Mindscape 66 | Will Wilkinson on Partisan Polarization and the Urban/Rural Divide

The idea of “red states” and “blue states” burst on the scene during the 2000 U.S. Presidential elections, and has a been a staple of political commentary ever since. But it’s become increasingly clear, and increasingly the case, that the real division isn’t between different sets of states, but between densely- and sparsely-populated areas. Cities are blue (liberal), suburbs and the countryside are red (conservative). Why did that happen? How does it depend on demographics, economics, and the personality types of individuals? I talk with policy analyst Will Wilkinson about where this division came from, and what it means for the future of the country and the world.

Will Wilkinson received an M.A. in philosophy from Northern Illinois University, and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston. He has worked for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and as a research fellow at the Cato Institute, and is currently Vice President of Policy at the Niskanen Center. He has taught at Howard University, the University of Maryland, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has written for a wide variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Vox, and The Boston Review, as well as being a regular commentator for Marketplace on public radio.

[steve]

1:33:26 A more reasonable analysis would be that people voted for hope and change, but got more of the same. There is essentially one party in Washington - the business party (which doubles as the war party). Neither party cares about poor or middle class Americans, and neither party does anything to benefit them. Trump pretended to be populist, and got a lot of support because of it. Some evidence for this: Sanders is the most popular Democrat among people who voted for Trump in 2016. Yang is the second most popular.


Also, in the US, white people have a lower in-group bias than black people or latino people.

[ericfern]

Wilkinson says he can't remember who he voted for in two presidential elections? Is that credible?

[Kaleidoface]

This guy heard that a lot of people voted for Trump out of frustration with the urban elite, who just "don't get it". So, he set out on a mission to see if he, an urban elite, could understand better.

He failed. He still doesn't get it.

[woody]

Another incredibly interesting podcast. Cheers, Sean!

[OutTheTrenchesPod]

Every time the intro song plays I just picture Sean bobbing his head, lips pursed, playing air drums to the beat 😂

[rexmundi]

Just settling in to listen to this, my first Mindscape episode. Somebody had just recommended you and came for the science but saw this topic which has been on my mind lately. I'm going to comment before I watch. I grew up in a very rural, pretty isolated area. Had a good school. Voracious reader. Watched the same TV and movies as urban people. In University I encountered people who made some pretty offensive assumptions based on my origins. The only real difference between us was the physical environment we had grown up in. But many of these people thought that everybody from non urban origins were inbred appalachian hill folk, and me not even being American. I have the feeling that this bias is getting worse and provoking a backlash, Anyway, here I go hitting play.

[__H__]

I'd think it might be a misapprehension to assume that a realistically relevant number of people who voted Obama switched to voting to Trump. To assume it is "always" the same, approximately, 38% that do not vote would seem to me as "likely" to be spurious. In reality, it would seem more likely to me that Obama "motivated" some people to vote where Trump "motivated" others. To surmise that all previous Obama voters would "naturally" vote for Clinton is likely a misapprehension.


For example, someone voted Obama in 2012, perhaps imagining it is a vote for something that could be vaguely construed as "change." In 2016, Clinton fails to embody that to them and so this hypothetical voter abstains to vote. The 2016 Trump voter could have been thinking the "same thing" that Obama voter was in 2012 (i.e. that a vote for someone who is not a carer politician is "change) and so, chooses to vote, where in 2012, seeing no candidate as being their idea of "change, " they did not.

[thefattymcgee]

I wanna debate this guy. Alot of what hes saying sounds half baked and subjective. Namely his hokey theory on population density and politics. But also his basic misunderstanding of the electoral college. Also he doesnt seem to consider the impact of mass media. Or a least i havent heard it at 1hour and. 30 minutes in.

[CliqueSpace]

The "level up" stuff comparing basket ballers to coders at 40:48 has not been tested.

Completely unlike basketball, coding is an intellectual pursuit which does not require a physical presence with your colleagues. Can someone point to a study where coding in close physical proximity was the causative factor that produced better results?

Eugh... "bon ami... we're a team, we're doing something..." the guest's complaints about difficulty establishing a connection near the conclusion of this piece are concerns with the reliability of the technology currently deployed. These have next to nothing to do with the need for physical collocation. Remote workers, like their collocated office bunnies, can make arrangements that serve their own needs for social interaction - possibly with the money they receive from adding value to their employer's business as remote contributors.

