The Real Republican Adversary? Population Density

Curious about the correlation between population density and voting behavior, I began with analyzing the election results from the least and most dense counties and county equivalents. 98% of the 50 most dense counties voted Obama. 98% of the 50 least dense counties voted for Romney...

At about 800 people per square mile, people switch from voting primarily Republican to voting primarily Democratic. Put another way, below 800 people per square mile, there is a 66% chance that you voted Republican. Above 800 people per square mile, there is a 66% chance that you voted Democrat. A 66% preference is a clear, dominant majority...

First, there are very few cities in red states. Second, the few dense cities that do exist in red states voted overwhelmingly democratic...

Red states simply run out of population at about 2,000 people per square mile. St. Louis is the only city that exceeds that density in a red state. It voted overwhelmingly Democratic (82.7%)..

If that’s the case, an Hispanic candidate running on the same old Republican platform will simply not resonate. The Republican party must develop a city-friendly platform to survive.

I am an urban voter and fill-out both the W2 and the 1099. I wish the cities had mostly employees paying taxes. That is not even close. Most cities have around 40% on welfare. Depressed cities over 60% on welfare. Most cities today are welfare magnets in the business of providing welfare. Cities on the coasts and a couple in the middle have financial industries and software tech that pick-up some of the tax slack. Those cities still have a significant welfare industry. The only way to win back cities is to get people off welfare. I don't see any other way. The democrats want to keep people on welfare or give them government jobs.

I think the question should be long term.

Democrats support Agenda 21, with the idea of moving most of the people in America’s heartland to the coasts, radically increasing the population density there.

Therefore, conservatives should take the opposite approach, to lower population densities in urban areas by encouraging emigration to often empty rural areas. Importantly, as a grand plan, this involves a lot of infrastructure to support such communities with water, power, transportation and many other things.

Likely the difference between low density and high density population voting patterns reflects the relative percentage of people receiving W2 vs 1099’s.

There is certainly some evidence this is a major cause of urban/rural political differences. Two other closely related contributing factors are out-migration of the rural poor to more urban areas, and the fact that rural areas have substantially lower levels of income inequality, and its perceived as less of a *political* problem.

See for example:

http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/PSJuly06GimpelKarnes.pdf

The stats are accurate, so the question becomes: why are current Republican candidates failing to connect with urban (and especially younger, well educated) voters?

The best explanation is to look at John B. Calhoun's experiments with rat populations. Really. Calhoun built colonies of rats where all of their needs were met except one: space. They had all the food and water they wanted, but a finite amount of space. Calhoun expected the population of rats to grow until it filled the space and stabilize. They didn't. What happened is that the populations always peaked and then collapsed by about 90%. In the last few generations, the psychology of the rats changed for the worse. They became violent, sexually deviant, and finally just did not want to produce any offspring.

This behavior change was labelled by Calhoun as a "behavioral sink." To an astonishing degree, the democrat party, after becoming the party of the inner city, became America's behavioral sink. Every anti-social and anti-life behavior is now adopted by the democrats.

If Calhoun's experiments apply to humans, and our population has a behavioral sink leading the psychology of the population, then we are in the last couple of generations before we undergo a near complete collapse.

So what can Republicans do about it? Well, first, don't abandon rural populations, because they will be the survivors. But we need to explain to the dense cities what a behavioral sink is, and why they are trapped in one. The democrats are not offering "progress," but collapse. One advantage we have over rats is we can think consciously, so if we realize we are in a trap, we can think our way out of it. But to do so is to renounce the democrat party.

This approach is a scientific approach that I don't believe can be effectively countered by democrats. They can only ignore or vilify. But once people see things from a different perspective, they will ignore the pleadings of the behavioral sink.

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