06 December 2020

2020 Election: The Beginning of the End?

We are currently working on a reader-requested piece on the question, ‘How exactly should a government deal with a massive underclass of hostile immigrants?’, to be published around the holidays.

But as we have not breached the question of the U.S. election and its aftermath, here is a quick data round-up. From Boston University:

A recent Washington Post headline says: “In America, talk turns to something not spoken of for 150 years: Civil war.” The story references, among others, Stanford University historian Victor Davis Hanson, who asked in a National Review essay last summer: “How, when, and why has the United States now arrived at the brink of a veritable civil war?

Another Washington Post story reports how Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King recently posted a meme warning that red states have “8 trillion bullets” in the event of a civil war. And a poll conducted last June by Rasmussen Reports found that 31% of probable US voters surveyed believe “it’s likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years.”

Leftists have never digested Trump’s 2016 surprise victory, and conservatives see fraud in Biden’s squeaker of a win last month. ‘Blue’ and ‘Red’ America seem more hostile to each other than ever.

Far-leftists Antifa and Black Lives Matter spent the summer burning and looting America’s cities, whilst regular citizens defending themselves from rioters were pursued in the courts. All this in the midst of a pandemic whose 'lockdowns' have bent civil liberties to the breaking point. A sense of anarcho-tyranny seems to have set in, and many fear civil unrest could turn (or has turned) into low-grade civil war. 

For some it is a political divide which threatens our national unity, for others it is a racial one. And some are just whistling past the graveyard:

 

Are these fears founded? Are America's divisions too deep to overcome? If so, what comes next?

 

Having researched these questions before, we’d like to bring some data to the fore.

 

I. The Left-Right Divide

Political polarization in the U.S. is said to be at record levels:








Though it seems that those who've strayed farthest from the median are the leftists:



1) Urban and Rural 

First and most clearly, the political divide in the U.S. is very spatial.

The 'city mouse / country mouse spat' is as old as recorded history. From Aesop's fable , after Country Mouse feasts in town with his City Cousin and is attacked by cats and dogs:

The Country Mouse said, “No, no; I shall be off as fast as I can. I would rather have a crust with peace and quietness, than all your fine things in the midst of such alarms and frights as these.”

For millennia the peasant has been mocked as a hidebound simpleton, the city-dweller as an effete dandy. (Not without reason.) But the Romes and Baghdads were the exception-- for most of the last 10,000 years, we've been 95% rural-dwellers. Only today, post-Industrial Revolution, has that ratio nearly reversed itself.
   

Voting patterns show that city folk tend to vote left and country folk right:


So do cities turn people liberal, or are liberals drawn to live in cities? According to Pew, it's the latter:

 

 

But this can be a chicken-and-egg question: Are conservatives drawn to the countryside and liberals to the city because that's where they perceive others like themselves to be? Does growing up in a city--which more of us do now then at any time in history-- push people to adopt more liberal views? After all, we were 95% rural folk for most of history, but are today less than 20%...

Image source

 

2) Political 'Wiring'


Stephen Pinker in his 2002 classic The Blank Slate laid out the differences between (among others) male and female brains. 


In their 2013 Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences, Hibbing, Alford, and Smith have done the same for liberals and conservatives. 


a) Preferences

Via a variety of studies and online polls, they posit that there are real lefty and righty differences in (9):
  • food preference (greens vs. meat)
    • humor preference (resolution of incongruity or not)
    • favorite fiction (ambiguity vs. clear resolution)
    • favorite art (abstract vs. representational)
    Jackson Pollack, Nicolas Poussin
      • personal space orderliness  (less vs. more)
      • car preference (Volvo vs. Porsche for rich, Japanese vs. American for poor)
      Rich lefty, rich righty
        • choice of investment stocks (high-tech vs. heavy industry)


        b) Values

        Via values studies, Hibbing et al. find even more variation in the personality of righties and lefties.

        As they point out, since the age of the great totalitarianisms, most researchers have been trying to pin down the supposed right-wing 'authoritarian personality.'  Theodor Adorno wrote the best-known work on this elusive 'authoritarian' who walks among us. 

          

        Researchers have tried to tease out this creature via scales: Adorno's colleague Frenkel-Brunswick and her 'F-scale' (for 'fascism'), Glenn Wilson and his 'C-scale' ('conservatism'), Robert Altemeyer and his 'RWA' ('right-wing authoritarian' index). But Hibbings et al. bemoan the fact that the left-wing authoritarian personality has been so little studied, with Hans Eysenck the only one venturing down this path.


