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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe "Hostage Takers" Live in Small Pockets in our STATES...And they NEED TO BE EXAMINED!
Last edited Thu Oct 3, 2013, 08:33 PM - Edit history (1)
Where the G.O.P.'s Suicide Caucus Lives
Posted by Ryan Lizza
As we approach a likely government shutdown this month and then a more perilous fight over raising the debt ceiling in October, its worth considering the demographics and geography of the eighty districts whose members have steered national policy over the past few weeks.
As the above map, detailing the geography of the suicide caucus, shows, half of these districts are concentrated in the South, and a quarter of them are in the Midwest, while theres a smattering of thirteen in the rural West and four in rural Pennsylvania (outside the population centers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh). Naturally, there are no members from New England, the megalopolis corridor from Washington to Boston, or along the Pacific coastline.
These eighty members represent just eighteen per cent of the House and just a third of the two hundred and thirty-three House Republicans. They were elected with fourteen and a half million of the hundred and eighteen million votes cast in House elections last November, or twelve per cent of the total. In all, they represent fifty-eight million constituents. That may sound like a lot, but its just eighteen per cent of the population.
The members of the suicide caucus live in a different America from the one that most political commentators describe when talking about how the country is transforming. The average suicide-caucus district is seventy-five per cent white, while the average House district is sixty-three per cent white. Latinos make up an average of nine per cent of suicide-district residents, while the over-all average is seventeen per cent. The districts also have slightly lower levels of education (twenty-five per cent of the population in suicide districts have college degrees, while that number is twenty-nine per cent for the average district).
As with Meadows, the other suicide-caucus members live in places where the national election results seem like an anomaly. Obama defeated Romney by four points nationally. But in the eighty suicide-caucus districts, Obama lost to Romney by an average of twenty-three points. The Republican members themselves did even better. In these eighty districts, the average margin of victory for the Republican candidate was thirty-four points.
-snip-
In previous eras, ideologically extreme minorities could be controlled by party leadership. Whats new about the current House of Representatives is that party discipline has broken down on the Republican side. On the most important policy questions, ones that most affect the national brand of the party, Boehner has lost his ability to control his caucus, and an ideological faction, aided by outside interest groups, can now set the national agenda.
MUCH MORE AT:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/09/meadows-boehner-defund-obamacare-suicide-caucus-geography.html
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)hedda_foil
(16,376 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)This is a helpful map for us Dem Activists involved in our states to "Connect the Dots" of where to focus our work going forward.
Just saying. It's a very helpful map for those of us Dem Workers organizing for 2014 in our States. I'm glad the "New Yorker" put this out. I've sent it to our organizers and I'm figuring they will have read it and send it BACK TO ME!
hedda_foil
(16,376 posts)I completely agree with your approach. Measles can be fatal, and we've got an epidemic that's well on its way to killing our very sick democracy.
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)You may be dangerously close to the eliminationist rhetoric coming from the right!
Google on the words: eliminationist and eliminationism You'll be frightened by some of the stuff that comes up -- like something under a rock.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)I'll Edit my Post Title.
Thanks for the "Heads Up."
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)The issue is, that using this sort of rhetoric takes us down a dangerous route! We need to be better than the Repukes!
KoKo
(84,711 posts)and that's what you think?
I'm more worried about NSA thinking I'm some damned budding terrorist...so I did edit my post ...but not to answer to anyone thinking that I'm a Republican.