Thursday, July 26, 2018

Feeling Blue in Flint and San Francisco

The more things change, the more they stay the same, at least when it comes to politics.

My old Flint precinct in Civic Park is decidedly blue, just like my current precinct in San Francisco's Bernal Heights, according to this great New York Times "extremely detailed map of the 2016 election."








3 comments:

  1. Michael Moore's home city of Davison is the expected white-flight red

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  2. Well Gordy, are you going to answer the question that the NYT website asked? Do you think you live in a political bubble? Looking at the map, I was surprised as how little of it was blue given how close the election was. The Democrats are really concentrated in certain areas and extremely loyal. I don't think I could get 95% of the people that I know to agree that the grass is green and the sky is blue let alone have them vote together in a block like that for an election. That seems like a lot of group think to me. I tend to be center-right myself, but as the Republicans no longer believe in free-trade and fiscal-responsibility it kind of leaves me with nowhere to go. (I'll remain anonymous to avoid the firestorm that politics has become in this country, but I do like to read your views and am interested in seeing your response.)

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    Replies
    1. No need to worry about backlash because the blog comment section is almost dead these days. Everyone has migrated to Facebook, it seems. I'm not sold on the bubble concept. I mean, sure, there are some very concentrated blocks of voters on each side, but it makes sense given how far apart the parties are. I'm more perplexed by the undecided voters out there. Hard to figure out how anyone could still be on the fence these days. And I say that as a moderate Democrat who has voted for Republicans in the past. But no way I could do that now.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.