Last Call For Happy Holi-Daze

Greetings from Red State America, folks, where in Harris County, Georgia, the local constabulary would like to remind you that there's no better way to spread Christ's word of redemption and forgiveness than by pissing off liberals with official county signage.

Georgia sheriff has staked out his ground in the U.S. culture wars by posting a large sign cautioning visitors that his community is proud to be “politically incorrect.” 

“WARNING: Harris County is politically incorrect,” reads the sign posted on Tuesday under a welcome banner and the official seal of the county, located in central Georgia near the border with Alabama. 

“We say: Merry Christmas, God Bless America and In God We Trust. We salute our troops and our flag,” says the sign placed in front of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. “If this offends you … LEAVE!” 

Sheriff Mike Jolley said the concept was suggested by his staff members, who “saw the verbiage on the Internet somewhere.” 

The elected sheriff, a U.S. Army retiree who has been in the position for 23 years, personally paid for the $553 sign, which includes an image of the county’s official seal. 

“I believe it’s time for the silent majority to speak their minds,” Jolley told Reuters on Wednesday in a phone interview.

So far the response has been “overwhelmingly, humbling positive,” said Jolley, noting that his office has received phone calls of support from as far away as Hawaii. He has also heard from critics. 

“There are some people who don’t like it, and I respect that,” the sheriff said. “That’s why I put on the sign that if you don’t like it, leave.”

Seems to me that telling people to get out who might be offended by a government entity taking an official position advocating a religion is the opposite of respect.  ACLU is going to have a field day with this one, and rightfully so.

That's what we're reduced to in 2015, governments not having enough money for roads or bridges or schools because we're broke, but we pay county sheriffs enough money where they can go buy signs with Crazy Republican Facebook memes on them.

Truly America is blessed.

These Disunited States Of America

At least one Texas Republican wants to put a measure on the state's primary ballot next year for a "non-binding" referendum on Texas seceding from the United States.

Tanya Robertson, State Republican Executive Committee member for Senate District 11, which covers parts of Harris, Galveston and Brazoria counties, said she'll present the resolution at the committee's December 4 meeting in Austin, and that she already has support from a few other members. 

"There's been a big groundswell of Texans that are getting into the Texas independence issue," she said, citing conversations she's had with constituents. "I believe conservatives in Texas should have a choice to voice their opinion."

Texas GOP chairman Tom Mechler said Tuesday that many resolutions are presented each year for consideration on the primary ballot, but that he did not believe sufficient support existed within the SREC to approve the secession item.

Still, Robertson will present the resolution to a 12-member resolutions committee, which will decide whether or not it will face the full 60-member assembly on December 5 for a vote on its placement on the March 1 ballot. 

Robertson got the idea for the resolution from the Texas Nationalist Movement, a small secessionist group that has tried but so far failed to raise the necessary 75,000 signatures to put a non-binding secession vote on the March ballot. When she heard that news she thought she could help, though she isn't a member of the TNM. 

She cited dissatisfaction with politicians in Washington D.C. and dismay with federal spending as reasons for a secession vote.

Oh, this is definitely about white assholes in Texas wanting to get away from an America that elected a black President, but it's also about undermining the legitimacy of said government.  Last time I checked we fought a war over this thing 150 years ago, and the guys that wanted out lost.  The "not MY president" petulance is disgusting, frankly.  When your candidates lose, you work harder to get your candidates elected next time, that's how it works.

When that no longer works, well we get secession referendums, and worse.

The fact that one of the major parties is openly pushing secession shouldn't surprise you.  The modern Republican party is "our way or burn it all down."

Mr. Rubio, In The Senate, With The Policy RIder

The Hill's Sarah Ferris details how the Republican who has had the most success in sabotaging Obamacare has been Sen. Marco Rubio, his push to sink risk corridor payments last year has now started to pay dividends when it comes to the GOP plan to wreck the individual health insurance market.