        Other values scales may be more familiar to us: 
        • The 'Big 5' from Goldberg and Costa & McCrae (Openness / Conscientiousness / Extraversion / Agreeableness / Neuroticism), 
        • 'HEXACO' from Ashton & Lee (Honesty-Humility / Emotionality / Extraversion / Agreeableness /  Conscientiousness / Openness), and


        For the Big 5, left-wing voting is associated with high Openness, right-wing voting with high Conscientiousness.



        (You can see where you fall on the Big 5 traits here.)


        For Haidt's 'Moral Foundations' theory, concern about Harm and Fairness are associated with voting left; concern about Purity, Loyalty, and Authority with voting right:




        (You can see where you fall on Haidt's 'moral foundations' here.)


        (A study on HEXACO and politics can be found here; see also JayMan's work on HEXACO.)

        In a nutshell, then, personality studies seem to line up well with voting--one may almost speak of a leftist and rightist personality 'type.'



        c) Lab studies

        Cultural preferences and personality traits aren't the only ways in which lefty and righty minds seem to differ.  Once in the lab, things become even starker.


        Via a variety of lab tests, Hibbing et al. show lefty and righty differences in:

        • Ability to taste PTC (compound giving bitter taste to veggies such as arugula)
         Arugula again
          • Ability to smell androstenone / finding its smell pleasant (linked to testosterone) (more accepting of social hierarchies--righty)

          Our findings suggest that liberals are more influenced by social cues—even when told to explicitly ignore those cues. Conservatives seem to be more willing or able to ignore cues and follow the rules that govern the situation. … We found that conservatives were more likely to believe it is “better” for people not to be influenced by where others are looking, while liberals were just the opposite. (9)
          • Placing objects in categories (e.g. zoo vs farm animals--righties are 'hard' and lefties 'soft' categorizers)



            • Looking at ambiguous faces (righties more likely to interpret all faces negatively)
              • Picking 'good' and 'bad' beans in the game BeanFest

              Not to go too into detail (see study), but a lab game called 'BeanFest' showed big variance in lefty and righty thought. Beans with different spots pop up, some add points, some subtract points. You have to suss out which are which, and remember for when they flash on the screen again. 

              (You can play BeanFest here.)

              It did not take long for the researchers to note that people varied widely in the way they played BeanFest. Some threw caution to the wind and accepted beans with abandon. This meant they gained and lost a lot of points but also collected substantial amounts of information about the value of the various beans. Others were much more wary, accepting just a few beans at first and then only accepting subsequent beans that matched the few types known to be good.

              (One guess as to which political orientation was which.) After the game, the players were given a test to see what they'd retained: 
              Liberals were just a bit better at remembering which beans were bad than they were at remembering which beans were good; however, there was no such approximate balance for conservatives—they knew a bad bean when they saw one. Actually, they knew a bad bean even when they didn’t see one. Conservatives were way better than liberals at correctly identifying bad beans, but they were also more likely to miscategorize good beans as bad. 

               

              d) Biological differences

              As it turns out, looking into the body itself, one can see political differences in our very biology.


              Twin studies going back to 1986 have shown likely genetic links to political beliefs. More recent studies, such as Hatemi and McDermott (2012), have tried to break down the nature and nurture of ideology. 


              In the following graph pink is identical twins, blue is fraternal.  We see how closely the two types of twins' political views sync up throughout life:



              In this graph, based on 38 years of twin studies, the authors claim that 'overall ideology' (liberal-conservative) is almost 60% genetic (click to enlarge):
               


              (See also JayMan's discussion of Hatemi et al.'s 2010 paper.)



              In Predisposed, based on various lab studies, Hibbing et al. find lefty and right differences in (9):

              • Size of the amygdale (smaller in lefties)


               


              • The DRD4 allele + a high number of friends affects one's political orientation




              If this data is to be believed, there could be real hard-wired differences between natural progressives and natural conservatives. But this has surely been true all throughout history. Why is it causing such extreme enmity in America today? 


              3) Mass Media

              Other data show that those who mold our brains--academia, journalism, and entertainment--are increasingly left-oriented:

              Professors:

              Image source (click image to enlarge)

              Journalists:


              A recent study places professors, journalists, and artists as the most leftist of professions: 


              An older study places the 'Big 4' main indoctrination channels--universitites, journalism, entertainment, and big tech--squarely on the left:


              (Above data originally published in 'Why Do Progressives Get Religion?')


              It would seem, then, that while heartland America remains rather conservative, those holding the cultural megaphone are sliding ever further leftward. But is this polarization enough to drive a secession movement? 


