April 19, 2006
So much for the "Urban Archipelago" strategy
In the wake of President Bush's re-election in 2004, our good friends at The Stranger published what they believed to be a winning blueprint for the Democratic Party -- "The Urban Archipelago"
It's time for the Democrats to face reality: They are the party of urban America. If the cities elected our president, if urban voters determined the outcome, John F. Kerry would have won by a landslide. Urban voters are the Democratic base.
...
If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new identity politics, an urban identity politics, one that argues for the cities, uses a rhetoric of urban values, and creates a tribal identity for liberals that's as powerful and attractive as the tribal identity Republicans have created for their constituents. John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews, young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these groups have in common? They choose to live in cities.
Oops: "
Census: Americans are fleeing big cities"
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 19, 2006
11:07 PM | Email This
1. "John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews, young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these groups have in common? They choose to live in cities."
Now you know why the census says "people" are exiting the cities.
2. Would be nice to acknowledge that those of us "people" who fit one or more of those catagories, Dave, didn't vote for Kerry and still live in 'cities'.
3. Isn't it nice to know that I'm thought of being undereducated because I live outside of an urban area. This pretty well confirms my thinking of urban democrats. Where the Hell would they be if it wasn't for the working people of America?
4. Somewhat ironic that a national party would appeal to a divisive strategy in order to win elections. Whatever happened to all that talk about "unifying the country"? Didn't Fraudoire go on some kind of bogus "healing tour" (heeling?) after the 2004 fraud-theft to supposedly bring the state together?
To be honest, both parties eventually turn to separatist strategies when they see the handwriting on the wall. I am old enough to remember the "Southern Strategy" of the 1968 national campaign. But it it somewhat ironic to see the 'Rats turning to it since they so often (hypocritically) appeal to "diversity" and "bringing people together" bogus themes, when in fact all they are after is power. At least be honest about who you are, 'Rats...
5. The writer uses the word 'tribal' to characterize the kind of politics he suggests. Isn’t that what the civilized world is combating― the effects of tribal forms who ultimately want to wipe opposing points of view off the face of the earth? Instead of suggesting a reversion in strategy, adopt a course of tactics that produces a more common sense approach in their message and refrain from hate based campaigning.
6. It's the new media that has lead to the decline of the Democratic party. They no longer have a monopoly on distribution of information.
As for the urban strategy, the liberals in charge of the city and county realize there is urban flight, which is why they are doing whatever they can to create more "density" inside the city so they can maintain their constituency.
7. "John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews, young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these groups have in common? They choose to live in cities."
NO, It is NOT because they choose to live in cities! It is because they CHOOSE to allow other people to think for them and tell them how they should vote. This is the Democratic party way.
8. Fascinating.
The politics of enclaves.
The politics of City States.
The concentration of power, wealth, political activity, and the new progressive social reality in the urban areas, not to be inclusive of the rest of the country, but at the specific exclusion of those regions.
Them vs Us, not all of Us together.
It sounds very much like the politics of regionalism that Lincoln faced in 1860 has re-invented itself.
9. The REAL reason people are running away from cities:
1. Taxes. Middle class families can't afort to live in urban areas.
2. Perversion: Drive through (with your doors locked and your piece locked and loaded) Fremont, Capitol Hill, Sodo(m), or the U District. Would you raise YOUR family there?
3. Traffic: Gridlock isn't cool.
4: Crime: The elitist media and their apologists make excuses for criminals, rather than lock them up.
We have two distinct cultures in America. Where do you want to live?
10. of course they are going to look to urban cities for their power base, since they are out of power at the federal level... This is almost like them admiting that they dont have a chance at national power so they must focus on local.
11. "rising tide of red that threatens to swamp and ruin this country" - excuse me it's the values and morality of "red state" people that America is so great. The perversion and non-judgementalism that "blue state" people want to impose is what is weakening this country.
BTW - I hate "red vs blue", what a bunch of crap.
12. Want to know why the mainstream media tilts left? Blame it on Nielsen ratings.
You see, Nielsen ratings (the tv rating system that supposedly determines who's watching tv) help to determine ad rates, and ad rates fuel radio and television profitability.
Anyone in the business will tell you that since the people who live outside the cities largely aren't captured by Nielsen tracking methods, the networks don't give a tinkers damn about them.
