Where have all the red states gone?
20 March 2006 by Lya KahloJesusland circa election time 2004:
America March 2006:
Radical Russ explains:
Revel in the newest incarnation of the Bush Approval Map! This map displays the state-by-state job approval polls of Pretzeldunce Chimpy McFlightsuit. His Net Approval is his job approval minus his job disapproval ratings, with positive numbers representing states where more people approve than disapprove, and negative numbers representing the opposite.
I’ve color-coded the states according to their relative “Bush Love” in red to their relative “Bush Hate” in blue, with those states more toward the center shaded in purple. (I’ve made a change in the color scheme from the previous versions; I decided that the brighter reds and blues better visually demonstrated the figures. Plus the color shades change in 1% increments for more… uh… subtlety.)
The map begins at the 2004 Election, and every five seconds a new month appears.
(thx to Radical Russ & Tenn. Guerilla Women)
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20 March 2006, on 11:15 am
Hot Damn! There’s hope for Kansas yet!
///not likely.
20 March 2006, on 11:37 am
Those maps are useful as a “where not to live” guide with Utah being at the top of the list (stupid mormons).
Dubya’s approval rating is down to around 33%-38% depending on the poll. Meanwhile dubya obsesses about the rug in the Oval Office !!
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031706A.shtml
IMPEACH !! Too bad we can’t impeach stupid assed christianity as well.
20 March 2006, on 4:41 pm
This is the kind of stuff that would be funny if so much damage hadn’t already been done to this country and its’ economy by those freakin red states before they saw the light of reason.
20 March 2006, on 6:41 pm
Whaddya bet the red-staters change their tune when Pastor Jake tells ‘em that the God is on the Repub side and if they vote for Dems, they’ll get abortion on demand, gay marriage, and bring the judgment of the Almighty down on the USA for their sins? My guess is the way too many of the dumbasses will fall for that BS again.
20 March 2006, on 8:53 pm
Unfortunately, disatisfaction with Bush does not always translate into a vote for the Democrat candidate.
20 March 2006, on 10:49 pm
Red state bible thumpers will vote Republican even if the devil himself was the candidate.
21 March 2006, on 1:26 am
Isn’t there a quote “The Truth Eventually Wins Out” ? I hope that it is what is happening. Until then we can be happy for the researchers who did this. Good for a laugh too.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1142722231554
The whiny little sissies. I always knew something was wrong with those people.
22 March 2006, on 12:54 am
“Red state bible thumpers will vote Republican even if the devil himself was the candidate.”
As far as I’m concerned this has already happened.
Truly if anybody thinks that a typical Resmuglican is going to vote for John Kerry in 2008 as opposed to, oh I don’t know, let’s say the antichrist, that person is seriously deluded, IMNSHO.
If the Bush voters are starting to dislike Bush, it’s because he hasn’t made homosexuality and abortion completely illegal, not because they’re waking up to the boneheadedness of rabid conservatism.
It’s not going to matter. Whoever runs on the Democratic ticket in ‘08 is not going to be running against Bush. So if Bush came out tomorrow and declared he was a gay baby rapist who performed abortions on weekends, the Democrats would still lose in ‘08.
Reason will not prevail.
Conservatives reproduce like bunnies, while progressives tend to wait and have small families such that Mom and Dad can lavish more attention on the children. As a result, the demograpics of the freethinkers will eventually doom us to political irrelevancy.
In short: we’re fucked.
22 March 2006, on 2:51 am
Thanks, Chuck. Sorry to say that I believe your defeatism bespeaks what I call the “Great Liberal Eeyore Mindset.” In short: it’s not helping.
It keeps people from being inspired; it keeps people from going to the voting booth; it keeps people from giving two shits about anything but their dusty navels and a hope that they can get through the decade properly medicated and without getting mugged more than twice.
I suggest you do some reading over at the highly amusing, and spot-on THE DEFEATISTS!* site.
Like I said, I’m not a quitter. You shouldn’t be, either, brother.
*not to be confused with THE ARISTOCRATS!
22 March 2006, on 8:04 am
I’m not a quitter, I’m a realist. I don’t think for one minute that we shouldn’t fight for what is right. I sincerely hope that the fundies will alienate the moderates in their ranks. I fantasize about a paradigm shift in American politics. I dream of the fundie movement tearing itself apart.
Consider it a warning. Check the numbers: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763849.html
If you sort these states by birthrate, guess who appears at the low-end? If you guessed the bluest of the blue states, you’re right. The bottom 10 reads like a who’s who of liberal America: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine … only a couple reddish states appear there. At the top of the list? Utah, Texas, Arizona, Idaho, etc…
At these birthrates, if you start with 1000 people in Utah and 1000 people in Massachusetts and push forward 100 years, the 1000 people in Utah have become 8150 people, while the Massachusetts folks have become 3460 people. More population = more electoral votes = more influence on American politics.