              4) Political Break-up


              The idea of the U.S. breaking back up into smaller chunks is picking up steam. The 2016 election created, according to some people, two countries:


              Frank Jacobs lays out the scenario proposed by Dicken Shrader, based on the Palestinian partition:

              Progressive America (blue)

              • Area: 1.44 million sq. mi (3.74 million km2), 38% of the total U.S.
              • Population: 210 million, 64.5% of the total U.S.
              • Pop. Density: 146 inhabitants/sq mi (56/km2), similar to Mexico
              • Capital: Washington DC
              • Ten Largest Cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose, Jacksonville

              Conservative America (red)

              • Area: 2.35 million sq. mi (6.08 million km2), 62% of the total
              • Population: 115.4 million, 35.5% of the total
              • Pop. Density: 49 inhabitants/sq mi (19/km2), similar to Sudan
              • Capital: Dallas
              • Ten Largest Cities: Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Louisville, Kansas City, Omaha, Colorado Springs.


              Jacobs explains:
              • To avoid the distortions of gerrymandering, it is based on electoral majorities in counties, rather than electoral districts.
              • As with the UN partition plan for Israel/Palestine, all territories of both states are contiguous. There are no enclaves. Citizens of either state can travel around their nation without having to cross a border.
              • The intersections between both nations are placed at actual interstate overpasses, so both states have frictionless access to their own territory.
              • In order to avoid enclaves, some 'blue' islands had to be transferred to 'red', and some 'red' zones were granted to the 'blue' nation. "This exchange is fair to both sides, in terms of area and population".
              • Both nations have access to the East, West and Gulf Coasts, and each has a portion of Alaska.

              It's certainly more elegant than the solution proposed by The Federalist's Jesse Kelly:


              Though not as nuanced as those we find at serious discussion forums like Nation States, with regional break-up maps such as that proposed by Quintipoli:



              Steve Sailer has given a thoughtful and detailed treatment of the question, concluding:

              So which side would the U.S. military tend to support in a battle of secessionism vs. nationalism? My impression is that the U.S. military very much enjoys representing the strongest, most ass-kicking country on earth and intends to keep the USA that way.

              …So, secession is not going to happen.


              At the moment these scenarios have a jocular quality to them, but in the event of an India-style partition of the United States (but along political lines), they provide interesting blueprints. 


              II. Demographic Shifts

              In the period since WWII, U.S. demographics have changed radically. Those who predict violent unrest in the near future are looking not only at America's political polarization, but her racial one as well.

              Euro-descended Americans are projected to be a minority in the next twenty years. What might our white-minority future look like?


              1) The Brazil Model


              Some suggest the U.S. will slowly become 'Brazil North'--a small white upper class, an enormous brown mixed middle, with Amerindians and Blacks at the bottom.  A rise in violent crime to the point where all middle-class people live in gated (15-foot barbed wire with armed guards) communities, while the poor masses subsist in giant slums of corrugated tin shacks.  Still a dynamic economy, but far higher levels of corruption and crime than we know now.  Possible?




              Maybe. But the white class in Brazil is not made of exactly the same stuff as its U.S. counterpart. The former is a mix of Portuguese, N. Italian, German, Levantine, Japanese, and others, and its culture reflects that.  So in a future 'Brazil North,' there's no reason to believe the white remnant left in America would behave exactly the same as its South American neighbor's.


              2) The Balkans Model

              As Euros become a minority in their own lands, some predict a Balkans (or 'break-up') model, mirroring that of the former Yugoslavia or the partition of India. In Yugoslavia's case, the ethno-religious break-up was accompanied by a long, brutal civil war.



              In America's case, over the last forty years, we have enthusiastically invited the poorest 20% of Mexico to replace us in the Southwest.  The latter are very keen to 'take back' their lands... 


              So much so that Euro-Americans may find themselves driven to mass flight. How close are we?


              Could one imagine a future where the entire U.S. Southwest breaks off as 'Mexico Norte'? (This data is ten years old; the forthcoming 2020 census numbers will likely intensify the trend.)

              Black America as well is seeing more and more separatist rhetoric, with Louis Farrakhan only one voice among many calling for a 'homeland' where Afro-Americans could live according to their own rules. Twitterer 'Black American Homeland' shares one proposal:



              Both political and racial break-up scenarios, then, are being mulled over by more and more Americans. 


              3) Small-Scale Separatism

              But there are other separatisms  already brewing. The slaveholding South memorably seceded in the 19th century, but even today, the polarization in progress could end up with entire regions or even states breaking off. 

              A variety of long-time independence movements continue to simmer here and there, including in Western MarylandNorthern Colorado, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan ('Superior'), Northern California and Southern Oregon ('Jefferson'),  or the wholesale secession efforts of AlaskaTexasVermont, and now California:



              But separation is also happening at the city level. In a number of big cities, Whites have all but fled downtown for the suburbs. Many are now trying cut the cord for good by officially breaking off into their own cities / school districts. In Atlanta:

              In 2011, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit against the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the city charters of [Atlanta suburbs] Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills. The lawsuit claimed, the paper reported, that the state “circumvented the normal legislative process and set aside its own criteria when creating the ‘super-majority white’ cities within Fulton and DeKalb counties.”


