Image blog white voters:

This is how the stereotypical white, poor voter comes across.

What does this image portray? It portrays Ted Nugent with some sort of assault weapon, Ted Cruz in the background, a front runner in the last election cycle. Ted Nugent is potent enough of a symbol as his reputation and fame proceeds him. The artist of this montage of symbols and meanings put Ted front and center for a good reason, namely his outspoken politics. The large “vote teapublican” is an amalgamation of the Tea Party and Republican. The Tea Party is a party who are strict constitutionalists. They believe in short that the government should be limited to that what is explicitly expressed in the constitution. They are politically seen as being far right of the Republican Party.

What is interesting is the how the views are portrayed by the list of negative points that are supposed call attention to the beliefs of those who vote Republican. The list of supposedly Republican attributes is how many who live in big cities on the coasts see those who live in “fly-over country.”   This sign at the very top is accusing those who vote Republican as being racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic, bible-thumpin’, gun totin’, bourgeoisie, luddites. This is obviously not the case with most of those who live in “fly over country.” In short this image implies that if one votes Republican, then, that person belongs to the heinous group as described above. Those are some serious allegations to have attached to a choice made at the ballot.

 

Everybody Knows That Democrats Stand For Liberty!

How often have we heard that white people vote republican- conservative? What exactly is with those guys, why would people vote for backwards, religious people who want to keep women, minorities and anyone else who does not look like or act like them? Jonathan Haidt in his blog post, What Makes People Vote Republican? Demonstrates on various levels why a certain demographic vote for conservative ideas and politicians. Haidt does focus on the religious right, he does not seem to spend a lot of time using reason and Enlighenment ideals to support his claims as they would not fit. Haidt does though claim that the Republican ideals are more black and white or more cut and died, hence easier for people to digest, hence easier to understand and identify with, hence more Republican voters. He asserts that Democrats use a vastly more complex model to describe the problems as well as the solutions that are involved in modern society.

Haidt in his Essay-Blog uses many devices to explain the gap between Democrats and Republicans; one of thes devices is the simple way in which Haidt posits that Republicans view morality. He again asserts that Democrats have a much broader view of what is moral and more open view of what is ethically correct. Interestingly, the way he describes the Democratic view of Republicans is: narrow minded, racist and dumb. Which is a little confusing as in the same paragraph and the previous Haidt is almost gushing on how much more intellectual and open minded the Democrats are.

Interestingly Haidt, a psychologist undertook his own research immersing himself in India to study and help learn how conservatives think, act and live. This is akin to the field Research a sociologist would perform, gathering primary data to support his findings. In his trip to India, Haidt began to have a much deeper understanding of a conservative society, although only after his initial culture shock had subsided. Haidt from his findings tried to find a redefine the emphasis of morality, on what morality does not on what morality values. Haidt then had come to he conclusion that he might have a better way:

“Here’s my alternative definition: morality is any system of interlocking values, practices, institutions, and psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible” (Haidt Blog).

This view that Haidt takes is basically communism or socialism. I do not think that, as educated as he may be, has occurred to him. Marx and Engles had figured this out over 150 years ago, but resulting from a different formulation. Nevertheless it is Haidt has made it clear that he is at least on some level a conflict theorist. Believing that we use our morals and values to oppress others for the benefit of our selfishness. Haidt does go further to describe other mechanisms, which seem to pervade the group dynamics of those with conservative beliefs and the reason that Democrats seem to be scaring away potential voters as a result of their well meaning but ill advised behavior of not recognizing the importance of the collective of ideal the conservatives hold dear.

 

My Opinion on Haidt’s Essay-Blog:

This was a lengthy blog and it is fairly clear that Haidt view society through a conflict theorist lens. His arguments are well developed but are missing much of what consists of conservative ideals and values despite the research that he has carried out. What Haidt does not take in to account is the track record of the two systems of ideals that is being compared, whilst denigrating conservative views as simple and without complexity. Personally I believe his arguments trying to persuade a conservative thinker into a Democrat frame of mind is just as condescending as he makes the Republicans out to be in the beginning of his blog post. I would definitely not dissuade people from reading this article however, it is not something I would recommend to someone trying to discern why people vote Republican as most of the arguments are not convincing either way. I would give this post a good score of trustworthiness, but it is largely written out of conjecture and the arguments that he poses on to support conservative thinking are facile.