13. I agree with Dengle, how is it that the commie/socialist/dems got to be blue and not red?
Actually I think it all came from a TV news election night map.
14. Diogenes, I am wondering if the political model the 'Rats are suggesting here doesn't go even further back than the 1860s. It sounds a lot like Middle Ages feudalism, where you have the wealthy, "educated", ruling class in the cities and the serfs (slaves) out in the countryside laboring to serve the Elite Class. How very Liberal of the 'Rats to suggest that!
I say, f-that, and f-them. They can take their smug, elitist superiority and stuff it. So much for being the Party of The Working Man or The Little Guy. I just wish people out there were smart enough to see that if there is a party of the working man or the little guy, the 'Rats ain't it.
15. Try adding this to the list this Saltherring, directly across from my home the Tacoma School District renovated a school at a cost of untold million$. This rebuilt school has a capacity of ~650 students - I have heard that
The majority of families who have school age children cannot afford to live in my neighborhood, but people who live in my neighborhood are 'in' with the left wing political machine that runs everything in Tacoma. So this school gets rebuilt.... meanwhile in the east side where there are large numbers of families with school age childeren the rundown falling apart schools that are overflowing. Why are families fleeing the Cities for the suburbs if not for America's heartland?
How about starting with 'they love their children.'
16. don't know why half of this sentence got dropped, but here is the rest of it. - I have heard that less than 200 students attend this school. As interested observer suggests 'so much for the Party of the Working Man or Little Guy.
17. Well, that article almost DRIPS with compassion, tolerance and love, doesn't it? Oh, and by the way I'm a gay, Catholic, libertarian guy who absolutely will NEVER vote Democrat (except maybe for Joseph Lieberman.) I'll put my values up against theirs any day of the week.
18. The latest census reports what I have been observing for quite some time on both coasts. Rich liberal whites are driving everyone out of the cities who can not afford to stay (even if they would like to). So much for a party (Dims) that embraces inclusiveness when 3/4 of the population can't afford to be included. As a very educated person but not wealthy (Hey-I'm a writer!) I too will soon be fleeing this city-Yes, taxes, crime, and congestion are at fault-but bigger than that I can no longer afford to live here-thanks to crazy "I have too much money Seattle Libs" that love to spend other people's money! Yes-the city state has returned!
19. What the Dems really should be worried about is the fact that they got thumped in the 'married people' and 'married people with kids' demographics. Assemble all the minority interest groups you want, you lose those two groups and you're seriously behind the 8-ball politically.
At the Presidential politics level, the Dems have already abandoned a huge chunk of the country-basically, everything between the Mississippi and the Nevada state line, except maybe Missouri and New Mexico, and every state east of the River between Tennessee and Georgia. Of course, the GOP doesn't even try in CA, NY, MA, IL, NJ, CT, or RI.
20. "Americans are leaving the nation's big cities in search of....open spaces farther out."
What?? They DON'T want to be stuffed into highrises?????
21. A similar thing can be seen in Canada: The Liberal party is the party of Vancouver, Toronto, and the city center of Montreal, and the Conservative party is the party of everything else west of Quebec (with some New Democrats sprinkled in, both urban and rural). Even in Quebec, where the Bloc Québécois is the leading party, the Conservatives do well in the rural areas.
22. Is that like the gulag archipelago?
23. Many of you are reacting to an op-ed from the Stranger as though it were a policy memo from the Democratic party rather than the opinion of one columnist at a weekly newspaper in Seattle.
24. The Stranger practically IS a policy memo from the Democratic Party. Which is one reason why I don't read it anymore.
25. "Americans are leaving the nation's big cities in search of....more competitive congressional races."
According to the King Ratfukker.
26. The Stranger must be like a similar birdcage liner we have down here in Portland, The Willamette Week.... practically a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat party.
27. The Stranger and the Mercury are owned by the same company.
28. More and more the Dems are becoming the party of minorities. But not just in color, race, etc. Almost every group the Dems try to embrace are small in numbers, and large in hysterics. But it is a numbers game, and the Dems will lose on every field because there are not enough numbers to support their base long term.
If Dems want corrupt and run big cities into the ground, no problem, ultimately productivity and the American spirit will move inwards or wherever it needs to go so that Americans with integrity and morality can continue to pursue happiness. In the new information age, we really don't need bit cities as much as we used to, and so they will decline to the extent that they are embraced by Democrats. Look no further than Detroit.