              Similar break-away efforts have been made in Memphis, Baton RougeCharlotte, NC,  San FranciscoBirmingham, and Chattanooga.  


              (Above data originally published in 'Widening Circle of Empathy: The Final Frontier')

               

              *     *     *

              What goes up must come down. The great empires of yesteryear have broken apart, from the Habsburgs to the Ottomans to the recent crack-up of the vast Soviet Empire.

              The general trend continues apace, as for example the former Yugoslavia continues to split into ever smaller pieces. But separatist movements have also flared recently in Catalonia, in Scotland, in Northern Italy, and of course Ukraine.

              Many nations in Africa and the Middle East, whose borders were shoddily drawn by Europeans, risk the same kind of break-up as Sudan: Countries such as Nigeria, Mali, Lybia, Syria, and Iraq are each in their own way hanging by a thread. The fracturing is likely to intensify.

              But is the current polarization of the United States virulent enough to lead to break-up, be it political, ethnic, or a bit of both?

              Or is this all just the over-heated rhetoric of a citizenry agitated by the deeply divisive cant of its media, entertainers, academics, and politicians?

              We may know very soon.


              Thank you for reading, and please stay tuned for our upcoming new piece.




              Previously:

              Widening Circle of Empathy: The Final Frontier

              Why Do Progressives Get Religion?

              When the Melting Pot Reaches a Boil

              26 comments:

              Anonymous said...

              "So do cities turn people liberal, or are liberals drawn to live in cities? According to Pew, it's the latter:"

              I don't know about that. People prefer what they grow up with in terms of city size, most people who grew up in cities think the country is just a life without a lot of amenities and an alien community. If you asked a Londoner (I was going to say New Yorker but the great wave of immigration means so many of them have no connection to the country side around the city) "If you had to choose, would you like to live in Tokyo or Essex?" You might start to get different responses from making the city alternative even more alien and costly in terms of adapting.


              Lots of people who come from 1m pop cities find ones with 5 or 10 million too much. People from cities of 5m might find ones of 1m too small. I think people imprint what they grew up with. Since social liberalism breeds in atomisation, people who grow up in cities are naturally more liberal and thus a poll of all social liberals and all social conservatives (If you actually drill down into what people prioritise economically, over what they identify with from politically tribalism, you start to see a lot less overlap with social liberals and conservatives) you'll get amazing proxies for who grew up in cities and who grew up in urban areas.

              But I do think certain kinds of restless or non-agreeable non-conscientious people find rural life constraining (The same kind of impulse behind Hollywood depicting the 1950s as deeply horrifying despite most people then and now finding traditional mores pretty easy to live under) and want (At least what the think) is the libertine world of big cities but it's hard to tease that out with 'liberal' and 'conservative'.

              Anonymous said...

              "The idea of the U.S. breaking back up into smaller chunks is picking up steam. The 2016 election created, according to some people, two countries:"

              A PhD who ran a genetics blog on PLoS One suggested after the 2016 election that Americans were dividing into two species.

              https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-troglodytes-breed-subhuman-species/

              Ricki Lewis looks like and is from the background you'd assume from such crazed language.

              " Do the deep differences between the two groups of voters in any way reflect underlying genetics? I’ve dismissed studies purporting to identify gene variants associated with political party or conservatism. But now I fear they might be onto something, in the big picture.

              No one will say it out loud, connect the dots, but the pieces of evidence leading to an obvious conclusion have been zipping around social media for months:

              1. Educational attainment differs on the sides of the new divide. Yes, I know that PhDs can be idiots, and those with little or no post-high-school education, like Bruce Springsteen, can be gifted geniuses. But if educational level is even an imperfect surrogate for intelligence, we may be in trouble. The Wall Street Journal is one of many to point out this disturbing evidence: “The clearest dividing line in this year’s presidential election now falls along educational lines: Whites without a college degree have consolidated behind Donald Trump and those with a four-year degree are tending to back Hillary Clinton.” I’d love to see the breakdown in IQ or some other measure of achievement, and for groups other than whites.

              2. Letters such as “375 Top Scientists Warn Us Not To Vote For Trump” and “Hundreds of Economists Say: Do Not Vote For Trump” alarm me. Being smart, it seems, no longer matters, and maybe never did. I fear especially for the fate of the Precision Medicine Initiative, and have to wonder if the new president has even heard of it. President Obama has a long-standing interest in genetics and would periodically invite the top minds in my field to the White House to pick their brains.