 

 

Works Cited:

Haidt, Jonathan. “What Makes People Vote Republican?” HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK? | Edge.org, 10 Aug. 2018, http://www.edge.org/conversation/jonathan_haidt-what-makes-people-vote-republican.

 

 

The Diversity Of Black Political Views

A Blog Review Blog!

The Diversity Of Black Political Views is a blog written by Perry Bacon Jr. and Dhrumil Mehta that covers the poll data and the history of black voters and their voting behavior. It is very interesting as they mention that black voters have consistently voted for the Democratic Party at very high rates in the last 12 presidential elections. In other words black people have voted for democrats exclusively since 1960. Since 1972 the Democrats have averaged 87% of the black vote as opposed to the Republican Party who had averaged around 10%. This blog is full of poll data and numbers to look over and consider. Perhaps the most counter intuitive aspect of this blog was the information that almost an equal number of blacks polled considered themselves Liberal or Conservative and almost 44% claimed to be moderate, or in between the two.

Overall trying to evaluate Bacon and Mehta’s sociological view is extremely difficult they are presenting an almost overwhelming amount of statistical data. Yes, the numbers can tell us things, but it is all very neutrally presented. Bacon and Mehta do not make an obvious attempt at an explanation for the data the way it stands, rather just present it. They make no assertions that seem to fly in the face of logic or common sense. The blog post simply presents facts and information; it is truly up to the reader to draw correlations between the different data that is presented.

This post is very useful in the subject of researching voting behavior of black and white people. There is plenty of data and links showing to where the data was gained. I would recommend someone who is interested in this subject to read this blog post and follow the links to the actual data sets themselves. This blog does not seem to have a hidden agenda or a “spin.”

 

Works Cited:

Bacon, Perry, and Dhrumil Mehta. “The Diversity Of Black Political Views.” FiveThirtyEight, FiveThirtyEight, 6 Apr. 2018, fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-diversity-of-black-political-views/.

 

Visual interest:

Picture Analysis of Charles Barkley

Meme: Charles Barkley, Google Images. 2018

In regard to help explain why poor black individuals and poor white individuals vote the way that they do, one can use pictures, memes and political cartoons.  These forms of visual art and expression can go very far to help shed some light as to why people of a specific category vote the way they do.

In poking around on the internet looking for meme, which is not very hard to do, I found this striking one of Charles Barkley, a famous basketball player.  What does this image portray?  The image is of a middle aged, well known, successful black man. He is smiling and portraying a positive image. The meme that is written on the picture is a quote from Charles himself.  It is actually a quote from Barkley in 2015 on the “Dan Patrick Show” (The Hill).

This brings up an interesting point, one would be led to believe that Charles Barkley is a true conservative, voting against Democrats, if taking this picture at face value.  What is presented here, as truth, is not the whole truth.  If one digs further into Barkley’s political beliefs it will become very clear that Barkley has stated that he has voted Democrat for most of his life.  He was taken out of context in the interview that he had given on the “Dan Patrick Show.” He does go further into detail saying: “Ah, well, I vote Democratic most of the time,” he said. “But the Democrats don’t have a candidate I really like” (The Hill).

This brings up another very interesting point, 87% of black voter voted Democrat in the 2016.  That is an overwhelming amount of people from one category to vote in a specific way. The question is this behavior institutional, is it a social construct that is enforce as soon as children are old enough to understand politics in its abstract form?  What is striking is that black people still are lagging behind in regard to income, life expectancy and education.  The out of context Charles Barkley quote is not necessarily wrong, nor is it what it implies after the “…”

This quote from Charles Barkley intrigued me, he seems to hold some interesting opinions.  Voting for Democrats, I would have guessed that he would hold the views of a conflict theorist.  Charles Barkley has some very interesting opinions and according to The Hill, Charles Barkley actually planned to vote for the Republican Presidential candidate, John Kasich. Then again, if one looks at the research, the more money people acquire and success that people experience in life the greater the chance is that they will start to vote Republican. So perhaps this is not so far off of the bell curve as I suspected it would be when I first saw this meme, floating on my screen on google images.

