In the most economically prosperous metro regions of the country (in both blue states and red states), Democrats dominate, as Ronald Brownstein observes ("The Republicans' Big Rich-City Problem"). Driven by innovative computing, communication, biotech, and manufacturing industries, these economic centers have attracted diverse, well-educated folks with eyes on the future. MAGA messaging has no appeal for them.
Brownstein writes:
The Democrats’ ascendance in the most-prosperous metropolitan regions underscores how geographic and economic dynamics now reinforce the fundamental fault line in American politics between the people and places most comfortable with how the U.S. is changing and those who feel alienated or marginalized by those changes.
Just as Democrats now perform best among the voters most accepting of the demographic and cultural currents remaking 21st-century America, they have established a decisive advantage in diverse, well-educated metropolitan areas.
I was struck by Brownstein's description of the political fault line: "the people and places most comfortable with how the U.S. is changing" vs. "those who feel alienated or marginalized by those changes."
I encountered a couple of other references to the relative comfort of Americans on the same day I saw Brownstein's article. Elizabeth Bruenig remarks ("A Country Governed by Fear") on the killing in a New York subway of Jordan Neely, whose screaming about being hungry, thirsty, and ready to die frightened passengers, including some who feared he might have been armed:
Many people feel uncomfortable when confronted with someone in an acute crisis. But certain factors can turn an uncomfortable situation into an intolerable one, such as living in a society where anybody could have a gun, where any agitation can boil over into mass murder. An irate neighbor slaying five people with an AR-15-style rifle after a noise complaint in Texas; an unstable Coast Guard veteran killing one and injuring four while attending an appointment with his mother in an Atlanta hospital. The stakes in any given episode of public agitation or distress or even psychosis aren’t typically all that high; the majority of people having crises at any time represent no risk to anyone (save, perhaps, themselves), but the incessant rat-a-tat of bloody headlines makes people feel—visceraly—that the risks they do encounter are unbearably dangerous.
While this homeless man wasn't armed, and no one pulled a gun on him, the increasing presence of guns in public and private spaces, the dismantling of basic gun safety legislation that has been in place for many decades, and the rising level of gun violence, especially mass shootings, have made everyone more uncomfortable. Fear of harm, made more acute by fear of harm from gun violence, has greatly increased gun sales and ownership, made us all less safe -- and put us all on edge. The distressing headline of an op-ed by Roxanne Gay aptly sums things up: "Making People Uncomfortable Can Now Get You Killed."
Red America -- those folks most uncomfortable with the future -- is represented by the Republican Party, which has fiercely resisted restrictions on military assault rifles and universal background checks, for instance, while actively removing traditional safeguards to protect the public, such as requiring gun training for gun owners and prohibiting weapons in bars, churches, schools, and other venues. Republicans -- from the U.S. Supreme Court to state legislatures to local sheriffs across the country -- have succeeded in vastly increasing guns and the toll of gun violence throughout America.
The glut of guns and gun deaths represent a political victory that has significantly changed our country. This has put us all on edge. And this too is a political achievement (intentionally inflicted to gin up votes, dollars, ratings, and clicks).
All of us -- no matter what our politics, our age, our color, our religion, where we live, what our economic prospects are, how much education we have -- all of us have become much less comfortable in recent decades as the U.S. has come to have a superabundance of guns. This is not a virtuous cycle: it will lead to more guns and more lethal encounters. Give credit to Team Red.