              3. The all-important reproduction quandary is perhaps the most disturbing, in the long run that underlies evolution: “He Likes Trump. She Doesn’t. Can This Marriage Be Saved?“

              And herein lies the seeds of speciation: a difference in a trait that genes influence – intelligence – affecting reproduction patterns. Coupled with policies of exclusion – building a wall, breaking up families to deport undocumented immigrants, targeting specific religious groups unified by their ancestry – the population sorting that may begin over the next four years could, with time and if sustained, alter the segregation of gene variants in a way that sets us on a path toward an unstoppable divergence."

              The irony about the arguments and observations she makes is totally lost on her. I wonder if other groups have different sociologically outcomes that could be explained by innate population genetics differences?

              M.G. said...

              Anon 11 :26—

              I think people imprint what they grew up with… a poll of all social liberals and all social conservatives you'll get amazing proxies for who grew up in cities and who grew up in urban areas.

              This question really puzzles me. I suppose I have a hereditarian bias that clouds my vision, and maybe I don’t want to believe that the rural/urban environment can have so much of an effect on our mentality.

              That book ‘Predisposed’ that I quoted, plus a variety of twin studies, really make it seem like there’s a fair bit of biology in our political orientation (as you say, social conservatism / social liberalism). But at the same time, it makes sense that today’s unprecedented level of urbanization would exacerbate all the ethno-suicidal ideologies linked with city living.

              I knew a born-and-bred Manhattanite who fled to rural Montana and said he finally felt ‘at home,’ and he’s presumably the exception. But in a ‘grid goes down’ apocalyptic-type scenario, where we’re all forced back to rudimentary rural living, would those traditional values coming roaring back at once? I really wonder about this.

              M.G. said...

              Anon 1:02—

              Ms. Lewis has nuked her own blog post, seems it didn’t provoke the reaction she’d hoped:

              On Thursday, November 10, I briefly posted a blog called “Donald Trump and the New Morlock Nation” on my usual website (not this one). I took the post down after threatening comments were posted and the tone was escalating.

              I regret having given up my first amendment rights to bullies. I would rather have had a conversation. The commenters did not understand my point – that our differences taken to extremes and under some pretty unlikely circumstances (plus a very long time) could theoretically lead to a speciation event.

              The post dealt with the contribution of heredity to intelligence. I used many disclaimers and never used a judgmental term such as “subspecies,” although I was accused of having done so.


              Is it possible to take a word of this mea culpa seriously? Can she seriously be suggesting that the hypothetical average Trump voter with an IQ of 100 (compared to her hypothetical Clinton voter with, one presumes, an IQ of 120) is becoming a sub-species of homo sapiens, but the Afro-American with his average IQ of 85 (or Aborigene of 65 IQ) is not?

              I also don’t follow her argument about how building a border wall would lead Americans to become divergent sub-species. (am I reading that right?)

              I just don't see how IQ sorting through selective mating, which is a well-known sociological phenomenon (has this chick ever heard of Charles Murray?) could, in the span of our lifetime, lead to ‘unstoppable [genetic] divergence.’ What am I missing? (Guess I’ll never know since she removed the post)

              Ricki Lewis looks like and is from the background you'd assume from such crazed language.

              https://go.authorsguild.org/shared/attachments/sbx/content_images/a3203f4b8ebe47b152f034f6c23b82b81227649d.jpg?1566761450

              Ay, Dios mio!

              Bruce said...

              They won't let us separate - they'll claim that we would oppress our minorities (other races, gays, trans).

              Even very conservative areas have 20,30, even 40% Biden supporters. I think a red and a blue nation should be formed and people caught on the wrong side (geographically) should move. THere could be a common fund both sides pay into to move these people. I'll gladly uproot to get away from the left.

              M.G. said...

              Bruce—

              I think a red and a blue nation should be formed and people caught on the wrong side (geographically) should move.

              It wouldn’t be the first time a country split up ideologically. Germany and Korea of course split into Communist and capitalist polities. But many countries have broken into separate religious entities, with India being the most famous example, as well as Yugoslavia cited above. Africa and the Middle East are full of countries which should probably split along Christian/Muslim or Sunni/Shia lines.

              But a modern Western country split into a Progressive and a Conservative half? I imagine that would be a first, no?

              M.G. said...

              Update: Following on Anon 11:26's comments, I've added more data on the possible genetic aspects of political orientation (Part I.2.d) to try to give a fuller picture of the issue.

              Bruce said...

              MG, yes a first. If you think about it, Leftism is a religion so it would be a religous split I suppose.

              It's interesting, the number of Leftists who seem to want to talk us out of a divorce. When it comes up, Leftist bring up points like "you'll be a third world country without us". Since, we're dumb, toothless neanderthals who are sexist and racist, and are at least somewhat of an impediment to their "progress" why wouldn't they want us out of their hair?