No one likes or wants a party of angry losers, and that's the Dems today. Don't believe me? Just go read the comments at HA or Daily Kos.
29. Let us not forget...the R's/Conservatives continue to breed quite rapidly, while the D's/Liberals continue to avoid the inconveniences of offspring. Broad generalization, I know, but a great deal of truth (or truthiness) in it.
30. I agree with Dengle, how is it that the commie/socialist/dems got to be blue and not red?
If I remember correctly, the networks used to swap colors every election cycle. During the 2000 election, it just happened that R = red and D = blue. After the closeness of the race and all the maps using that color scheme to break down the country down to the individual precincts, it just sort of stuck. It was chance, nothing more.
31. Similar story ran in the NYTIMES a couple of weeks ago showing that Blacks are fleeing NYC for the south and suburbs of NY/NJ/CT/VT, etc. There was a time when the Urban Archipelago offered much entitlements---basically the 1960s. Thereafter, it's been all downhill. Some cities to the UTOPIA thing too far and have paid for it dearly: Detroit, New Orleans, Oakland, Newark and the like.
32. Similar story ran in the NYTIMES a couple of weeks ago showing that Blacks are fleeing NYC for the south and suburbs of NY/NJ/CT/VT, etc. There was a time when the Urban Archipelago offered much entitlements---basically the 1960s. Thereafter, it's been all downhill. Some cities took the UTOPIA thing too far and have paid for it dearly: Detroit, New Orleans, Oakland, Newark and the like.
33. Similar story ran in the NYTIMES a couple of weeks ago showing that Blacks are fleeing NYC for the south and suburbs of NY/NJ/CT/VT, etc. There was a time when the Urban Archipelago offered much entitlements---basically the 1960s. Thereafter, it's been all downhill. Some cities took the UTOPIA thing too far and have paid for it dearly: Detroit, New Orleans, Oakland, Newark and the like.
34. Who would want to live in a city of liberals?
1. People are mean and rude in the city.
2. Crime is extremely high; they would rob you and beat you without a second thought
3 Prices are outrageous because rich liberals jack up prices for housing, food, gas, everything
4. Educations sucks... people flee public schools in favor of private schools.
5. Seattle is dirty, smelly, full of perverse people, and there is no respect for other people.
35. Good article - the problem is that the Republicans keep shooting themselves in the feet and plunging our country into deeper debt, to counter the Demorats perverseness and socialist values.
In order to stay in power, the Dems have to figure out how to cheat the system, like in elections - through leftist activist judicial legislation. They may think they are clever to do this, but many of them don't give a rat's a$$ about integrity or the consequences of their morally relativistic actions.
Now, if the Republicans actually did something about securing our borders and stemming the flow of $ to illegal aliens via entitlements - they might be worth supporting and they will start winning more elections. That seems like a pipe dream at this point - its just the lesser of two evils and right the Repubs are only slightly better.
36. Re the colors red and blue for party designation: Ever since they hijacked the colors, wrongly using red for republicans, I will not play that game. Everyone know that commie red is the appropriate color for the Dems and I refuse to play the game and promote the changing of the color scheme away from what it had been for years. Red belongs to the RED party of communism--The Democrat Party. And don't tell me that's not a fair comparison: just go and look up the Communist Party USA platform and you'll see very little difference between it and the Dem party.
Don't play the red/blue game. Refuse to further the notion that red belongs anywhere but to the left!
37. Wow, welcome to 2004 guys. You guys just don't get it. For years, urban liberals have seen the benefit of things like the RURAL ELECTRIFICATION ACT, the SECURE RURAL SCHOOLS ACT, the INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM. You think New York residents benefit from any of that? They don't. You do. Here's how it's worked for the past half-century: we (urbanites) give you (rednecks) money. See? That's called big government. The people who hate big goverment (you) benefit the most from it.
So we say, yeah. You don't like that tax on your electric bill? Neither do we. You people can thousands of dollars a month for the cost it takes to run utilities, and we'll pay a little less for electricity. You don't like the department of education? Good. We'll keep our education money in the city, where we don't waste it on abstinance-only education. You don't want gay marriage? Fine. We'll take them in. You don't want immigrants? We'll take them. You don't want the poor? We'll take them. All that stuff on the Statue of Liberty? We'll just put a note on the bottom that says: "* big cities only"
We've been paying your bills for long enough. Idiots.