While Rubio’s attempt to scrap risk corridors altogether was unsuccessful, his push contributed to a policy rider that was inserted into a 1,603-page spending bill passed at the end of 2014.

Under the provision, which is still in effect, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could no longer tap other accounts — like its overall appropriations or its Medicare funding — to fund the risk corridors program.

Now Rubio is taking his crusade against the "bailout" program to the presidential campaign trail.

The senator and dozens of other Republicans are seeking to renew the policy rider — or repeal risk corridors altogether — in the year-end budget bill that Congress must pass by Dec. 11 to avoid a government shutdown.

“So far, we’ve succeeded in stopping the Obama administration from bailing out healthcare companies under ObamaCare, and it’s critical that Congress once again stand with taxpayers to stop any taxpayer bailout of health insurers from happening,” Rubio wrote in a letter to GOP leaders of both chambers on Tuesday.

Surprise!  Republicans now want to tie extending Obamacare's sabotage to the budget bill due in two weeks.  Shutdown or wreck Obamacare...Obama's choice, they say.

The damaging effects of the budget-neutral requirement became clear in October.

The Obama administration disclosed it could only afford to pay 13 cents of every dollar owed to the insurance companies — after insurers had already locked in their rates for the upcoming year.

“Obviously what happened was exactly what we thought would happen – there’d be an imbalance. Most of the companies lost money,” said Joseph Marinucci, a senior analyst with Standard & Poor.

“You have to be able to deal with unanticipated events, such as the legislation that would restrict the funding of its corridors,” he said.

Within weeks, about a dozen start-up insurers known as CO-OPs announced they’d be shutting their doors, in most cases because they lacked the cash flow to stay solvent. And at least two other insurers — WinHealth Partners in Wyoming and Moda Health in Washington — pulled out of the exchanges.

Then came the shocking announcement from the insurance giant, UnitedHealthCare, that it might cut its losses as well.

“Essentially what is happening now, and why you’re seeing all of these plans reevaluate their participation [in ObamaCare], they have to rely on their reserves over the next two years,” one industry source said. “It’s caused everyone to reevaluate and consider what changes they have to make to remain viable and stay in the market.”

So yes, the Republican plan to make sure Obamacare wouldn't work correctly has been pretty effective, and now they want to break it to the point where the whole individual insurance market system collapses. And they're willing to shut down the entire government in order to get that done.

Think about that.

StupidNews!

• Protesters took to the streets in Chicago, blocking intersections, and arriving in Grant Park after the release of a police dash cam video showing a white officer shooting a black 17-year-old.
• The Obama administration is delaying rules that would require hybrid and electric cars to add audio alerts to signal the hearing-impaired until at least March 2016.
• Brazilian police are investigating whether state-run oil giant Petrobras engaged in price-fixing and bribery to get contracts to build Olympic venues for the 2016 Rio summer games.
• Also arrested in connection with the Petrobras graft scandal was Andre Esteves, a Brazilian banking billionaire, in a growing scandal that has also snared the leader of Brazil's Senate.
• Texas teenager Ahmed Mohamed says he plans to sue the City of Irving unless the city apologizes and pays him $15 million for wrongfully arresting him over his homemade clock.

Last Call For Beshear Does Right

I will say this about Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear: his last few weeks in office are shaping up to be legendary.

The outgoing Democratic governor of Kentucky signed an executive order Tuesday to restore the right to vote and hold public office to thousands of non-violent felons who've served out their sentences. 

The order from Gov. Steve Beshear — who leaves office next month — does not include those convicted of violent crimes, sex offenses, bribery or treason. Kentucky already restores voting rights to some nonviolent convicted felons, but the felon must apply to the governor's office, which approves them on a case by case basis. 

This new order automatically restores voting rights to convicted felons who meet certain criteria upon their release. Those who have already been released can fill out a form on the state Department of Corrections' website. 

"All of our society will be better off if we actively work to help rehabilitate those who have made a mistake," Beshear said. "And the more we do that, the more the entire society will benefit." 