              Anonymous said...

              This question really puzzles me. I suppose I have a hereditarian bias that clouds my vision, and maybe I don’t want to believe that the rural/urban environment can have so much of an effect on our mentality.

              That book ‘Predisposed’ that I quoted, plus a variety of twin studies, really make it seem like there’s a fair bit of biology in our political orientation (as you say, social conservatism / social liberalism). But at the same time, it makes sense that today’s unprecedented level of urbanization would exacerbate all the ethno-suicidal ideologies linked with city living.

              I knew a born-and-bred Manhattanite who fled to rural Montana and said he finally felt ‘at home,’ and he’s presumably the exception. But in a ‘grid goes down’ apocalyptic-type scenario, where we’re all forced back to rudimentary rural living, would those traditional values coming roaring back at once? I really wonder about this.


              I always go back to the Roma. Are they so immensely ethnocentric and clannish because they are genetically hard-wired that way (Any moreso than North Indians anyway) or because they live in a society filled with lots of cousins and dounble first cousins etc and they are genetically distant from the peoples around them. (Same can go for Amish, Orthodox Jews, Travellers etc. Is the circumstance that makes them construct and relate an 'us versus them' mentality that can be activated in a bunch of liberal Swedes if you put them in a same circumstance) If you lived in a small town with deep connections to those around you by default, would you not be more attuned to things like ingroup cultural norms etc. But in an atomised anonymous city, those pressures aren't on you. This isn't to say some groups don't have higher ceilings but that people do adapt to the circumstance of their lives.

              Just look at Western countries, the genetics didn't change that much (Among the pre-existing population) but social mores and lifestyles changed almost overnight.

              I suppose one counter argument could be found in certain places with 'flashpoint' internal migrations such as the big cities in Turkey where East Anatolian peasants from both Turkish and Kurdish backgrounds brought with them their conservatism but that was preserved through the institution of a religion and class and ethnic (West Anatolians living in the big cities are just not the same ethnicity as East Anatolians no matter what they pretend in Turkey) divides causing them to defend it as part of their identity. Often young men from these cities who so passionately affirm their Muslim identity aren't so rural in their behaviours or their enjoyment of the countryside. They may defend parochial rural conservatism as part of their identity but they'd take a cyberpunk city over any pious small town any day. If they'd been born in a small town, maybe they'd find the big cities alienating.

              M.G. said...

              Bruce—

              It’s a truism as old as time that ‘the countryside can live without the city, but the city can’t live without the countryside.’ Not sure who these urbanites think will grow their food and extract the petroleum on which every facet of their comfortable life depends, but sure, why not?

              To me it seems more likely that, rather than a divorce, we have red states and blue states refusing to cooperate with each other and with the federal government. A more intensified version of what we’re seeing already (some states don’t want to enforce federal immigration law, other states don’t want to enforce federal abortion law, etc.). Essentially a more fractured and mutually hostile group of states, but still (on paper) one country.

              M.G. said...

              Anon 3 14--

              I always go back to the Roma. … Is the circumstance that makes them construct and relate an 'us versus them' mentality that can be activated in a bunch of liberal Swedes if you put them in a same circumstance

              There’s the rub. Can it be activated in a bunch of Swedes? Swedes are now undergoing a barbarian siege of their own creation, inviting in hordes of sun people who are robbing, raping and killing them with impunity—and they can’t get enough! They keep voting for more! Forget robbing or raping a gypsy, if you so much as look askance at one, you’ll have 30 members of his extended family beating you to a pulp within minutes. Pathological out-group altruism must have a non-negligeable genetic component at this point.

              Often young men from these cities who so passionately affirm their Muslim identity aren't so rural in their behaviours or their enjoyment of the countryside.

              I agree that much of that identity could be an affected ‘us-vs.-them’ stance rather than real conviction. But the end result is the same: the redneck loudly espouses his conservative values in a sea of urban liberality.

              But to me the question is, how path-dependent is all this? How conservative is the average redneck exactly, from country to country? Just to take the example of immigration, I’m willing to bet the average Tokyoite is more hostile to immigrants than the average rural Swede, when logically it should be the opposite. There’s still something in the base genetics of most ‘WEIRD’ populations that somehow makes them more out-group tolerant, even their rural folk.

              If the grid went down and we all went back to subsistence living, I still think the ethnic Anglo-Germanics would be more out-group tolerant than anyone else. I just can’t prove it.

              Anonymous said...

              Steve Sailer discussed how secession is off the table.

              https://www.takimag.com/article/secession-studies/


              Several questions would have to be answered:

              "How in the world would the people 'hammer out details' when we have difficulty getting things done now?"

              "How would rights be delineated?"

