Mark Newman of the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan has created some electoral cartograms of the United States that reflect the reality and complexity of our voting patterns much more effectively than those misrepresentative red state/blue state maps to which we have become accustomed. This one, for example, is based on 2008 results by county and population. Note that there's a lot of purple. You won't see this balance on Fox News, where the "real America" is supposedly bright screaming red. (In fact, the pure-blue population centers are much larger than the pure-red ones.)
Newman writes of the above: "As this map makes clear, large portions of the country are quite evenly divided, appearing in various shades of purple, although a number of strongly Democratic (blue) areas are visible too, mostly in the larger cities. There are also some strongly Republican areas, but most of them have relatively small populations and hence appear quite small on this map."
(tip: Andrew Sullivan)
Click below for my own newly redrawn map of Colbert Nation.
Colbert Nation: From sea to shining sea, from lens to shining lens, from cheek to shining cheek...
19 Comments
I for one would love all news stations to switch over to this style of visualizing political orientation in the states, an extremely truer representation.
I wonder how this picture would look if one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eaters did exist...
I noticed this website four years ago too. All the more right wing websites were proclaiming America was "Bush Country." I wrote to the webmaster of one such site and stated my case that the map doesn't reflect the actual voting outcome. I explained pretty much step by step, and very kindly, I might add, why the purple America was more accurate. However the webmaster, also politely, did not want his worldview messed with and wished to believe that Bush's 2.4% winning margin in the 2004 election actually meant he had the full support of 90% of the country.
I really wonder which network would have the balls to post the cartogram during election coverage.
What gets lost in this blue state/red state talk is that the issues that affect us most cross those ridiculous boundaries.
Paying the bills, owning a home, having a job, putting food on the table, wanting a good future for our kids, having quality healthcare...
Everybody wants those things, regardless of political affiliation.
If you let your vision go a bit soft, it sort of looks like a purple phoenix rising from the ashes...
Karlos: it would only matter if one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater ate a disproportionate number of "blue" and "red" voters. Or registered to vote.
I personnally grew to hate the term "red state/blue state." It was so devisive and, especially "red state," was used with such scorn and derision (yes, I happen to live in a "red state," but voted for Obama). I would love it if this election did unify the country and the term dissappeared for good.
Unfortunately, that cartogram also is misleading, because the huge purple areas imply that people within them are nicely mixed.
In reality, we're very divided; just not at the state level. Think Orange County vs. LA city. The book The Big Sort by Bill Bishop is quickly becoming required reading for understanding the US.
Now, the Colbert Nation graph, that's completely accurate.
The Hitchens piece was devastating, pulls the rug out from under (at least now) the utilitarian concepts of hope and change and telegraphing what those words always meant; a way to franchise the idiot-masses and manipulate them into voting for self-interest, a practice the Republicans adopted some 40 years ago. Of course, people are offended, but they have every right - as they did, indeed, vote with their hearts and here comes Hitchens telling them they voted to keep "greed" (what?) out of their White House - it's gotten so bad Palin actually thinks she has a shot in 2012!
Logic - the poor want to be rich. The poor want power and influence. Marketing/advertising caters to the poor man's fantasy by telling him he can be rich, by telling him he can have power. Therefore, the poor want the opportunity to destroy the nation through their own excesses. Take a walk through a poor neighborhood and you'll see not hybrids and public transportation, but Hummers and gigantic Ford Expeditions, gas-guzzlers all. They don't care. They don't care just as much as the rich don't care. This isn't a war to better improve national infrastructure, alternative economics, or renewable energy. It's a battle for the biggest slice of the American pie.
Neither Obama nor McCain can change the minds and hearts of the American people.
Peter Hitchens combines the apocalyptic temperament of his brother Christopher with the knee-jerk political disdain of John Derbyshire. Only an Upper Class Twit of the Year could write of Obama: "His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over."
Now, all I have to ask myself is: Who am I going to believe, Hitchens or my own eyes and ears? He may be fluent in English. He is illiterate in American.
He writes of election night in Grant Park: "And it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – ‘Yes, we can’. They were supposed to thunder ‘Yes, we can!’ back at him, but they just wouldn’t join in."
Hitchens' interpretation speaks for itself -- and it's embarrassing that he has no clue about the tone or construction or meaning of that speech, of what was being communicated in the way it was staged and delivered. (Then again, why would anyone expect him to grasp idioms so foreign to his own?) I'll just stuff in another cliche here: "Something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Hitchens?"
Unsurprisingly, Hitchens shows a true Brit's inability to comprehend America and her politics. But, since he claims that "the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World," I think he's no doubt dead right about one thing: If he believes it's time to wave goodbye to his "last best hope on Earth," by all means he should.
