America is as politically and culturally polarized as it was back in the Civil War 150 years ago. Trump used on this polarization to get to power but he didn’t start it.
We need to win the coming cultural/political war to decrease the chances of another aspiring authoritarian dictator in the WH and a dysfunctional Senate. Let’s start with an estimate of the situation.
This Wikipedia page has information about higher education attainment by state and I used it to create the featured table above with the added column of whether they voted for Biden (blue) or Trump (red). The Wikipedia data makes it clear that the correlation between higher college graduation rates and voting Dem is huge. We know that Trump gets more support among white voters that have no college degree. So perhaps our long term strategy, given the Electoral College and no popular vote, should include increasing high education in red states. If more than 30% of people in a state have a college degree, the state votes blue.
To get the full scope of the correlation here is the rest of the table.
Clik here to view.
Think of states as social superorganisms. These superorganisms decide POTUS elections in the Electoral College. Short of a constitutional reform to eliminate the Electoral College, created to perpetuate slavery, perhaps we should inject high education into the red states. The student loan debt cancellation is a starting step towards a more educated and blue America.
There are 2 other perspectives that are complementary to the above framework.
1. The Dunning-Krueger effect (the less you know the less you know what you don’t know)
Trump's base mindset/cult and the Dunning-Kruger effect
2. There is no symmetry between right and left politics in America
This is nowhere near a complete estimate of the situation and a possible strategy but it is something we need to be conscious of to diminish the cultural/political polarization in America.
I welcome your thoughts.
