Wait - so the south has not been conservative for a long time?
Let’s not forget George Wallace & David Duke too.
It is simplistic to portray it that way. One of the most progressive movements in American politics, the People’s Party (Populists) arose in the so-called “red states.” That party was out in front on such matters as a graduated income tax, direct election of Senators, and anti-trust issues. 1896 People’s Party platform. Those issues were co-opted by the Democrats and the Progressive Republicans.
There is a strain of economic populism in the South that has been there for a long time. You can trace it from the People’s Party, through Huey Long, Lyndon Johnson, and right on up to John Edwards.
And here’s the problem. Racial politics confuses the issue. George Wallace, though he was obviously a troglodyte on racial matters, was very much a progressive on economic issues.
That may be true, but it has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment. The courts have consistently ruled that laws regulating firearms are allowed, and are not prohibited under the 2nd Amendment.
Non Causa Pro Causa.
Okay, you’re from Georgia, right? Would you describe Sonny Perdue as an economic populist?
It isn’t appropriate to single out specific instances that run contrary to the general point, unless the argument is that the south has never, ever elected anyone who is not conservative. I don’t think anyone is making that argument.
The south may have been the well-spring of economic populism, but it certainly hasn’t been a notable practitioner of such.
Hentor, my point is that you are thinking in terms of blue and red when the truth is purple.
And you seem determined to ignore the effects of poverty (independent of politics) on the statistics we’re discussing.
Not at all. It remains a very interesting question. You bring poverty up as if it explains everything. Poor people vote Republican?
I agree that poverty is associated with many of the indicators that have been discussed, but you (who are so keen on the distinction of correlation and causation) have not demonstrated that poverty moderates the relationship between conservative voting in certain states and very poor outcomes. That’s your hypothesis, and it’s a fine one as far as it goes, but it hasn’t been empirically demonstrated to explain the OP.
Furthermore, if poverty does explain all of the relationships we’ve discussed, I’m still curious why endemic poverty should make a state routinely vote conservative? Or, since we haven’t demonstrated directionality, why routinely voting conservative yields endemic poverty?
How does poverty explain those things?
I don’t think anyone is ignoring poverty, the question is do the politics of the redder states cause and/or prolong poverty. If they underfund schools, over emphasize athletics, discourage unions, gerrymander the vote, and make make gays , jews, atheists and other people unwelcome then it may be that poverty is a result.
As I think I just demonstrated, it doesn’t. Your premise is flawed. The South has not been consistently conservative (at least on economic issues) as you seem determined to believe.
The South has had a problem with entrenched poverty since the Civil War, whether its statehouses were occupied by Republicans or by New Deal Democrats. Neither party can be expected to cure poverty.
Your argument is simplistic.
So, poverty doesn’t explain it? There are demonstrated differences in health, income, violent crime, traffic accidents… and these are not explained by poverty? What does? Or are you suggesting that that’s just the way things are in the South, and nothing can explain it? Or does racism somehow explain this?
I don’t think you understood my post. Poverty does explain the statistical differences. It does not “make a state routinely vote conservative.” That’s the part of your question to which I was responding.
Your error is in thinking that the South has been consistently conservative. That’s just not so. The New Deal was very popular in the South.
Your citing a few examples to the contrary hardly demonstrates that the South has not been consistently conservative. In fact, I find the assertion laughable, and more than three names and citation of populism will be needed to prove your point.
How many do you need? What about Georgia’s New Deal governor, Eurith D. Rivers (1937-41) or progressive governor Ellis Arnall (1943-47)? What about the fact that while the “blue states” were voting for Herbert Hoover, the Deep South was voting for Al Smith? And even when Franklin Roosevelt swept into office in '32, it was the Northeast that was still voting for Hoover? Guess which states Adlai Stevenson carried in '52? And '56?
You are determined to see the South as a monolithic conservative entity whether or not the facts fit your worldview.
The Solid South used to be a phrase describing Democratic voting strength in presidential elections.
To say the South was liberal because it used to vote for Democratic presidential nominees is laughable.
Of course, part of the issue is how do you determine what was “liberal” and what was “conservative” sixty or seventy years ago. The issues have changed so much that trying to apply these labels as we understand them today to that era is pretty futile.
I am not saying the South was “liberal,” but rather rebutting the notion that it is monolithically conservative. And I have given you the names of several progressive Democratic governors. Do you need more?
How about Bibb Graves (Alabama governor 1927-31 and 1935-39)? While frankly racist, he was very much a progressive on economic issues:
There’s Georgia’s Carl Sanders (1963-67):
From Arkansas there’s New Deal governor Carl Edward Bailey, and progressive Dale Bumpers (1971-75)
There’s Tennessee’s Prentice Cooper (1939-45).
There’s Georgia’s Roy Barnes (1999-2003).
There’s North Carolina’s Terry Sanford (Governor 1961-65 Senator 1986-93).
I could go on and on citing progressive Southern governors and other state-level politicians, but this is getting tiresome. It should be obvious that the South is not consistently conservative, and never has been.
Um, about the same or more than weren’t liberal or progressive?
No, you’re just arguing in a very unconvincing way. Your argument would be akin to my saying “It isn’t true that Presidents are by and large non-Catholic. Just look at JFK!” or “Of course Massachusetts can’t be described as liberal. Look at Mitt Romney and William Weld and Increase Sumner!”
I’ve pretty much done that with Georgia governors. I’m not going to go through every state’s politicians for you.
spoke-: data, as opposed to your datums.
Those allegedly progressive governors didn’t do much for their workers, it seems. I think the word you’re looking for can best be described as “demagoguery”. Not the same thing as being progressive. Not by a long shot.
When those right-to-work laws were passed, there weren’t any “workers” to speak of. The laws were passed by what were then rural states trying desperately to attract industry (in other words, trying to combat the poverty we’ve been discussing). The other option at the time would have been to do nothing, in which case virtually all of the nation’s manufacturing would have remained in the North — or moved to states that did pass right-to-work laws.
It was a tough call. I’m not sure it was something you could label “conservative” under the circumstances then prevailing.
As relates to the OP, the right-to-work laws didn’t cause poverty. They were an attempt to alleviate it.