention, and use our (American) taxpayer money ("Mexico will pay for the wall") to build a nonsensical distraction. You are supporting the worst of two evils.