The Great Sort - marching toward extremes

Rising number of states seeing one-party rule

Excerpt:

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which tracks party representation in the country’s 50 state governments, Democrats now control all three bases of power – the governorship and both houses of the state legislature – in 14 states and Republicans in 23, with only 12 states sharing power. (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is considered nonpartisan.)

Regional power bases are also emerging, with Democrats increasingly dominating state governments across New England. Conversely, after last week’s vote, the GOP for the first time since 1872 now controls the Arkansas House and Senate.

Just 20 years ago, Republicans didn’t have a majority in a single legislative house in the states of the old Confederacy – now they control all 11. The number of states with divided government is down from 31 just 16 years ago to 12 today, prompting speculation on the country’s evolving partisan geography.

... Bill Bishop, author of the book “The Big Sort” on the growing polarization of American politics, said, “There are mores states that have tipped either increasingly Republican or Democratic over time. Even in close elections you have a majority of voters who live in counties where the election wasn’t close at all. The world they see at their doorstep is different than the rest of the country.”

Comments:  A quote from the book (from Amazon site): "The lesson for politics and culture is pretty clear. It doesn't matter if you're a frat boy, a French high school student, a petty criminal, or a federal appeals court judge. Mixed company moderates; like-minded company polarizes. Heterogeneous communities restrain group excesses; homogeneous communities march toward extremes"

So basically the blue states are getting bluer and the red states redder!

Image is the old IBM 82 Sorter. Anyone from the infancy of computing has used one including me! Thankfully not many times! Back when I did mainframe programming I was pretty handy at the IBM SORT utility.