Kentucky was one of four states that did not automatically restore voting rights to felons once they completed all the terms of their sentences. About 180,000 in Kentucky have served their sentences yet remain banned from casting ballots. 

The Kentucky legislature has tried and failed numerous times to pass a bill to restore voting rights to felons. The Republican-controlled Senate would agree only if there was a five-year waiting period, which Democrats refused.

Governor-elect Matt Bevin has been quick to tout "criminal justice reform" in the past, and all he's really meant has been tort reform so far.  He has an opportunity here to do some real good by not reversing this order.

Democrats control state government until next month, when Republican Gov.-elect Matt Bevin takes office. Bevin could repeal Beshear's order or allow it to stand. Bevin spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said Bevin supports restoring voting rights to nonviolent offenders, but added he was not notified of Beshear's order until a few minutes before he announced it. 

"The Executive Order will be evaluated during the transition period," she said.

We'll see.  I wouldn't celebrate yet.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article46208815.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article46208815.html#storylink=cpy

Business Intelligence, Applied

As French President Hollande continues his whirlwind diplomatic tour trying to drum up enough international firepower to destroy ISIS coming off a visit to London yesterday, a visit to President Obama today, Berlin on Wednesday and Moscow on Thursday, the US is trying to figure out which Islamic State oil rigs are making the most money so they can be bombed to bits.

Since last month, U.S. warplanes have struck Islamic State's oil infrastructure in Syria in a stepped-up campaign of economic warfare that the United States estimates has cut the group's black-market earnings from oil by about a third. 

In finding their targets, U.S. military planners have relied in part on an unconventional source of intelligence: access to banking records that provide insight into which refineries and oil pumps are generating cash for the extremist group, current and former officials say. 

The intent is to choke off the Islamic State's funding by tracking its remaining ties to the global financial system. By identifying money flowing to and from the group, U.S. officials have been able to get a glimpse into how its black-market economy operates, people with knowledge of the effort have said. 

That in turn has influenced decisions about targeting for air strikes in an effort that began before Islamic State's Nov. 13 attacks on Paris and has intensified since, they said. While Islamic State's access to formal banking has been restricted, it retains some ties that U.S. military and financial officials can use against it, the current and former officials said. 

"We have done a really good job of largely keeping the Islamic State out of the formal financial system," said Matthew Levitt, who served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence at the U.S. Treasury in the George W. Bush administration. "But we haven't been entirely successful, and that may not be a bad thing."

Economic warfare taken to a literal stage, then.  We'll see if that slows down ISIS at all, but as long as the countries buying oil from the group are still acting like it's not a big deal, they'll just find other ways to fund terror.

They always do.  There's only so much economic warfare you can wage before there's no economy left.

One Yooge Thanksgiving Turkey

Trump is definitely the biggest turkey as we head into the long holiday weekend, the notion that he's America's lousy racist uncle at the Thanksgiving table certainly plays out in a new Public Policy Polling survey. It also finds that at some point, Obama Derangement Syndrome became a living, breathing beast slouching towards your Thanksgiving dinner.

Donald Trump leads PPP's newest poll by a wide margin...on which candidate Americans think would be the most likely to say something inappropriate at the table and ruin Thanksgiving Dinner. 46% say they think Trump would be the candidate most likely to ruin Thanksgiving, as much as all the rest of the candidates combined. Hillary Clinton at 22%, Bernie Sanders at 7%, Jeb Bush and Ben Carson at 6%, Ted Cruz at 4%, and Marco Rubio at 1% round out the standings on who people think would be most likely to wreck the holiday. 

When it comes to which Presidential candidate people would actually like to have over for Thanksgiving Dinner Clinton wins out with 24% to 18% for Carson, 17% for Trump, 11% for Sanders, 8% for Cruz, and 6% each for Bush and Rubio. Interestingly even though Trump leads the Republican field when it comes to who people want to be the nominee for President, Carson beats him out on the dinner invitation front, 31% to 24%. Clinton leads Sanders 51/17 among Democrats. 

