Fourth From the Bottom

The leftist, but non-partisan, think tank, Bay Area Center for Voting Research ranked the "liberalness" of 237 American cities. The most liberal is Detroit, Michigan; Provo, Utah the most conservative. My town is number four, with a bullet:



(source: Bay Area Center for Voting Research)

The think tank says the data show "a direct correlation between a city’s political ideology and its racial makeup." Indeed, the group's directors claim not just correlation but causation:

The list of America’s most liberal cities reads like a who’s who of prominent African American communities. Gary, Washington D.C., Newark, Flint, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Birmingham have long had prominent black populations. While most black voters have consistently supported Democrats since the 1960s, it is the white liberals that have slowly withered away over the decades, leaving African Americans as the sole standard bearers for the left.

Despite being the core of America’s liberal base, a major split exists between who the nation’s liberals are and who leads them politically. White politicians still control the levers of power within the Democratic Party, and black faces are rare around the decision making tables of America’s liberal advocacy groups.

While there are some noteworthy pockets of liberals who are not African American, these places end up being the exceptions. College towns like Berkeley and Cambridge have modest black populations, but remain bastions of upper middle-class, white, intellectual liberalism. These liberal communities, however, are more reminiscent of penguins clustering together around a shrinking iceberg, than of a vibrant growing political movement.

Houston, I think we have a metaphor.

(via Best of the Web)