If the progressives are going to prevail, we’re going to have to start doing something differently. I’m not sure what we should do, but more of the same doesn’t seem to be working.
22 March 2006, on 9:02 am
I just had this optimist vs. realist debate with a co-worker on Monday. I must say, for someone who is often labelled a cynic, I am still, compared to most progressives, an optimist.
I come from a family of like-minded people. We bitch and rail against the world, but then we get up and go off to work as educators (in one form or another) each day and it makes all the difference. We still believe we can change the world, or at least our little corners of it.
In my 20s and early 30s, I always said similar turns of phrase like “I’m not nihilistic, I’m just real-istic.” Now, as I approach middle age, I realize words and action are inextricably entangled — one cannot have one without the other. One cannot build a movement, share a complex thought that looks toward hope (as opposed to counting the ways we might fail), without choosing one’s words very carefully, lest they actually lead to young people who have not had a chance to see some of their political ideals come to fruition, give up on the process entirely.
Growing up in a family entrenched in politics, I saw the defeats and the victories early on, and learned to roll with the punches.
But when the 2004 fed election came around, I knew so many people who, for the first time, were engaged — deeply engaged — in an election, that I was afraid if it didn’t go their way it was gonna shatter their faith in our democracy. Well, sadly, that is exactly what happened for many. And now I feel like the guy back at the pep rally two years later going “Come on, team! We can still win! Ra-ra! Let’s go!” (Okay, I have never been to a pep rally nor been a cheerleader, but you get the idea).
What I am trying to say is that as I put the years on, I feel like it is one of my sacred duties as an (increasingly) elder of the tribe to keep the fires burning, to remember the times in our young country’s history when we have turned it all around, and to keep plugging away toward those golden moments.
“They” may be gaining in sheer numbers, but that doesn’t mean they will all vote (most likely will not), or that they will have any economic influence (most will likely be serving you your fries). To take a holistic perspective, rather than see it as “us” or “them” in 100 years, I’d rather see it as: what kind of vast wasteland of anti-science Creationist dingbats will have sprouted up in America by then, will we have lost all our street cred as the world’s great innovator, and will it matter anymore? And by that last sentence I mean: will we who do have some skills and knowledge just move into comfortable homes in Europe and Asia and continue to go about our business?
America as some sort of central economic hub that will determine the geopolitical fate of the world is just not how I see the next 100 years. It is going to shift a whole lot more.
Meanwhile, get out and vote in ‘06 and ‘08 and let’s see what we can all do to be better citizens of the world.
22 March 2006, on 11:20 am
“Conservatives reproduce like bunnies, while progressives tend to wait and have small families such that Mom and Dad can lavish more attention on the children. As a result, the demograpics of the freethinkers will eventually doom us to political irrelevancy.
In short: we’re fucked.”
Thanks for running over the miniscule spark of optimism I had managed to cultivate for 2008 with a fucking bulldozer. I live in Okla-fucking-homa. I need that spark. The idiots are afraid of fire.
22 March 2006, on 11:43 am
Holly,
Kans-ass here… I feel your pain.
22 March 2006, on 12:38 pm
Since the Demos are as corrupt as the Rethugs…yes, we’re fucked.
23 March 2006, on 7:17 am
John - care to provide proof? Or was that just the random doom and gloom for today?
24 March 2006, on 9:16 am
15. Lya Kahlo Says:
March 23rd, 2006 at 7:17 am e
John - care to provide proof? Or was that just the random doom and gloom for today?
I’m with Lya. We need to get our shit together and force candidates to be more progressive, not just bitch about how we’re all fucked.
Fuck it, there I said it. This is Ron’s blog and we all know Ron is a progressive, so fuck it. Enough beating around the goddamn burning bush. GifS is basically a progressive atheist blog, if you ask me.
And I am tired of listening to other progressives speak doom and gloom. Get out the fucking sword and fight, fight against the dying of the light, fuckers!
24 March 2006, on 9:33 am
“fight against the dying of the light”
why does that sound so familiar?
24 March 2006, on 9:38 am
It was actually “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Dylan Thomas wrote it in regards to his father.
http://webpages.charter.net/classicpoetry/dtdonotgogentle.htm
Fits well with the discussion about getting old and crotchety:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
24 March 2006, on 4:35 pm
“You’ve got to fight - for your right - to paaaaaaaaarty!”
Sorry, word (line?) association…