The examples of the GOP's reflexive opposition to President Obama's agenda are many but this may be the best one yet: by a 27 point margin Republicans say they disapprove of the President's executive order last year pardoning two Thanksgiving turkeys (Macaroni and Cheese) instead of the customary one. Only 11% of Republicans support the President's executive order last year to 38% who are opposed- that's a pretty clear sign that if you put Obama's name on something GOP voters are going to oppose it pretty much no matter what. Overall there's 35/22 support for the pardon of Macaroni and Cheese thanks to 59/11 support from Democrats and 28/21 from independents.

The old joke that if Obama came out for mastication, there would be a national epidemic of Republicans choking on food suddenly seems a little less like humor and more like a possible national health issue.

One covered by Obamacare, thankfully.

StupidNews!

• Turkey says a Russian jet violated its airspace at the Turkey-Syria border and was warned multiple times before being shot down, Russia denies the plane was ever in Turkish airspace.
• Planned Parenthood is suing Texas over the state's plan to cut Medicaid funding for the organization, saying the state is violating federal law.
• A US Appeals Court has struck down Wisconsin's requirement that abortion providers must have hospital admitting privileges as unconstitutional.
• Citrus greening may all but wipe out Florida's orange industry, the disease could cut orange production by more than 80% in ten years if no cure is found.
• A new cable internet industry report finds Comcast and Time Warner account for 71% of new internet home broadband subscribers, with competition lagging far behind.

Last Call For The Moral (No Longer A) Majority

A new Pew Research study on American religion finds that White Christians are no longer the majority, and those who are increasingly identify with the Republican party.

As the na­tion re­lent­lessly di­ver­si­fies, both in its ra­cial com­pos­i­tion and re­li­gious pref­er­ences, White Chris­ti­ans now rep­res­ent just 46 per­cent of Amer­ic­an adults, ac­cord­ing to Pew data provided in re­sponse to a re­quest from Next Amer­ica. That’s down from a 55 per­cent ma­jor­ity as re­cently as 2007, and much high­er fig­ures through most of U.S. his­tory.

Yet even as White Chris­ti­ans shrink in their over­all num­bers, they still ac­count for nearly sev­en-in-10 Amer­ic­ans who identi­fy with, or lean to­ward, the Re­pub­lic­an Party, the Pew study found. White Chris­ti­ans, in fact, rep­res­ent as large a share of the Re­pub­lic­an co­ali­tion today as they did of Amer­ic­an so­ci­ety over­all in 1984, when Ron­ald Re­agan won reelec­tion. A clear ma­jor­ity of all White Chris­ti­ans across the United States now identi­fy as Re­pub­lic­an, Pew found.

In sharp con­trast, the Pew data show, the Demo­crat­ic co­ali­tion has evolved in­to a three-legged stool that di­vides al­most evenly between White Chris­ti­ans, non-White Chris­ti­ans, and those from all races who identi­fy either with a non-Chris­ti­an faith or, in­creas­ingly, with no re­li­gious tra­di­tion at all. Most Amer­ic­ans who don’t identi­fy with any re­li­gious faith—a rap­idly grow­ing group—now align with Demo­crats.

These di­ver­ging pro­files cre­ate elect­or­al chal­lenges for each side. Re­pub­lic­ans face the ten­sion of bal­an­cing the mor­ally con­ser­vat­ive pref­er­ences of their re­li­giously de­vout base with the deep­en­ing in­stinct to­ward cul­tur­al tol­er­ance of a so­ci­ety that is grow­ing more sec­u­lar, par­tic­u­larly among the young.

