Will Those With The Most Land Once Again Wield The Most Power?
Red Blue 2012 election results by population density; source: Chris Howard
In modern America, those with the most land no longer wield the most power. In fact, elections are mostly decided by those who live the most tightly packed together – in cities and metropolitan regions.
Electoral influence and electoral power is concentrated in the most populous regions of the country. These are the places where people live densely together, where the governmental policies and ideologies are often quite different from suburban and rural America.
Individualism is NOT the general ideology of the city…
Instead, cities and population-dense regions are fundamentally about reliance on others, other systems, government entities, the shared commons… The spatial limitations and people piled on top of each-other, requires a different set of ideals than those of the people living in the suburbs and rural areas.
Because of this, and given our current population centers in America, we are certainly headed towards further policies which favor those of the cities and metro areas. This is where the political ideals are focused. This is where the political power is concentrated, sourced, and wielded.
Most every major city and densely populated region in the country is of a liberal left-leaning mindset, and therefore one might logically conclude that we are destined towards wherever that eventually leads…
There’s one caveat though — when it all breaks down.
It has become glaringly evident that Americans have discovered they can vote themselves money, benefits, ‘security’ and other social and monetary gains – all at the expense of others – or at least so they seem…
Many have forgotten the old adage, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”.
Someone has to pay. And someone ALWAYS pays.
One day, when the nation’s ‘cooked books’ and twisted distorted numbers are realized to their full extent, and when our debts as a nation will no longer be supported by those purchasing it and keeping it afloat, it’s going to crash down.
The crash, be it fast and hard or slow and long, be it filled with war, world war, civil war, or drawn out widespread poverty and depression — it will greatly and adversely affect many or most of the same people in the cities and population dense regions of the country who contributed to the demise in the first place. Not saying that rural America won’t hurt from this, but their ideology of individualism will have better prepared them for what is surely to come.
In conclusion, it seems to me that if one’s political ideology is more right than left, perhaps more libertarian, more individualistic, self-reliant, more conservative — those values will probably not be realized again in a widespread and overall national sense for some time to come — perhaps not until and after we crash.
One day it may even come full circle… those with the most land may once again become those who wield the most power.