I think that the meaning of this meme is to reassure white people that even some black people agree with their sentiments that the Democratic Party does, in no way, any good for advancing people who are in the black category. The fact that they choose a successful black man and take his words out of context, provide somewhat of an insight to the idea that they believe that they only thing holding black people back is black people themselves.  This may also be true to a degree, however politics are a very complicated thing, as are the social issues that affect individuals who are in specific categories.

 

Works Cited:

“Charles Barkley Slams ‘Unintelligent Blacks’ on Philly Radio.” BIASBREAKDOWN, Biasbreakdown, 25 Oct. 2014, biasbreakdown.com/2014/10/24/charles-barkley-slams-unintelligent-blacks-on-philly-radio/.

Hensch, Mark. “Barkley: Voting for Dems Hasn’t Helped Blacks.” TheHill, The Hill, 28 Aug. 2015, thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/252181-barkley-voting-for-dems-hasnt-helped-blacks.

Maniam, Shiva. “2. Party Affiliation among Voters: 1992-2016.” Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Pew Research Center, 13 Sept. 2016, http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2-party-affiliation-among-voters-1992-2016/.

 

We Can’t Make it Here by James McMurtry

Lyrics:

There’s a Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
The flag on his wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing and both hands free

No one’s paying much mind to him
The V. A. Budget’s just stretched so thin
And now there’s more coming back from the Mideast war
We can’t make it here anymore

And that big ol’ building was the textile mill
That fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
‘Cause we can’t make it here anymore

You see those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They’re just gonna sit there ’til they rot
‘Cause there’s nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks

Empty storefronts around the square
There’s a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don’t come down here unless you’re looking to score
We can’t make it here anymore

The bar’s still open but man it’s slow
The tip jar’s light and the register’s low
The bartender don’t have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. C. E. O.
See how far 5. 15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one your stores
I bet you can’t make it here anymore

And there’s a high school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that

If she comes up pregnant what’ll she do
Forget the career and forget about school
Can she live on faith’ Live on hope’
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it’s way too late to just say no
You can’t make it here anymore

Now I’m stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
‘Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can’t make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ’em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away

I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need
Their shit don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed
Their kids won’t bleed in their damn little war
And we can’t make it here anymore

Will work for food, will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks

So let ’em eat jellybeans let ’em eat cake
Let ’em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore

So that’s how it is, that’s what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind if you’re listening at all
Get out of that limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone tell us all why

In Dayton Ohio or Portland Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool

Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There’s rats in the alley and trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can’t make it here anymore

 

Lyrics by James McMurtry

Compadre Records. 2005

 

James McMurtry song that takes a strong Conflict Theorist view towards society:

James McMurtry’s song Can’t Make it Here is a song about a depressed economy and how every day people’s lives look making minimum wage. McMurtry’s song is clearly viewed through the lens of the conflict theorist.  The song is highly critical and skeptical of wealthy and those politicians currently in power.  This song is hauntingly familiar to anyone who has lived in a depressed region or city in the United States.  What makes this piece very interesting is that it covers several themes whilst it is not clear as to if the narrator of the song is black, white, Hispanic, man or woman.  Three major themes stand out which share a common thread on how people vote and who poor people blame for their economic status; 1) Politicians 2) Capitalists 3)Media.

