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I am from the Pacific Northwest, and as I read about the election season in the US, I find myself still a little startled by what I read about the political proclivities of the US. Not only in the weird alliance that Donald Trump has brought together, but just facts about the American electorate that political commentators take for granted. One of the biggest is that "college educated whites" were a traditionally Republican group. As far as I can tell, for the East Coast and Midwest, politics was kind of traditionally divided between the Republican managerial elite, the workers, who were conservative if they were evangelical Christians, or economically liberal if they were union workers, and then minorities, who were all poor and lived in inner cities. Coming from Portland, Oregon, there were a couple of groups, that didn't really fit these categories: 1. Urban, college educated or professional whites, who were even 20 years ago pretty routinely liberal, and who are now very liberal. There is a gamut of beliefs within that, with some being crunchy and some being technocratic, but all being pretty liberal. Most service workers or non-professional workers are going to have similar political and cultural beliefs. 2. Suburban professionals, who were a bit more of the stereotypically "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" type, and whose politics ran from centrist Democrat to libertarian, but who, on the whole, were not Republican. 3. Suburban non-professional, rural middle and upper classes, Evangelical Christians, etc. : all of these might fall under the traditional conservative umbrella, with the major difference being that they are not going to be a "country club" set, the way they would be in the South or midwest, and that if they aren't clearly Evangelical, they are going to be more open about lifestyle issues than conservatives in other parts of the country. You can be a good old boy in the West and still smoke lots of weed. 4. Latino, black and native minorities: While present, this isn't as big of a voting block as it is in other places, and in general isn't kind of the nexus of "otherness" it might be acorss most of the country. 5. Blue collar, unionized manufacturing workers: there are more of these across the Pacific Northwest than most people think (the only industries here aren't really microbrews and zines), but its still less than other parts of the country. Many of these workers are either in high tech industries (aerospace) or more specialty manufacturing. But there was never "steel towns" here. That is my brief run down. There is obviously so many different groups within that, and I could try to explain Mormonism or loggers or Russian immigrants or one of the many wrinkles in this at great length, but that is how my area differs from the general American stereotypical class and race structure. What about your area?
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Sep 16, 2016 23:47
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I live in Capitol Hill, Washington DC. It's thirtysomething professionals and twentysomething interns, leveraged to the eyeballs on student loans. Extremely diverse in a superficial (race, orientation, national origin) sense; extremely archetypical in a substantive sense. Everyone has a master's degree or higher, it seems like half the local population are lawyers, very few children around. No Poors in the immediate neighborhood, as they were gentrified across the Anacostia years ago. No one around here would admit to being socially conservative. Fewer would admit to supporting Donald Trump - locally his supporters are known as "varmints." It's a cool playground, but probably disgusting seen from anywhere else. TheImmigrant fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Sep 17, 2016 |
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Sep 17, 2016 21:51
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TheImmigrant posted:I live in Capitol Hill, Washington DC. It's thirtysomething professionals and twentysomething interns, leveraged to the eyeballs on student loans. Extremely diverse in a superficial (race, orientation, national origin) sense; extremely archetypical in a substantive sense. Everyone has a master's degree or higher, it seems like half the local population are lawyers, very few children around. No Poors in the immediate neighborhood, as they were gentrified across the Anacostia years ago. No one around here would admit to being socially conservative. Fewer would admit to supporting Donald Trump - locally his supporters are known as "varmints." Do people also act like 80,000 dollars a year is lower middle class, and that more than 25 miles from the city is the wilderness?
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Sep 18, 2016 05:28
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There's no such thing as class because we're in the United States of America where everyone is equal.
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Sep 18, 2016 05:29
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glowing-fish posted:Do people also act like 80,000 dollars a year is lower middle class, and that more than 25 miles from the city is the wilderness? Yes to both. $100k is poverty here, and wilderness begins in NoVa.
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Sep 18, 2016 14:40
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TheImmigrant posted:Yes to both. $100k is poverty here, and wilderness begins in NoVa. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahah
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Sep 18, 2016 15:55
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Upper middle class lily white professionals, welfare queens (aka farmers), trump voters who actually like living here and a token amount of (((property value lowering))) minorities who tricked my precious angel Jimmy into doing a line of coke at Seaside.
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Sep 18, 2016 17:31
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Lawman 0 posted:Upper middle class lily white professionals, welfare queens (aka farmers), trump voters who actually like living here and a token amount of (((property value lowering))) minorities who tricked my precious angel Jimmy into doing a line of coke at Seaside. ...where is this?