Demo­crats must weigh the cul­tur­ally lib­er­al in­stincts of their now mostly sec­u­lar wing of up­scale Whites with the of­ten more tra­di­tion­al in­clin­a­tions of their Afric­an-Amer­ic­an and Latino sup­port­ers, who are much more likely than White Demo­crats to identi­fy with Chris­ti­an faiths. In a land­mark shift, few­er than half of White Demo­crats with a col­lege de­gree now identi­fy as Chris­ti­ans; that’s a much smal­ler per­cent­age than among the party’s Blacks and Lati­nos.

Above all, the end of ma­jor­ity status for White Chris­ti­ans marks an­oth­er mile­stone in Amer­ica’s trans­form­a­tion in­to a kal­eido­scope so­ci­ety with no single dom­in­ant group.

For 230 plus years this has been a country dominated by white Christians.  That is no longer the case., whether the reason is a truly growing secular population, growth of religions outside Christianity, or a borderline White Christian nation with people who finally feel alright to mention they are not religious at all...or all three.

All three represent a threat to the GOP, and they know it.

In 1944, polls showed that White Chris­ti­ans ac­coun­ted for more than eight-in-10 Amer­ic­an adults, notes John C. Green, an ex­pert on re­li­gion and polit­ics and dean of the col­lege of arts and sci­ences at the Uni­versity of Ak­ron. Sur­veys found that num­ber de­clined only slightly, to just un­der eight-in-10, by 1964. Even in 1984, White Chris­ti­ans still ac­coun­ted for just un­der sev­en-in-10 Amer­ic­an adults. The an­nu­al merge of res­ults from oth­er na­tion­al sur­veys con­duc­ted by Pew, though not dir­ectly com­par­able with the huge Re­li­gious Land­scape poll, sug­gest that White Chris­ti­ans dipped be­low ma­jor­ity status some­time between 2012 and 2013. The latest fig­ures pla­cing White Chris­ti­ans at just 46 per­cent of the adult pop­u­la­tion con­firm a trend, Green says, in which “the re­l­at­ive size of White Chris­ti­ans [has] fallen at an in­creas­ing rate over the post-W.W. II peri­od.

Going from 68% to 46% in 30 years is a major change for America...like "first black president" and possibly "first woman president" level change.

Both parties will need to adapt.  One party however has clearly decided to try to go backwards.

The Mask Slips Again...

...And again, Republicans accidentally tell the truth about what they are thinking and doing.  Today's contestant: Sen. Marco Rubio.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has found a silver lining in the Paris terror attacks that left 130 people dead: he said the violence prompted Americans to have a serious conversation about national security, and he suggested that conversation in turn has benefited his presidential campaign.

Rubio made the comment while discussing his rising poll numbers with "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. When Wallace asked whether Rubio thought his foreign policy credentials gave him a polling boost in the wake of the Nov. 13 terror attacks, the Florida Republican replied that his team doesn't put much stock in polls that were "going to fluctuate" this early in the primary race. 

He went on to argue that the attacks led to a "positive" shift to national security in the political conversation, one he wanted to see continue "not just for political advantage." 

"I obviously am not happy about the events that happened last week in Paris," Rubio told Wallace. "But I think it's a positive development that it suddenly has forced Americans to confront more carefully the issue of national security because it is the most important thing a President will do and it is the most important function of the federal government." 

"I hope that we focus on that note more, not just for political advantage but because the world has become a very dangerous place," he added.

Rubio is counting on the steady diet of fear and hatred in the wake of the Paris attacks to be good for Republicans in general and specifically for Marco Rubio, I see.

I mean, he's not lying about what he thinks is going to happen.  Certainly with Rubio calling for sending enough US ground troops into Syria to inflict "humiliating defeats" on ISIS, he's not lying about what he thinks there either.

Now, whether or not it will help him with voters when Trump is calling for rounding up Latinos and Muslims and such?  Probably not.

But with the economy improving and unemployment down sharply from 2010 highs, suddenly the only thing that matters is ISIS.

The Vitter End, Con't

James Hohmann at the Washington Post concedes that GOP Sen. David Vitter's last minute attacks on John bel Edwards (and President Obama) over the Paris attacks made Democrats very, very nervous over the weekend.

