blue people and red people

In the clip below Bill Clinton mentions a new book called The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. It's worth a look.

The book uses electoral and demographic data to demonstrate the extent of political and cultural segregation in America today. This is no longer about the coasts versus the heartland, or even red states versus blue states; it's about the clustering of people with like-minded outlooks at the level of counties and neighbourhoods. Republicans are increasingly living in communities of Republicans, Democrats with Democrats, often in the same town or region. One suburb has a megachurch, the other a chain of yoga centres. Nobody talks politics with anyone they don't agree with, and because of the way media has multiplied and fragmented, nobody has to hear, watch or read stuff from anyone who doesn't share their basic worldview. As a result, attitudes are hardening and becoming more extreme.

The political evidence for polarisation at the local level is clear. In the close Carter-Ford race of 1976, 27% of Americans lived in counties that voted a 'landslide' either way. In 2004 - also a close election nationally - that proportion nearly doubled, to 48%.

Barack Obama's promise to end the "slicing and dicing" of America into red states and blue states already sounds out of date. Polarisation is local now.

The truth is, there are social forces at work here that any new president will be able to do little to affect. The 'big sort' is a phenomenon that goes beyond politics:

"We now live in a giant feedback loop,” says Mr Bishop, “hearing our own thoughts about what's right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows we watch, the newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the sermons we hear and the neighbourhoods we live in.