              "How would trade deals with foreign nations be reconstituted?"

              "How would our national debt be dealt with?"

              "How would we address legal decisions made by the Supreme Court"?

              "Would people be willing to move from your current place of residence to achieve such a goal?"

              “Would people support efforts made by the new government to coerce or force others to move?"

              "How would the people respond if forced to move merely due to your ideology?"


              Americans who for ideological reasons are content with how they identify within their racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual milieu. Any standoff will be short-lived, considering there would be no conferral of legitimacy upon ethnic white American resistance to the new order at any level of government. Even the “reddest” state governments in Flyover Country would not be willing to show disobedience of the long haul. Consider how pathologically law-abiding normies tend to be. Assuredly, devotees of the Second Amendment own more private weapons and may have taken a couple of paramilitary classes on-line, but are they willing to put their lives front and center? LOL, no. They simply vent their rage on a blog rather than go full Pinochot and throw their opponents out of helicopters.

              Anonymous said...

              A white person is not going to live in the city without huge amounts of cognitive dissonance that the arguments of their near neighbors (blacks, hispanics, LGBTQ and feminist cat ladies) that whites are the root of all evil, is valid.

              Anonymous said...

              https://go.authorsguild.org/shared/attachments/sbx/content_images/a3203f4b8ebe47b152f034f6c23b82b81227649d.jpg?1566761450

              Ay, Dios mio!


              Plus low-slung, larger than most women . . . . . . a little extra "help" in spotting ethnicity.

              https://go.authorsguild.org/shared/attachments/sbx/content_images/d28e598074d21bc714eb867a0e607202a7fd5a26.jpg

              Anonymous said...

              Despite what Steve Saylor said, the reason there has to be a Civil War, no matter how messy it might be, is that there's no speech (Logos). There's no way for right and left to communicate with one another. A liberal cat lady rehabbing her house may call in a drywaller from a red county, and they can talk about heights and widths and finishes. But that's where it ends.

              The mainstream media has sold it soul to defeat trump the last four years. They're no longer trusted on the right. I don't even read my local newspaper.Since sports got woke I no longer read sports. News stories are all narrative promotion. I should probably read the paper just to find out what the latest Corona virus gambit is. But if I'm out going maskless some place that I shouldn't be, I'm sure a helpful Karen will let me know.

              Anonymous said...

              Anony 5:35 PM --> Talk is cheap about desiring a Civil War on your part. The simple fact in the eyes of the Alt Right is that supposedly “brain-washed whites” are the West’s number 1 enemy. And the alleged problem is that you cannot un-brainwash them. As a result, it requires fresh generations of stout young men to be indoctrinated in race realism, ethnic nationalism, and muscular Christianity to “save” the West through Pinochet inspired levels of scorched earth helicoptering.

              Although, hampering their efforts is that white people are not having enough offspring to avert the apparently impending demographic tsunami of the unwashed brown masses drowning them, and how white people like yourself who demand there *has* to be Civil War 2. So, IF you have taken the red pill, and are willing to save the West, you have to ask yourself “What are you prepared to do?” just like Malone in his dying breath said to Ness in “The Untouchables”.

              So, what are YOU prepared to do?

              M.G. said...

              Anon 3:13—

              Very interesting link from Steve Sailer, I’ve added it to the post.

              Even the “reddest” state governments in Flyover Country would not be willing to show disobedience of the long haul.

              I agree, and none of today’s red-blue squabbles are enough to push fat, comfortable Americans to arms. It would need to be something truly existential. The only thing that comes close is immigration, but we’re a long way from that issue leading to secession:

              -The Ellis Island mythos remains very strong in the public mind—most Americans still see their country as a land of opportunity for the ‘huddled masses’

              -All political elites want more immigration—Democrats want guaranteed left voters, and Republicans want cheap labor for their Chamber of Commerce buddies

              There’s still a great deal of ruin left in this nation, I’m afraid.

              M.G. said...

              Anon 9:22—

              Plus low-slung, larger than most women . . . . . . a little extra "help" in spotting ethnicity.

              I like to avoid commenting on appearance, but I make an exception for people who qualify their political adversaries (half the country) as subterranean Untermenschen. In doing so Ms. Lewis has opened herself to the most obvious of comparisons--here is the very first picture to appear on an image search for ‘Morlock’:

              https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php?title=File:Morlock.jpg

              At this point I'm afraid she’s just asking for it:

              https://go.authorsguild.org/shared/attachments/sbx/content_images/a3203f4b8ebe47b152f034f6c23b82b81227649d.jpg?1566761450

              Zabo said...