Democrats felt very good about winning the Louisiana governor’s race until the Paris attacks happened on Friday the 13th. 

Republican Sen. David Vitter, trailing by double digits in the polls, immediately seized on whether the United States should admit Syrian refugees. The issue let him get off the mat after weeks of attacks over his 2007 prostitution scandal. He went to Washington to give a floor speech on Syria, publicly sent a letter warning of a “missing” refugee and got on TV just a little more than 48 hours after the carnage in France with an advertisement invoking the horror. 

Vitter and his Republican allies had struggled mightily to make the red-state, off-year race against Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards a referendum on President Obama. This gave them the chance. 

Elisabeth Pearson, the executive director of Democratic Governors Association, suddenly had flashbacks to last year’s midterm elections. Several winnable contests broke away from them at the last minute because of voter fears about the Ebola outbreak, ISIS beheadings and children pouring across the border. Particularly in Maine, the Democrat was considered the favorite but Republican Gov. Paul LePage came from behind to win by publicly chastising quarantined nurse Kaci Hickox for returning to the state.

The difference this time?  Democrats moved fast to attack Vitter on Syria, and Edwards quickly distanced himself from the Obama administration.

The Democratic candidate initially botched his response. A note on Edwards’ Facebook page said he’d work to “both accommodate refugees who are fleeing from religious persecution and ensure that all our people are safe.” Then he edited “accommodate” to “assist,” before putting out a statement that declared, “In light of the recent tragedy in Paris, it’s imperative for us to pause the influx of refugees flowing into our state without more information on the security measures in place.”

Gumbo PAC got its counterattack ad on the air by Wednesday. “It’s David Vitter who said he didn’t believe Syria posed a threat to the United States or our allies,” the narrator said, insisting that Edwards opposed allowing refugees in. The response ad also borrowed a page from the Republican’s 2014 playbook, attacking Vitter for missing “two-thirds of the committee hearings he was supposed to attend on Syria.”

Again, Vitter was such a terrible candidate that Edwards won anyway, but the lesson here is that Democrats in the South especially will continue to run against Obama.  Whether or not they'll run against Hillary too, we'll see.

Still, Edwards won here, and he's willing to expand Medicaid for Louisiana where Vitter was not.  It's a win, even an ugly one, and a bad Dem is still better than any Republican.

StupidiNews!

• Raids in Brussels have netted 16 but suspected Paris attacker Saleh Abdesalam is not among them, schools remain closed as the Belgian capital remains on lockdown for a third day.
• A group of physicians in Minnesota are calling for public high schools to end football in the state, citing health and safety concerns and a sharp rise in concussions for students.
• Two are dead in a US military helicopter crash in South Korea, the Pentagon is investigating the accident.
• In a massive $150 billion deal, drugmaker Pfizer will be acquired by rival Allergan and could move its HQ to Ireland in another example of inversion to avoid all US corporate taxes.
• A new study finds that sleeping in on the weekend or your days off may lead to metabolic health problems like increased obesity and insulin resistance.

Post-Racial America Update

Trump supporters are exactly who we thought they were.

A black protester reportedly was tackled, punched, and kicked Saturday during a Donald Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama.

The incident was recorded by CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond. In the video, an altercation in the middle of a crowd is visible.

CNN later reported that at least six white attendees at the rally punched, kicked, and tackled the protester, who appeared to have shouted “black lives matter.”

According to Stephon Dingle, a reporter for WIAT, the protester also yelled “dump Trump” before the incident began.

During the altercation, Trump reportedly stopped his speech to say “get him the hell out of here.” Law enforcement then escorted the protester out of the building, which Dingle recorded.

This is how the Trump people deal with dissent.  It's a perfect microcosm of what will happen to black America under Trump.  There won't be a place for us.

But Post-Racial America.