 

Media:

The song describes a girl in a laundry mat who finds a magazine, which is said to have a “bourgeois dream,” that this girl wishes dearly to have.  We do not know what the magazine is, however, it is implied by the description that it is something that likely that it prominently displays an expensive home, A-list actors’ lives or some combination of the two. Interestingly McMurtry’s song then moves to the next few lines which demonstrate how unrealistic it is and that it is all an illusion; the reality is that a woman with children cannot accomplish the unrealistic ideal that the magazine sets forth. A woman’s life is ruined or at a minimum her ambitions will be starkly reduced as a result of becoming pregnant. With the economy and lack of health care, a woman who becomes pregnant will not have a successful career, or finish school; it is a dead end.  McMurtry demonstrates the hopelessness of being “structurally unemployed,” a town where there is no work and seemingly no way to escape.

 

Capitalists

Even stronger criticisms are thrown toward the capitalists who seemingly caused the economic downturn in the town, centering on the closed down textile mill.  It is very clear here that McMurtry or at least the narrator believes that the people are being oppressed by those with money; the view of a conflict theorists.  Not only do the capitalist close the textile mill, turning all the employees out into the street, the capitalists in charge of the textile mill are indifferent to the suffering of those in need.  The wealthy industrialists “haunt” the narrator’s dreams; they don’t care about the small people and their children will not die in the wars.  The narrator clearly holds those in charge of the textile business in contempt; the capitalist business owners are given fault for the economic hardships resulting in the poor condition of the streets. The narrator wryly observes that the reply from the business owners would likely be:

So let ’em eat jellybeans let ’em eat cake
Let ’em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore

This is a jab at the Marie Antoinette style retort that business owners/capitalists seem to give when it is demonstrated that there is economic hardship and that they might have some responsibility to those individuals.

 

Politicians

The dire illustration of life by the commoner is further darkened by the ongoing conflict in the “Mideast war.”  The beginning of the song starts by describing a Vietnam vet, who even though is obviously severely crippled, still believes in the “American” way of life.  Vietnam was several decades ago, this veteran has been in his wheelchair for this time and yet he is still poor and in need of help.  The VA, is described as not caring or having enough money to be able to care; there are more and more veterans coming home from our conflicts in the Middle East who will need medical attention and help. What is demonstrated here is that the state or the government does not care enough, and they never have.  The message is one of hopelessness; politicians are not paying attention to those who need it. The apathetic behavior on part of the politicians is revisited, the narrator calls out the inaction on part of the President of the United States, and claims that he may be in denial.  The narrator even suggests that the government is letting the rich capitalists off by letting them pay less taxes. The narrator is looking to the government or president for help; looking for someone to ease the suffering and do something to help the commoner:

So that’s how it is, that’s what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind if you’re listening at all
Get out of that limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone tell us all why

Furthermore, it is a very interesting double entendre that is repeated often throughout the song, variations on the phrase: “we can’t make it here anymore.” This is a very powerful statement as it is used to mean, that the people living in this segment of society, are unable to survive with the lack of economic opportunities and lack of political will to help those in need. “We can’t make it here anymore,” also means exactly that, as a jab at the capitalists who closed the textile mill and moved jobs overseas to Singapore.

“We Can’t Make It Here” is a very interesting song as it could describe anywhere in the US that has moved on to a post-industrial economic system. The manufacturing jobs are going away but the people remain without help from those that employed them, or the government.  They are left to their own devices to figure out their own way out of their misery. This song truly covers all the based, it demonstrates how those who worked are losing out, the city is dying out as are the local business that still somehow hang on, there is crime on the rise and no empathy or compassion from either the wealthy or the political classes. This song helps give insight as to how people might vote when put in this economic situation. If one political party can promise answers and welfare, school or a way out of the misery, people would probably jump on it.

