My first comment! :-D I'm glad it's from you, Violet - thanks for stopping by!
I saw that post of yours and found it largely very much to the point. I'm not sure that the "largest ancestry by county" analysis means much when broken down so finely, though, except as a hint of the American racial categories that matter much more these days. I was born in the Midwest and, like many many people from that region it seems, have some German ancestry - though it can't be much more than 1/8, the rest being other types of northwestern European. A white nationalist type would not categorize me as outside his ingroup by looking at me (well, except by my hairstyle), or even see a need to ask exactly where my ancestors came from.
I don't perceive my ancestors' origins as affecting my cultural practices, though they probably do, in subtle ways I don't recognize as such. This map does in places hint at the settlement patterns giving rise to Joel Garreau's and Colin Woodard's proposed breakdowns of the cultural various "nations" of North America. Still, I don't consider, e.g., a Scandinavian-American neighbor or colleague to be any more "like me" than an Italian-American one, so the detailed ethnic backgrounds of white Americans don't seem to me to affect politics directly.
I am getting more and more doomerish (as you will see in the next few installments) and thinking that breaking up the Union might be the best reasonably probable future. The Southeast or Confederate states would be in an "interesting" position. Their governments would certainly be Christian nationalist in character if freed from any remaining Constitutional restrictions, and the Christian right wing is often overtly or covertly racist (e.g., looking for reasons why Black people's votes shouldn't count). However, as this map suggests, the Southeast has larger Black minorities than any other region, in most states one-fifth to one-third of the population. That's a lot of potential voters whose interests won't entirely coincide with those of the dominant group, even should they be socially conservative Christians. If the ruling faction decided to double down on disenfranchisement, that's a lot of people to keep down forever.
[Edit: You say "vast areas" have nonwhite majorities. I think this is not correct. As best I can figure out, six states and DC have less than 50% non-Hispanic white populations. One of these is Hawaii; Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada have large Hispanic populations, which include many ruralites, descendants of pre-annexation residents. Maryland is just about 50/50 and California is majority-minority, but the nonwhite residents are disproportionately packed into small urban areas. Elsewhere in majority white states, there may be large nonwhite populations but they are not distributed like the white populations; they are mostly crammed into cities with small geographic footprints, while rural areas are increasingly white. This is already undermining their political interests in many states and could become a real danger in future.]
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-08-01 01:50 pm (UTC)I saw that post of yours and found it largely very much to the point. I'm not sure that the "largest ancestry by county" analysis means much when broken down so finely, though, except as a hint of the American racial categories that matter much more these days. I was born in the Midwest and, like many many people from that region it seems, have some German ancestry - though it can't be much more than 1/8, the rest being other types of northwestern European. A white nationalist type would not categorize me as outside his ingroup by looking at me (well, except by my hairstyle), or even see a need to ask exactly where my ancestors came from.
I don't perceive my ancestors' origins as affecting my cultural practices, though they probably do, in subtle ways I don't recognize as such. This map does in places hint at the settlement patterns giving rise to Joel Garreau's and Colin Woodard's proposed breakdowns of the cultural various "nations" of North America. Still, I don't consider, e.g., a Scandinavian-American neighbor or colleague to be any more "like me" than an Italian-American one, so the detailed ethnic backgrounds of white Americans don't seem to me to affect politics directly.
I am getting more and more doomerish (as you will see in the next few installments) and thinking that breaking up the Union might be the best reasonably probable future. The Southeast or Confederate states would be in an "interesting" position. Their governments would certainly be Christian nationalist in character if freed from any remaining Constitutional restrictions, and the Christian right wing is often overtly or covertly racist (e.g., looking for reasons why Black people's votes shouldn't count). However, as this map suggests, the Southeast has larger Black minorities than any other region, in most states one-fifth to one-third of the population. That's a lot of potential voters whose interests won't entirely coincide with those of the dominant group, even should they be socially conservative Christians. If the ruling faction decided to double down on disenfranchisement, that's a lot of people to keep down forever.
[Edit: You say "vast areas" have nonwhite majorities. I think this is not correct. As best I can figure out, six states and DC have less than 50% non-Hispanic white populations. One of these is Hawaii; Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada have large Hispanic populations, which include many ruralites, descendants of pre-annexation residents. Maryland is just about 50/50 and California is majority-minority, but the nonwhite residents are disproportionately packed into small urban areas. Elsewhere in majority white states, there may be large nonwhite populations but they are not distributed like the white populations; they are mostly crammed into cities with small geographic footprints, while rural areas are increasingly white. This is already undermining their political interests in many states and could become a real danger in future.]