The guest's belief that smell has any value to a programmer's job appears to be his way to taking what appears to be a sensible proposition to its logical conclusion. I'll shoot myself when the body odour of my colleagues becomes an important quantitative or qualitative consideration in my job.

[TheOriginalRaster]

If I had my own Podcast! I think it's a huge oversimplification to talk about a) Left versus b) Right. Categories of points of view each have their own independent axis and when considering N categories we are talking about an N dimensional space. There are many independent axis. To say that all of these axis (preferences on many subjects) are scrunched down to one axis is horrifying (to me).

On my own Podcast: In my opinion pick key survey questions one would use to Label a person Left or Right and each survey question defines it's own axis.
Examples: My views on abortion. My view could be plotted ass a point along that number line and that coordinate does not give you a point on a Left - Right axis.

A person's views on the rights of minorities and women does not place one on a Left - Right scale.

Views on building armaments versus disarmament: Not Left - Right.

Views on government spending for social programs: Not Left - Right.

Views on the amount of government regulation required to regulate business: Not Left - Right.

It is a horrible mistake to place so many varied individual choices on a single Left - Right axis.

Cheers!

[brandonprice]

Claiming conservatives see universities as a big scary place due to too much diversity is laughable. Universities are among the least diverse places on the planet when it comes to anything not involving culture/race. Openness seems to track openness to new experience as long as that experience conveniently fits within a progressive framework. How about you try tracking a liberals openness to conservative ideas?

Also, introducing Wilkinson as a “conservative” before bashing conservatives for two hours is the equivalent of a racist saying he has a black friend before going on a racist rant.

[mrloop]

Pretty selfevident stuff. Now, let's head back to the QM :-)

[dakid]

Interesting, but feels .well. self serving Hint: data is wonderful, but just as a good physicist-there is time to get your hands dirty-the experiment- talk to people on the ground young fella-'papers' dont push the voting lever-people do

[rollingrock]

This guy's microphone is absolutely terrible, like, I love the idea of this episode but I can't even listen to this. It's hurting my ears.

[noahway]

This could have been a 45minute podcast if not for the stammering.

[robertglass]

I mean, it's all interesting stuff... But the entire discussion presupposes a growth economy; as though growth economics is a physical law of the universe or something. We made that up. It works for some things and damages others. But every single social discussion I hear from academia tries to explain our current situation talking about growth as though it were gravity. You know what else existed based only perpetual growth--cancer. Maybe have a discussion about how a growth based economy is doomed and how we can break that news to our children?

[billhowes]

Some of my 3.75 (b) billion "Fans" ~Worldwide~ ask me why are half of my fans one way. The other half yet another way. This is where I graciously gesture towards Sean Carroll and let him take over. -BELOVED- ~American~ and most "Humble", Bill Howes.

[zanzibarbob]

I listen to most of your podcasts and I would more often, except when you have guests on who, you know, I mean, like um, well again, as I said before, literal, um, obviously, like, um, right, you know what i'm saying, like, you know what i'm talking about, dude, at the end of the, um, and um, day, like, right. I realize it may be an interesting topic, but wading through it with a graduate of the Cheech and Chong academy on public speaking makes it a task rather than a pleasure.

[TheOriginalRaster]

Sorry... my third comment... In my own Podcast I would point out the explanation for 'folks who voted for Obama, then later switching to voting for trump' is: the democratic candidate was severely disliked by many people out of this sense that both she and Bill Clinton were corrupt. I'm saying the dems had a bad candidate. Corrupt means self serving.
Trump had not been in politics so these same folk did not know that trump was/is far more corrupt.
It now appears far less damage from corruption would have been carried out by the clinton pair. trump is destroying rule of law, destroying our institutions of government and therefore he is destroying the United States. Those who were trying to vote for the least corrupt person got it wrong. It was difficult at the time to know who was more corrupt.
[I didn't vote for either of these 'evils.' In my state the law is: all write-in votes must be counted, so I had the option of voting for someone else and at least having my vote counted by the state.]
Cheers!