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Sep 19, 2016 01:11
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Sounds like Floribama. Wha, no one here lives in a Place with social and economic groups?
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Sep 19, 2016 15:20
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Phoenix Metro, so it basically divides into a few major blocks. 1. Old White Fuckers. These are the people who keep electing Joe Arpaio. They mostly live in one of the several Sun City communities and are also mostly above the median for retirees. They also vote down school funding and anything else that may improve the area. They are assholes. 2. Hispanics. Mostly Mexicans, but most everyone is represented in some way, some recent immigrants, some here 50+ years, some here forever. Runs the gamut of political ideologies, but overall they lean Democratic, though their turnout isn't always the highest, though that's looking to change this year. Mostly clustered in West Phoenix, South Phoenix, the southern end of North Phoenix, parts of Tempe and Mesa, Tolleson and Buckeye. Economically all over the place, but a good chunk are below the median. 3. Middle Class White People. These are the people living in basically every suburb that isn't Cave Creek/North Scottsdale. Median income, often conservative, but can swing one way or the other. Their major concern seems to be school safety and keeping the streets safe (AKA NO MINORITIES). 4. African-Americans. It feels dumb to lump this group as one segment to be honest, because the community here in my experience is diverse as gently caress. I've met people from South Phoenix who basically have experiences you would expect in areas like Compton and what not, but also refugees from Africa who have become small business owners and now have farms and make a living selling produce locally and a ton of middle class people who have experiences as diverse as No Different from Middle Class White People to Victims of Systemic Racism, depending on what part of the city they live in. People who have moved here from elsewhere tell me that overall, despite our reputation, if you're middle class it's not as lovely as some part of the country, but the systemic issues exist at some level. Again, mostly Democratic voters and I am not as up on their issues, though systemic racism, the prison state, gently caress Joe Arpaio and safe communities seem to be big ones this election. 5. Native Americans. Not the largest group, but the Phoenix area actually has a decent native presence. There are four reservations in the metro area itself and a lot of Navajo, Hopi, Apache and others who live off-reservation also live in the area. Solidly Democratic voters, but underserved, discriminated against and in the the case of the Fort McDowell Yavapai and Salt River Pima-Maricopa, sandwiched next to really wealthy, really white areas that loving hate them because they are racist assholes. The issues they are big on and involved in locally are recognition of the reservation land, cultural site protection, protection of their water sources and water rights, access to educational and work opportunities. 6. Working Class White People. Overwhelmingly left behind by the economy and overwhelmingly conservative. Basically the same as anywhere else. They're spread all over but mostly the older suburbs, parts of West Phoenix and Buckeye. 7. Wealthy Mostly White People. A bunch of NIMBY fucks who live in Cave Creek and North Scottsdale, bought up a bunch of formerly public land to build their houses on it, slammed golf courses into it and vote all over the place in ideology. They range from old Arizona money to shitheads who came here for a vacation home or for the ~Desert Life~ and eat up the land. gently caress them.
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Sep 19, 2016 15:40
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KiteAuraan posted:Phoenix Metro, so it basically divides into a few major blocks. This is the type of information I was looking for? I imagine that Joe Arpaio gets elected around a core group of old retirees and resentful working class white people, and then manages to keep enough somewhat moderate middle-class people on with a "Think of the Children" shpiel? And that low numbers and low turnout by blacks, Latinos and Natives are never enough to threaten his reelection?
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Sep 19, 2016 16:01
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TheImmigrant posted:Sounds like Floribama.  but I guess it works for other places as well.Northern NJ is basically the reason why Chris Christie is our governor and it's filled with people just like him who are mad that teachers unions and Newark exist.
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Sep 19, 2016 16:46
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TheImmigrant posted:Sounds like Floribama. Its more that people take for granted that whatever socioeconomic groups are around them are universal. Definitions of what "moderate" "middle class" "suburban" or any other class of voters is vary across the country so much, but people think they are talking about the same thing. In Ohio, a "moderate, middle-class, suburban voter" is a Republican with a high school education who lives in a city of 100,000 people and works as the manager of an autoparts store, and considers that while Trump might go too far, he is still better than Hillary. In Colorado, a "moderate, middle-class, suburban voter" is a Democrat with strong environmental leanings who practices yoga, has a Master's degree, and lives in a town of 10,000 where he telecommutes as a software developer. The problem is that many people, especially in the old, parochial East Coast, kind of just assume that the definitions they are used to are true everywhere.