              Last time once and for all time S. E. G. R. E G A T I O N OF THIS AMERICAN NATION. It’s clear that we Whites can live without the negro, but it isn’t so clear that the negro can live without the White Man. Let’s make the American negro prove that there can be such a thing as Wakanda? I have this funny feeling that that negro half would turn into Mogadishu within 6 months!

              Anonymous said...

              Segregation is NOT an option.

              M.G. said...

              Anon 11:56—

              I agree that gone are the days of Jim Crow in the South and restrictive covenants in the North, and they’re not coming back.

              But I have noticed the trend of a growing number of black voices demanding ‘black-only’ spaces. It starts with training sessions and student lounges, then creeps into schools (KIPP charters) and neighborhoods (‘Keep Harlem Black’).

              Finally, especially following the current hysteria around police brutality, my sense is that blacks are going to push for ever more ‘safe spaces’ from an ‘oppressive’ white power structure. We could see a kind of de facto return to a partial segregation, this time at the behest of Afro-Americans.

              Anonymous said...

              All this talk about whether we should separate, some parts should secede, etc. is pretty much beside the point. If and when civil war comes, in any form, it will not be part of a thought out plan or strategy and won't involve militias or fringe groups. Rather, it will be simply a matter of things spinning out of control to the point where secession/separation just happens because it will be clear to the players that it must happen.

              Nobody in 1856 took the idea of secession (or even nullification) seriously. Nobody thought the Southern states were crazy enough to actually secede. South Carolina had talked about defying the federal government before but had backed down, so why would anyone take them seriously. Further, there were plenty of Southerners who opposed secession and plenty of Northerners who had no interest in fighting to keep the Union together, but the split nonetheless happened along regional lines. The point is that nothing anyone on a blog or any for of social media says matters. If and when a sufficient amount of elites in a certain group (regional, ethnic, etc.) decide they have had enough, things have a way of getting out of control and civil war becomes inevitable.

              Anonymous said...

              Anony 7:10 AM--The fact of the matter is that, in 1856, secession was on the table, as pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces had duked it out in Kansas. Increasing numbers of southern states, led by South Carolina, made preparations. It was patently serious at that time.

              Anonymous said...

              Anony 24/12. 2:51 PM--In 1856, secession was certainly not on the table. Nobody could have run on a secession ticket in South Carolina in 1856 and won. "Bloody Kansas" was a wonderful cause celebre for Free Soilers, but no Southern state was willing to secede over a ban on slavery in Kansas regardless of the results of any election there. It just wasn't that important to them. All the great and good believed that the situation with the "peculiar institution" had been largely settled, the territories were likely to remain predominately free (as a matter of demographics) and slavery would likely eventually die out in the South itself as a matter of economics. In retrospect, they were wrong, but no serious person called for civil war as it was unimaginable.

              As I said, secession and civil war are rarely well thought out events. Things just kind of spin out of control as they did in America in 1860, in the 90s in the former Yugoslavia, recently in Donetsk and Luhansk, etc. In retrospect, we can see that these events seem inevitable, but that wasn't how the players saw it at the time.

              Further, all the talk about red-pilled 2d Amendment activists is also beside the point as civil wars and revolutions are almost never the result of popular uprisings. The secession conventions did not just happen. The Civil War occurred when Southern elites decided that the election of Lincoln was more than they could take. Similarly, the republics that seceded from FRY when they saw it as being in their interest to do so. If and when there is a civil war, it will be because the elites of a given group (however defined) have had enough and decide their interests are best served by such an action.

              Anonymous said...

              Anony 1/1/21...

              To the contrary, In 1856, secession was certainly on the table. In the run up to the Election of 1856, Southern Democrats called for "popular sovereignty". John Frémont opposed the expansion of slavery, and James Buchanan called that position "extremist", warning that a Republican victory would lead to disunion, a perpetual issue of political debate long discussed and advocated.

              "but no serious person called for civil war as it was unimaginable"

              I appreciate the No True Scotsman Fallacy.

              "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave states. Since there is no escaping your challenge, we accept it in the name of freedom. We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side which is stronger in numbers, as it is in right." -- Senator William Seward, on the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, May 1854

              "I say to you here as I have said to the Democracy of New York, if it should ever come to pass that the Constitution shall be perverted to the destruction of our rights so that we shall have the mere right as a feeble minority unprotected by the barrier of the Constitution to give an ineffectual negative vote in the Halls of Congress, we shall then bear to the federal government the relation our colonial fathers did to the British crown, and if we are worthy of our lineage we will in that event redeem our rights even if it be through the process of revolution." -- Jefferson Davis, 1858

              "Further, all the talk about red-pilled 2d Amendment activists is also beside the point as civil wars and revolutions are almost never the result of popular uprisings."

              Citations required.

              "The Civil War occurred when Southern elites decided that the election of Lincoln was more than they could take."

              Citations required.

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