This is the present Trump / Clinton map which though bit different than usual elections, it will do in explaining the problem the Grand Old Party can’t seem to get around, why they have no choice but to embrace the poorly educated angry armed whitely crowd.
Not only is the Latino population moving states like Texas and Arizona into the pink, but even a greater problem for the GOP is so many liberals moving from the Northeast and Midwest to warmer and more attractive states like North Carolina, Georgia, and now even South Carolina. Looking at the map the problem is obvious. The hard red states are the states where no one would want to visit or even drive through yet alone live. Also is the problem as some of these old confederate states on the East coast turn pink, more African Americans move back to them.
Perhaps this is a good spot to have my say about the elite media who have so little understanding of the white working class. Indeed that is true, the movers and shakers we see on TV or present the world to us are from the best colleges and universities and had a big head start, who for the most part stay inside their bubble. But that does not mean what they present is not the truth.
How do those of us who came up and still live in white working class America see it? Sure I got me one of those edumacations at a state university and I wore a tie to work, but since those college days, most all my friends and acquaintances have been working class white people. I am drawn to them, perhaps it’s that thing about not liking posers? They are the real thing.
I came from Oshkosh, Wisconsin to Houston, Texas 35 years ago and like it fine, the company asked me to move, and the weather and the ocean drew a yes. After a few years blood thins out and it becomes impossible to go back to Summers that last only a few weeks.
So how does a non elitist deal with having most every friend, acquaintance, co worker and in-law an armed uneducated bigot?
Compartmentalize. Put the politics and religion in a lockbox. A lockbox that is in reality a website that none of them know about and let all that forced quiet fly for a couple hours a day!
Hey even God says religion should consume only about 10% of our time and politics about the same, so there is 80% of our to time spend on other things.
We liberals down here deal with it by understanding they are brought up whitely, in a culture of religion, beer, guns and country music handed down from generation to generation, they are not bad people, they are not stupid either, they just don’t know anything, or want to know anything outside their bubble. Just like the elitists in the beltway.
But hey, it’s not that bad, about 15 years ago I met someone who knew someone who read a book!