 

“Can’t Make It Here.” James McMurtry. Compadre Records. 2005

Pickin’ Time Johnny Cash

I got cotton in the bottom land
It’s up and growin’ and I got a good stand
My good wife and them kids of mine
Gonna get new shoes, come pickin’ time
Get new shoes come pickin’ time

Ev’ry night when I go to bed
I thank the Lord that my kids are fed
They live on beans eight days and nine
But I get ’em fat come pickin’ time
Get ’em fat come come pickin’ time

The corn is yellow and the beans are high
The sun is hot in the summer sky
The work is hard til layin’ by
Layin’ by til pickin’ time
Layin’ by til pickin’ time

It’s hard to see by the coal-oil light
And I turn it off purty early at night
‘Cause a jug of coal-oil costs a dime
But I stay up late come pickin’ time
Stay up late come pickin’ time

My old wagon barely gets me to town
I patched the wheels and I watered ’em down
Keep her in shape so she’ll be fine
To haul my cotton come pickin’ time
Haul my cotton come pickin’ time

Last Sunday mornin’ when they passed the hat
It was still nearly empty back where I sat
But the preacher smiled and said that’s fine
The Lord’ll wait til pickin’ time
The Lord’ll wait til pickin’ time

 

Songwriter: Johnny R. Cash

Pickin’ Time lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

 

Analysis of Johnny Cash’s Pickin’ Time and How it

Johnny Cash, the Man In Black, is an interesting and compelling song writer, he was able to capture emotions and take snapshots of American society, focusing on the last seven decades of the 20^th Century.  Interestingly Johnny cash had taken several sociological views regarding to the nature of society: sometimes he voiced a functionalist view, a symbolic interactionist and sometimes a conflict theorist. He believed in compassion and fairness, yet hard work, achievement and merit that a interactionist would attribute hard work; observed the oppression of the government and big business over the poor and Cash would simply comment on the functions of various segments and strata of society. Cash is widely known if not only by name but also for penning over a dozen, cross genre songs about often largely politics and socio-economic situations of poor, underrepresented people.

In this song “Pickin’ Time” Cash narrates his childhood experiences picking cotton. This song goes far to describe those who live in “fly over country.”  Poor, lower class, white people who tend to vote republican, are somewhat represented by this song. Cash sings about having to wait until “pickin’ time” comes around to be able to afford new shoes for his family.  What does this tell us?  Cash is taking up the capitalistic cause, even though it is implied that his family and community do not have a lot of money:

Last Sunday mornin’ when they passed the hat
It was still nearly empty back where I sat
But the preacher smiled and said that’s fine
The Lord’ll wait til pickin’ time
The Lord’ll wait til pickin’ time

 

Cash goes on to say that he is going to be OK, he believes in the free market; when he sells his cotton the money will come in and all will be well. Furthermore, even though the family would probably considered poor, he takes it upon himself to feed his family, not relying on the state to produce food:

Ev’ry night when I go to bed
I thank the Lord that my kids are fed
They live on beans eight days and nine
But I get ’em fat come pickin’ time
Get ’em fat come come pickin’ time

 

This is clearly a reference to point out that although they partake at least in part in sustenance farming, the family is well fed, and taken care of. Cash is able to work the land so he is self-sufficient: autarkic. Cash mentions that although they are eating beans all the time, as a result of his hard work and determination there is plenty more beans in the field and the corn is ripe.  The idea that Cash is completely self reliant is the description of his wagon that he uses to transport his cotton to the market:

My old wagon barely gets me to town
I patched the wheels and I watered ’em down
Keep her in shape so she’ll be fine
To haul my cotton come pickin’ time
Haul my cotton come pickin’ time

Cash maintains his own wagon, keeps it in shape, takes care of it, even though it is in poor condition, he takes pride in what he has.  This is an important point as often those who have something that is falling apart, many people, even poor, are not willing in todays society to take pride in what little they have.  Cash knows that this old wagon keeps his family going as it transports the valuable cotton; this also illustrates a large difference in social views of many today to those who grew up during the Great Depression.  A famous expression that could be a mantra or motto for those who lived through the Great Depression: “Use it up, wear it out, or do without.”

Interestingly, Johnny Cash was always a proponent of the poor and beaten down, however he also believed in taking pride the country, in what you have in material goods, and the importance of hard work.  These are all the typical hall marks of those who voted for the Republican ticket in the last 25 or 30 years. Cash’s song, Pickin’ Cotton, represents, in a simple way, the lives that millions of people in the Midwest live or have lived. They do not look necessarily to the state for help but to their own sweat and hard work.  This song is a sort of Anti-conflict theorist song.  It clearly shows that where we are in life is the sum of our works; Cash makes no mention of how there is a conspiring ring of capitalist fat cats to hold down the poor farmer.

