Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

terrykrohe OP t1_j55yef5 wrote

... "politics" I used to brush aside as "he said, she said" discussions; then I noticed in 2016 that in a table of "obesity" data that the most obese states were Rep. In 2020 the observation was repeated (14 of most obese states were Rep, posted 29Apr21).

... really?! it should be 'random' ... what about other metrics?

... other metrics: NOT random (summary post, 14Apr2022). suicide rate, incarceration, ed spending, life expectancy, infant mortality, accidental deaths, GDP state taxes, gun ownership, murder rate, violent crime, and others were NOT random.

I suspect that the reason for the Systemic Bias of the data is not a matter of "opinion".

**********

Max Boot has suggested, WaPost, 26Oct2022:
There are many reasons, from history to geography, why per capita GDP in the United Kingdom ($47,334) is so much higher than in Russia ($12,172) or China ($12,556), but I would argue it ultimately comes down to governance. Britain, as a liberal democracy, has long been run for the benefit of its people, while Russia and China have always been run primarily for the benefit of their rulers.

I think that he is correct: in this case, Rep governance ("rulers" = "of the few, by the few, for the few") is the reason for the data differentiation.

2

marigolds6 t1_j5782yl wrote

The problem comparing your quote with american states is the phrase "long been run". Boot is talking on time scales longer than the US has existed.

Most american states have flipflopped between Republican and Democratic multiple times in the last 160 years since the disappearance of the Whigs. (And the parties themselves have swapped positions several times during that space.)

Even a deep blue state like Illinois was under trifecta Republican control as recently as 1996. Deep red Missouri was under trifecta Democratic control from 1993 to 2000 (and has had Democratic governors for 20 of the last 30 years) and used to be a bellweather state.

0

PapaGans t1_j563gto wrote

Given all differences between the red and blue states, your assumption that all the trends in your chosen metrics are solely/mainly caused by rep vs dem governance is totally unfounded. Have you ruled out effects of agricultural vs trading oriented states? Or sparsely populated vs densely populated states? Demographics? I'm not saying it doesn't have any influence, but why would voting behaviour be the root cause instead of one or more of these other factors? In fact you didn't even look at the historical governance, but only at the 2020 elections... This has the same energy as using the notorious FBI crime statistics to prove a point about ethnicities.

−1