Meanwhile, In Fortress Texas...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is so petrified of Syrian refugees that he's threatening to eliminate state funding for non-governmental, non-profit organizations that help them.  You know, church charities.

Gov. Abbott announced last Monday that he, like dozens of other xenophobic governors, would stop efforts to allow Syrian refugees into his state in the wake of the deadly attacks in Paris. Part of the governor’s announcement included the sending of a letter from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to local non-profits, demanding that they comply with the Governor’s request by Friday afternoon.

The state could forseeably choose not to accept federal funding for the organizations that don’t comply, according to immigration attorney Gordon Quan.

“It puts them in a situation that I think is very uncomfortable,” Quan told local KHOU News. “This is basically saying, ‘Don’t do resettlement. If you do resettlement of these Syrian refugees, you may be endangering the whole program that you have’.”

As Friday came and went, some agencies that work with refugees in Texas balked at the directive, arguing that because resettlement is a federal responsibility, Gov. Abbott does not have the authority to make such a directive.

Bee Moorhead, executive director of Texas Impact, which works closely with resettlement agencies, wrote in a letter to the state that the move “constitutes an unprecedented attempt on the part of a state agency to pressure private, nonprofit organizations to violate federal law and their federal contractual obligations.”

The letter asks the state to meet with resettlement agencies and federal authorities to decide whether Abbott actually has the authority to tell organizations to ignore the pleas of homeless people.

Abbott clearly believes he does have the authority, and at least some non-profits are now calling his bluff. He's turning to a Breitbart story that "proves" refugees coming over the Texas-Mexico border are really ISIS terrorists, which of course is false.

But this is where we are right now.

You will see Muslims beaten, hurt, shot, even killed in the US before you ever see a "Paris-style" assault on a US city.  I guarantee this.

Sunday Long Read: Building Bevinstan

ProPublica's Alec MacGillis takes a crack at explaining why working class blue states have gone blood red in the last five years and argues that pro-union New Deal Dems have sat out election after election and will continue to do so.

In his successful bid for the Senate in 2010, the libertarian Rand Paul railed against “intergenerational welfare” and said that “the culture of dependency on government destroys people’s spirits,” yet racked up winning margins in eastern Kentucky, a former Democratic stronghold that is heavily dependent on public benefits. Last year, Paul R. LePage, the fiercely anti-welfare Republican governor of Maine, was re-elected despite a highly erratic first term — with strong support in struggling towns where many rely on public assistance. And earlier this month, Kentucky elected as governor a conservative Republican who had vowed to largely undo the Medicaid expansion that had given the state the country’s largest decrease in the uninsured under Obamacare, with roughly one in 10 residents gaining coverage.

It’s enough to give Democrats the willies as they contemplate a map where the red keeps seeping outward, confining them to ever narrower redoubts of blue. The temptation for coastal liberals is to shake their heads over those godforsaken white-working-class provincials who are voting against their own interests.

But this reaction misses the complexity of the political dynamic that’s taken hold in these parts of the country. It misdiagnoses the Democratic Party’s growing conundrum with working-class white voters. And it also keeps us from fully grasping what’s going on in communities where conditions have deteriorated to the point where researchers havedetected alarming trends in their mortality rates.

In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process.

MacGillis argues that voting, and even getting political news has become so onerous for the poorest Americans now that they simply don't care anymore: who has time to vote when you literally cannot put food on the table for your family?

Meanwhile, many people who in fact most use and need social benefits are simply not voting at all. Voter participation is low among the poorest Americans, and in many parts of the country that have moved red, the rates have fallen off the charts. West Virginia ranked 50th for turnout in 2012; also in the bottom 10 were other states that have shifted sharply red in recent years, including Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee.

The poorest Americans are least likely to vote, and least likely to be organized to vote.  Meanwhile, the second lowest quintile of Americans have become sharply Republican.  The result, in Southern and Midwestern states, has been catastrophic.

Kentucky is just the latest state to fall.