In 2016 I put the result down to the general disenchantment in many democratic countries with democracy generally - similar to the 'logic' behind brexit.
That I can understand but it's the relative closeness of the vote in this election that surprised me.
Earlier I was looking at a live online polling update with maps of both state and popular vote figures. The popular vote map was detailed enough for me to drill down to county level and finer. In states like Ohio, N Dakota and Nebraska with sparce populations and high overall Republican vote one would occasionally (but not infrequently) come across small settlements of 500/1000 or so only 20/50 miles apart where the vote in one was say D-70%, R-28%, Lib-2% and the other almost exactly the opposite with Lib remaining the same at about 2%.
This seems to backup your tribal identity point very well. Given that these settlements likely have only trees or farmland between them the figures are actually quite startling. I took into account that some may have been Native American reservations (which I've not yet ruled out), so I resampled in other states with low populations such as Vermont and New Hampshire and found similar instances (of course, with these latter instances the overall state figures had the Democrats in the majority).
These demographics are fascinating to say the least and I'm going to revisit them again shortly.
That I can understand but it's the relative closeness of the vote in this election that surprised me.
Earlier I was looking at a live online polling update with maps of both state and popular vote figures. The popular vote map was detailed enough for me to drill down to county level and finer. In states like Ohio, N Dakota and Nebraska with sparce populations and high overall Republican vote one would occasionally (but not infrequently) come across small settlements of 500/1000 or so only 20/50 miles apart where the vote in one was say D-70%, R-28%, Lib-2% and the other almost exactly the opposite with Lib remaining the same at about 2%.
This seems to backup your tribal identity point very well. Given that these settlements likely have only trees or farmland between them the figures are actually quite startling. I took into account that some may have been Native American reservations (which I've not yet ruled out), so I resampled in other states with low populations such as Vermont and New Hampshire and found similar instances (of course, with these latter instances the overall state figures had the Democrats in the majority).
These demographics are fascinating to say the least and I'm going to revisit them again shortly.