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Sep 19, 2016 16:56
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glowing-fish posted:This is the type of information I was looking for? That's pretty much what it is, he's carried by the retirees, North Scottsdale and the whiter suburbs. Turnout to get him out has been low in the past, though the last election it was a lot closer, and this time there is a real chance that he gets thrown out, wonderfully enough due to the great job Trump has done at mobilizing Hispanics to register to vote and naturalize. It'll be glorious if Trump takes Joe down with him. Also, I've known a lot of people in the law enforcement community here, mostly local departments, and they, and everyone they have ever worked with, loving hate Joe Arpaio, which is another interesting twist to local politics.
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Sep 19, 2016 17:00
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glowing-fish posted:Its more that people take for granted that whatever socioeconomic groups are around them are universal. Definitions of what "moderate" "middle class" "suburban" or any other class of voters is vary across the country so much, but people think they are talking about the same thing. In Ohio, a "moderate, middle-class, suburban voter" is a Republican with a high school education who lives in a city of 100,000 people and works as the manager of an autoparts store, and considers that while Trump might go too far, he is still better than Hillary. In Colorado, a "moderate, middle-class, suburban voter" is a Democrat with strong environmental leanings who practices yoga, has a Master's degree, and lives in a town of 10,000 where he telecommutes as a software developer. The problem is that many people, especially in the old, parochial East Coast, kind of just assume that the definitions they are used to are true everywhere. I certainly don't take for granted my surroundings. I grew up in a boring and frozen corner of the Midwest, and blew the place the day I graduated high school. I love living in the obnoxiously wealthy and well-educated bubble that is yuppie DC. New York is the only other place I can imagine living. I don't want to live around uneducated varmint Trump voters or poors - I like my ethnic restaurants and expensive apartment and public transit.
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Sep 19, 2016 17:37
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TheImmigrant posted:I certainly don't take for granted my surroundings. I grew up in a boring and frozen corner of the Midwest, and blew the place the day I graduated high school. I love living in the obnoxiously wealthy and well-educated bubble that is yuppie DC. New York is the only other place I can imagine living. I don't want to live around uneducated varmint Trump voters or poors - I like my ethnic restaurants and expensive apartment and public transit. But that is still kind of a binary scale: poor equals rural and conservative. There are places in the Western states, mostly college or resort towns, where you could be living in a town of 50,000, and people are going to be well educated, and there are going to be lots of ethnic restaurants. Not that it is a paradise in the Western states, but the entire paradigm of "the East Coast versus the poor hinterlands of Ohio" doesn't hold for the entire country.
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Sep 19, 2016 18:20
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glowing-fish posted:But that is still kind of a binary scale: poor equals rural and conservative. Of course - Minneapolis is a bigger version of that. Places like Boulder and Eugene seem very pleasant too, in a smug and self-congratulatory sort of earth-muffinry.
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Sep 19, 2016 18:35
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I'm going to make my post hyper local, because generalizing New York City (a city of 8 million) and even all of Brooklyn (it's far more diverse than the media and pop culture would have you believe) is a fool's errand. I live in the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn. Bangladeshis make up the biggest ethnic group here. When you get off of the subway stop that I live near, you're greeted with awnings written in Bengali, and there are many men and women wearing Islamic garb. I've even seen a few kids wearing Bangladeshi national team cricket shirts. Like a lot of ethnic enclaves in New York City, the Bangladeshi community here is working- and middle-class, and there are plenty of non-citizens living here waiting and hoping to become citizens. Since a lot of the taxi drivers here are Bangladeshi, it's pretty common to see a yellow or green cab parked and not in use. As for everyone else: you've got a fair amount of younger people moving here, but as of now, new construction for luxury apartments is nonexistent, from what I've seen. There are also a fair amount of Orthodox Jews here, a sort of spillover from Borough Park. I've heard Russian spoken here too, and I've seen a fair amount of Latinos- mostly Mexican, specifically, since I've seen plenty of Mexican stores near where I live and just before you get to the heart of the Hasidic area of Borough Park. The only nearby neighborhood ethnicity with no spillover are the black West Indians from Flatbush, which is further east. In the city council and NY State Assembly, the representatives are typically from further north in Park Slope. In the State Senate, we're at the mercy of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of Borough Park and Midwood, so we're stuck with a right-wing Democrat who caucuses with the Republicans in the chamber for as long as he wants to stay. KiteAuraan posted:Also, I've known a lot of people in the law enforcement community here, mostly local departments, and they, and everyone they have ever worked with, loving hate Joe Arpaio, which is another interesting twist to local politics. By the way, I really wish every article written about Arpaio reminds people that the county isn't some backwater expanse where a couple hundred thousand people live, but a major metropolitan area. The media does a great disservice by not explicitly pointing that out at every chance they get, because otherwise people get the impression that he's a feudal lord of a small, backwards part of the country. I know I did until recently. get that OUT of my face fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Sep 20, 2016 |
