Summary Of Andrew Gelman Blue State Poor State

The premise of the book Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State by Andrew Gelman is to explain the divided red and blue color map that represents the way states vote in elections, Republican or Democratic. Throughout the book, Gelman presents substantial data, numbers and graphs, to show the voting trends of individuals, counties, and states as a whole. Analyzing all this information, Gelman reveals that how an individual votes relies on many factors that interplay with each other producing numerous different outcomes and that one of these factors alone cannot accurately predict the voting tendencies of individuals, counties, or states. As Gelman thoroughly explains, rich people tend to vote republican and poor people tend to vote democratic, …show more content…
I had already know that large cities tend to be liberal, that poor people tend to vote more liberal, that the coasts tend to be more liberal. I honestly think the reasoning behind those facts and data graphs is that those places tend to have a higher rate of diversity, more of a cultural melting pot, and a higher focus on politics since big cities have more of a say and thus want to participate, are usually involved more in politics. I also disagree with Gelman’s argument that older people are more involved in politics than the younger generation. While I do admit that previously, the younger generation was not involved in politics, I believe that increasingly young people, like me, want to be involved in politics and are seeking out opportunities starting from a young age. Young people now are growing up in a generation where it’s hard to avoid becoming political when important issues such as climate change, hate speech, and mass shootings are affecting our generation most. We are the generation which grew up in a society where hate speech is common, where mass shootings that kill many innocent people are becoming normal to see on the news. Our generation is in the process of learning that our voices matters, we can make a difference, and that there are people out there, politicians, who will listen to …show more content…
Democrats can draw the lines so that Republicans don’t receive any congressional votes even if they hold a fair share of the population’s support. Just recently, there was a Supreme Court Case that was based on a dispute of congressional district drawings and whether or not they were drawn based on a product of racial discrimination in Texas. The argument is that the way the district lines are drawn in Texas, it doesn’t provide black and hispanic voters an equal voice and representation and provides white people with a stronger voice and say in government. Though I felt like Gelman brought up interested and accurate data and arguments about how individual vote, I felt like he didn’t talk enough about how it doesn’t really matter how individuals vote if towns, counties, districts, and states can essentially void some of the voices in the