 

 

Trusted Sources:

Demographic-Social Survey Organizations:

http://www.pewresearch.org/

The Pew Research organization is a trusted source for demographic and sociological data with in the US.

Government:

https://www.census.gov/

The US government runs this site; it provides census data.

https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/

The US Government runs this site; Cooperative Congressional Election Study

Contact performs regular election surveys.

https://www.fec.gov/

The US government runs this site. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is the independent regulatory agency charged with administering and enforcing the federal campaign finance law.

 

University Sites:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/

Run by the University of Michigan, showing 2016 election results for the presidential election. Results are correlated to a political map.

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/groups-voted-2016/

Cornell University poll results for presidential election 2016

 

News Media:

Poor White Coal Miners in West Virginia vote Republican:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqceHviNBC4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OGOr_Qh1uo

Interesting video stating why blacks would not want to vote Democrat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gQmTqqa8S0

Super interesting video by black researcher asking blacks questions on the street about Trump and politics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVd0kWmEAwM

Poor Whites in Southern Ohio and Poor Inner-City Blacks in Northern Ohio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3XDR3mqt2k

Black Women Vote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut8JJjPGvb4

Daryl Davis; really great interview about social study on racist beliefs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw

 

News:

2016 Election results, shifting allegiance’s?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/25/mostly-black-neighborhoods-voted-more-republican-in-2016-than-in-2012/?utm_term=.715edb8b164d

 

 

 

      Thoughts regarding the relationship between how one’s own race and economic status factor into voting habits.

       People are interesting. It does not matter to me if it is one person, two people or an entire society. I personally like to understand why people do certain things, what is their motivation and what do they expect to gain. Even more interesting can be the way they seek to achieve their goals, either as individuals acting alone or as a group. In society we tend organize around various things; it is a natural, biological drive. There is likely a way that humans have a higher likely hood of survival and health whilst living in a group of likeminded individuals. Which leads to my first category of organization: like-mindedness.   To be like-minded can be the most basic thing, which casts a net around almost every single human being and it can be very narrow. Some things that we all want by nature are things like material comforts, such as food, shelter, warmth and even wealth. There are other more abstract ideas such as political beliefs, religion and behavior or ethics.

Beliefs and culture creates a very clear line between groups of people. Another obvious organizational category, based not simply on ideals is race. This is especially clear in countries like those settled as colonies in the 16^th Century, such as Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Canada, Brazil, the United States, etc. In such countries, there exists, as a result of the slave trade, individuals whose ancestors were sold into slavery in Sub-Saharan Africa and brought to North America. Fast-forward 160 years. Here in the US exists an interesting situation, which seems to be clearer today than it ever was.

When using race as a category to and correlating it with the income of those very same individuals, voting behavior becomes very interesting. Why is this interesting? Countries are made up of many individuals who subscribe to the same ideals and agree to live and die by the same rules. We, in principle, all want the same thing. The reality is though, we go about it different ways, our methods differ and our opinions as to what is enough, wealth, poverty, opportunity and oppression remain elusive and subjective. Of course there are plenty of people who are more than willing to place a value on many of these things. We need values to measure, the question of poverty is often not as important as to determining what is the metric by which we should measure.

I would like to explore this theme in this blog for a little bit. I hope through the exploration, there is some truth that exists, some information or revelation that might help foster an understanding of why our society votes the way it does. Why use income and race? Simple: we are all humans, and want the same things, but why do people in two different groups vote differently, whilst in the same income bracket? Why do some tend to vote another way as income goes up and why does this change in voting behavior change at different rates? Is it that the parties or candidates for whom the groups are voting for hold similar ideas, those abstract ideas that can cause individuals to collate around one another? Why does one group hold one truth to be more valid than another? There are plenty of graphs, charts, and studies on this topic, but they all seem to be so narrow and specific that finding specific answers to questions is a quick and easy task. Connecting the dots empirically is the key; at least that is what science tells us.