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Sep 20, 2016 06:42
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Y-Hat posted:That doesn't surprise me, because for all his tough talk on Latino rhetoric and the concentration camps that he uses to back it up, Arpaio is remarkably lovely at his actual job. I remember reading a year or two ago that crime has been going down everywhere in Arizona except in Maricopa County. Is that still true? In contrast, Arpaio got caught doing round-ups of migrant workers after being told to knock it off by a federal judge, was found to have racial biases in who they actually contacted and also in what they chose to investigate. A recent case found his department was actively ignoring rape cases, most often when the victim was Hispanic, likely with his knowledge. When confronted he refused to answer and though it broke in 2010 and he said he would do an internal investigation and punish those responsible, as of 2015 the report was never completed and no one was disciplined. This was when he was in charge of policing El Mirage, which is a small town next to where I live on the West side, that's mostly Hispanic. He basically cannot do his job at all. Local departments also hate him, because, instead of just sticking to county islands, areas where there is no local police force or it's a small town that doesn't have it's own department, he goes into places like Phoenix and Mesa and basically terrorizes local communities. Mesa was where he was doing a lot of his big raids on taquerias and poo poo and their chief got pissed. Stuff like this just gets communities insular, and what do you know, crime goes back up. The Phoenix Metro is as diverse as any other big city and you see a lot of different things, that's the problem with the national reporting, you just get this impression that it's all angry white people and suburban strip malls, and while that's true for some areas it's not universal and honestly I feel that the future of the area is like most other big urban areas. It's going blue, just give it a bit longer.
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Sep 20, 2016 11:09
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KiteAuraan posted:The Phoenix Metro is as diverse as any other big city and you see a lot of different things, that's the problem with the national reporting, you just get this impression that it's all angry white people and suburban strip malls, and while that's true for some areas it's not universal and honestly I feel that the future of the area is like most other big urban areas. It's going blue, just give it a bit longer. I feel like the future for Phoenix is a very serious water crisis.
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Sep 20, 2016 18:46
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Humans mainly. The squirrels try, but half eaten pecans have a terrible exchange rate.
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Sep 20, 2016 19:46
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A mixture of people who used to work in New York City and people who presently work in the hospitals caring for those people. Also, suicidal deer.
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Sep 21, 2016 08:05
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Y-Hat posted:I'm going to make my post hyper local, because generalizing New York City (a city of 8 million) and even all of Brooklyn (it's far more diverse than the media and pop culture would have you believe) is a fool's errand. Its fair to treat Brooklyn by neighborhood, because there are areas of Brooklyn that have the same population as entire states. Like, Brooklyn has as many congressional representatives as the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana combined. The one thing that is different from me, growing up on the West Coast, is that differences are so specific. By the time people had migrated to the West Coast in the 60s and 70s, most of our ethnic identities were gone, behind obviously racial distances. Like, I've read about people living in New York, and it was very important whether you came from the Polish neighborhood or the Italian neighborhood, a quarter mile apart. Being Catholic or Protestant actually made a big difference! By the time you got to suburban Portland in the 1980s, all of those distinctions had kind of been lost in the shuffle. They were maybe a slight curiosity, but its not like your Polish dad had Polish friends he went bowling with. This is also true for my experience with Jewish people. Like, up until my 20s, all of the Jews I knew were secular or maybe reform, and they all had jobs as either organic farmers or librarians or something. I didn't even know about very religious, insular Jews, or about the the other entire stereotypes of Jewish-American Princesses, or any of that. Jews didn't really make up a demographic when I grew up, as much as they were just Portland intellectuals with this added spin.
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Sep 27, 2016 17:54
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glowing-fish posted:
I never really had much experience with Jews in general, it's much more of a Northeast thing outside of Southern California anyway. Related, here's a map of second most common religious tradition by state:  It certainly backs up my experiences in Texas - Muslims out the wazoo, very few Jews.
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Sep 27, 2016 17:59
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computer parts posted:I never really had much experience with Jews in general, it's much more of a Northeast thing outside of Southern California anyway. We are shapeshifters. Most of the time you won't even notice the Jewishness. People usually guess Italian or Greek for me.
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Sep 27, 2016 18:01
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