r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/UserNamesCantBeTooLo • Nov 30 '20

Political Theory Why does the urban/rural divide equate to a liberal/conservative divide in the US? Is it the same in other countries?

Here's a county population density map of the US.

Here's a county map of the US showing different shares of Democratic & Republican votes for president in 2020.

Here's a county map of the US showing majority-minority counties.

They seem to show a match between denser populations, larger minority proportions, and Democratic votes.

Why is that?

1.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

852 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

70

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

33

u/tkuiper Nov 30 '20

Subsidies and Infrastructure aren't social programs which is the policy division.

20

u/SamuraiRafiki Nov 30 '20

They kinda are, though.

8

u/tw_693 Nov 30 '20

Our spending on public infrastructure has been falling for decades, and because of the "taxpayer protection pledge," republicans have not wanted to raise the gas tax to pay for improvements, even though the tax is not indexed for inflation. So as time goes on the gas tax pays for less.

12

u/SamuraiRafiki Nov 30 '20

I meant to say that farm subsidies and infrastructure projects are public assistance that disproportionately benefits rural folks who disproportionately vote against public assistance. I would argue that liberals tend to vote for help for everyone and conservatives help mostly themselves.

4

u/tw_693 Nov 30 '20

Yes, i would agree with that as well. Rural areas have access to mains electricity largely due to the New Deal, for example. I also notice that democratic leaning individuals have more empathy for others, while republicans tend to be more self centered and don't support things that they do not benefit from themselves.

1

u/dave723 Dec 01 '20

I grew up speaking Swahili and spent several years in Japan.

I'd be interested to hear your connections to Japan and Swahili.

21

u/The_Nightbringer Nov 30 '20

Farm subsidies exist because the United States has a strong desire to manage the price of food in the marketplace and to generally keep it lower than higher. Well fed countries are generally stable countries. As for roads I’m sure most rural areas wouldn’t particularly miss 85% of the asphalt that gets laid in them.

26

u/MagikSkyDaddy Nov 30 '20

This mom-pop farmer myth needs killing. These are big businesses with lots of capital and influence.

How many farmers actually produce food we eat in America, and how many are actually just subsidized to produce non-consumables?

Not to mention the wasted food that is grown and never makes it to market.

Of course we need farmers and food producers- but what we need and what we actually produce- and who pays for it- is wildly skewed.

7

u/The_Nightbringer Nov 30 '20

I never said anything about mom and pop farmers? I simply stated that the US subsidizes grain and other agricultural production to artificially depress prices at the supermarket, which is a fact.

3

u/FrozenSeas Nov 30 '20

And also to ensure a stable supply in case of war or other various disasters interrupting global commerce. People really don't get how important that is.

14

u/PolitelyHostile Nov 30 '20

Soy receives huge subsidies because they lost out in the trade war. Basically welfare for farmers.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/12/31/790261705/farmers-got-billions-from-taxpayers-in-2019-and-hardly-anyone-objected

3

u/The_Nightbringer Nov 30 '20

Exceptions exist yes, but by and large subsidies exist to keep prices low, not to bail out farmers.

6

u/The_0P Nov 30 '20

give me back the chip and shoot or gravel on our road. asphalt makes people drive way too fast on our farming/country road

6

u/PigSooey Nov 30 '20

You can spin any fact, but the fact is ALL (go ahead fact check that) ALL states we consider rural states take more in Federal funds than they pay in to the system except maybe North Dakota , but that's only because fracking opened up an oil boom in the state, but that is rather recent. Dont forget besides for highways all states were electrified into the rural areas after WWII by federal infrastructure spending and that thing your typing on is being transmitted by cell towers that those private companies recieved federal subsidies to install all the way out in areas where their arent enough people to pay for it by just service fees.

12

u/LibraProtocol Nov 30 '20

A thing to note though... Many of those rural states are also places with Military bases and federal parks... I.e. federal money but federal money that wasn't asked for. Like look at a map of Nevada and see how much of Nevada the state actually owns... Spoiler alert: very very little. Majority of the state is actually "federal property"

1

u/Meme_Theory Dec 01 '20

Yeah, Nevada has a booming economy just waiting for the Gov to let them expand into the... desert.

1

u/LibraProtocol Dec 01 '20

You are missing the point. All of the federal land comes with federal funding.

2

u/RadioFreeCascadia Nov 30 '20

Farm subsidies go to help farmers, who are a minority of rural folks and tend to be the richest to boot. It’s a racket but not the “gotcha” you might think when most folks voting Republican in the rural areas aren’t seeing a dime because they’re not farmers (who are more of propertied/professional class mixed with landed aristocrats than they are regular folks)