Annotated Bibliography for research material, looking in to voting behavior in regard to those in the US, correlating race, income and geographic location.

Source:

Fraga, B. (2016). Candidates or Districts? Reevaluating the Role of Race in Voter Turnout. American Journal of Political Science,60(1), 97-122. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24583053

Summary:

Bernard Fraga closely examines data made available from governmental sources such as the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, Census Bureau and the Federal Elections Commission, in order to demonstrate the correlation between the race of political candidates and the race of their voting constituency. Fraga demonstrates with extensive tables, charts and empirical analysis how race effects voter turn out among white, black, Asian and Hispanic voting blocks. Furthermore, the analysis extends the data to demonstrate how minorities tend to have a higher voter turnout when there is a higher percentage of that specific minority group present as a percent of the population. Co-ethnic vs non co-ethnic candidate support is demonstrated with the filter of minority percentage of the population in a specific district; it is demonstrated that the higher percentage of the minority in a given area the more likely they are to vote with no correlation as to whether the candidate shares co-ethnic status. This study is very intensive and full of statistical data, which shows the detail and effort that Fraga put into the study. The explanations of why the voter turn out is speculated at but not necessarily relevant to the study as it is an analysis of the data itself, not that causal or the effects of the information presented. The study is limited to the scope of determining the effect of race and population; the study does not go into the actual political ideology that the candidates themselves stand for, right, left or otherwise. It does give insight how social perception regarding how population numbers can drive participation in voting behavior.

Source:

Kaufmann, E., Goujon, A., & Skirbekk, V. (2012). American political affiliation, 2003-43: A cohort component projection.Population Studies, 66(1), 53-67. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41721286

Summary:

Erik Kaufmann, Anne Goujon and Vegard Skirbekk have used software driven analysis programs such as, Population-Development-Environment, (PDE) to determine the projection of voting behavior based on political allegiance into to the year 2042. The data used for input, into the multistate projection software, is of high fidelity; data from the US Census Bureau, and GSS are used extensively to help determine the effects of political affiliation and its correlation between family allegiance of those who are Democrat or Republican; fertility rates, political affiliation of mother and father in families, immigration rates, gender and time. There are some limitations to the data sets. Independent voters are categorized in binary format using the independent voters “lean” to categorize the individual surveyed. Furthermore, although the data does take into account political some of the political realignment of the mid 20^th century, it does not take into account very recent political turmoil and platform positions. This sort of analysis is static in a way that depicts the Democratic Party and Republican party as a two systems which constantly represent the unchanging political views of either party, with out taking into account more recent political changes; the classic “depiction” of either party is most likely due to the study publishing date of 2012: the study is already 6 years old.

 

Source:

Hersh, E., & Nall, C. (2016). The Primacy of Race in the Geography of Income-Based Voting: New Evidence from Public Voting Records. American Journal of Political Science, 60(2), 289-303. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24877622

Summary:

Eitdan Hersh and Clayton Nall delve into the questions regarding race and its relation to income based voting by geographic location. Hersh a social and policies studies associate professor at Yale collaborates with Nall, an associate professor of political science at Stanford University, analyze data gathered from various sources including the Harvard Election Data Archive, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study and data sets including 73 million state-party- voter registration records, in order to illustrate connections and disconnections between income, race, geography and voting record. In general the paper demonstrates that income-based voting in regard to race in specific geographic which are predominately not black, have little to do with income, however in areas that are predominately black, income has a strong connection to how the geographic region voted. This information is very useful as it depicts data sets plotted out in chart and line graph form. The information gives insight on how minority population groups such as black Americans vote in relation to their geographic region and based on income. The results are very clear; certain regions with large populations of black Americans have a strong tendency to vote in Republican, which is directly proportional to the reported income. This research is very useful to help track the voting behavior of white and black Americans, and the respective parties that they vote for; the data does not, however, account for independent voters or take into account gender. Furthermore the data give on a state by state level covers only 29 states, which do cover more than half the states in the Union but not all.

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