Meanwhile, if anyone wants to read the whole piece, a xenophobic primer on knee-jerk wingnut-ism, it's here:
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2008/11/the-night-we-wa.html
P.S. Then let's see if we can get the Church-of-England-going Hitchens to visit a black American church in, say, Chicago or DC or some other major American city, perhaps even in the South or the Northeast. Here's an entire item he wrote in February, 2008:
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2008/02/shamis-whining.html
Tin-ear, thy name is Hitchens!
I was referring to Christopher Hitchens and his Fighting Words article for Slate: "Barack to Reality". For readers who were offended Hitchens didn't describe Obama as anything less than the Jesus Christ Gold Standard of Deities, they made sure their voices were heard in the discussion forums. Excellent article. He voted for Obama, because, even as a conservative supporter of the Iraq War, he was insulted by the choice of Palin as a running mate.
I don't think the Obama victory has changed the political landscape. I don't think the colors of the map are truly altered to reflect a supposed new sensibility among voters. I just think Hitchens and others of his ilk in the party were embarrassed and frightened by McCain and his unorthodox methodology and went across the aisle to see if 4 years of new Democratic rule could be any worse than 8 years of Bush. Then again, new registrations were up by 11 million this year so...
David: Sorry for the misunderstanding. (I didn't know which Hitchens you were referring to, so I just googled "Hitchens Obama change hope" and that was the Hitchens piece that was most prominent in the results. Still, I'm glad I read it.)
C. Hitchens is, like so many, warning against expecting too much. This after eight years of a president whose entire "career" consisted of downplaying expectations so that he could appear to have accomplished something by just squeaking past them. Karl Rove spoke quite openly of employing that strategy, and we saw it again with Sarah Palin, who was said to have scored a victory in the VP debate simply by remaining awake and not vomiting.
I don't know where all this Obama messianic stuff is coming from (I blame Oprah, an Evangelical Christian in New Age clothing), but I think it is an overreaction to eight years of people being conditioned to repress hope. We learned not to expect improvement (because we were continually told that disaster and stasis were "improvement"). But Obama's coolness and rationality couldn't be less like the messianic Bush, who repeatedly claimed he was chosen, and advised, by God.
One of the most remarkable things about Obama's election night speech was how openly it downplayed celebration in favor of a commitment to hard work ahead. I don't envy any president faced with the task of dealing with the mess this country/world is in. But I've never heard a political "victory speech" that was less triumphalist in tone. It was optimistic, but realistic. And this part really struck me:
He called for transparency, hard work and sacrifice at an election night victory rally -- something George W. Bush couldn't do even after 9/11. I want to set my expectations high now, and hold Obama accountable making an honest effort to reach them. What a change that will be!
But what do you think of my original point - in that the poor are as apathetic as the rich when it comes to the big three: economics, environment, and energy? I don't think the poor are any better than the rich. They are educated in ways the rich are not, and vice versa, but both groups could care less. I'm talking mob-mentality, not the lone, admirable individual who wants to make a difference in his/her community whether rich or poor, and now that the poor have a messianic figure thay can boost (just as the Republicans had with Reagan), how much of a difference will this "new" message of change make?
Jim:
It's your blog, you can do what you want.
I hate reading about politics from movie folks.
Stick to movies and TV. The political stuff is boring.
Since this is a blog about movies, you might have mentioned that the '04 version of this cartogram was used in the delirious flop Southland Tales -- it shows up behind the initial shot of the title, and as kind of a secondary logo for the mysterious power company Treer Products.
Teaser poster: http://www.firstshowing.net/img/cci-posters/southland-tales.jpg
On the Treer Zeppelin thingy (to the right of Bai Ling, in the background -- sorry, best picture I can find at the moment.) http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/gallery/1165830/photo_08_hires.jpg
I thought it was one of the few truly clever touches in the movie, as it ties into its politics-distorting-reality theme.
I could be wrong, but didn't this blog have a subheading saying it was about movies, music, TV, books, politics, religion, etc. at one time? I may have read that somewhere else, but regardless, I appreciate the political articles.
"I hate reading about politics from movie folks." So much about that sentence frustrates me. Everyone should be able to think about whatever they want and discuss those ideas on their blogs--and I realize the person I quoted wasn't suggesting otherwise. Limiting ourselves even to a subject as broad as movies inhibits a great deal of interesting arguments and connections. This blog would be much less rich, for instance, without the discussions of Sarah Palin.
I may be wrong, but doesn't the red web look like an invasive virus?
I was thinking it looked more like the Carnage symbiote squeezing the life out of America, but then I decided not to reveal that's the sort of association my mind immediately jumps to.
Also, I can't tell you all how proud I am to live in the lower-left area of Stephen Colbert's neck. (I'm pretty sure that's where the patriot glands are found.)
Mr. Emerson, I do not understand why your post required a dig at Fox News. The traditional red and blue electoral map is used by all major networks. Perhaps if you are going to attack Fox News for claiming only the red areas on the map are patriotic or pro-American, you should provide evidence, such as a quotation from a news anchor.
Actually, that map is colored by county. That's why it's so much more useful than the red/blue state maps.
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