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| sundin13 said: Yeah, my post was pretty much exclusively in reference to the federal government. I agree that state governments are important and need to do more (but there are also limitations and challenges which are created by the federal government system). I agree broadly though. I think one of the best examples of left-wing state governance of late is Michigan who passed a lot of great legislation when receiving a trifecta. How did that work out for them in 2024 though? I think we see voting trends more powered by national trends than local trends, but I'm not really sure. As for Gini index, I feel that just that graph demonstrates some pretty substantial limitations. States which are more financially developed will naturally have more inequality as there will be a higher percentage of high earners and their economies will be more dependent on those high earners. This doesn't really mean that a state with lower inequality is doing better if it just means that everyone is poor (or at least, if no one is rich). That's why imo inequality is a flawed metric without pouring huge amounts of context into it. An example of that is the Biden presidency. Gini peaked in 2021 and decreased since then and income inequality decreased, yet how did American's feel about their economic situation? |
When it comes to the presidential election things are definitely nationalized, but we've seen in this iteration (and in the midterms) that senate, governor, and even house races are still about local and state politics. That's why swing-state senators did a lot better than Kamala did (or Biden would have) as an example.
Utah and Alaska are pretty developed states. Only about .06 points and .04 points less developed than New York and California respectively on HDI. (.931 for Alaska and Utah vs. .937 for New York and .935 for California)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index_score
Overall, there doesn't seem to be a positive correlation between HDI and Gini coefficients. If anything, it is a slight negative correlation (higher HDI => lower Gini Coefficients.)
And similar is visible with GDP per Capita vs. Gini.
So being "financially developed" can't be the explanation because the most financial developed countries tend to be more egalitarian, not less.
I think these macroeconomic indicators have a lagging effect when it comes to perceptions. People are thinking about the last few years. So that is why despite inflation rates and Gini Coefficients peaking in 2021-2022 people are backlashing now. The problem is that Democrats can't be reacting from election to election. They need long-term plans of how they want to transform American society. Especially as the ostensibly "left-wing" party. Republicans have long-term plans through the likes of the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. Democrats, on the other-hand, are very reactive due to a few decades of being institutionally conservative (preserving of American institutions) and have been stuck in a strategy of "triangulation" since Bill Clinton made it work in the 90's. But it's no longer the 90's. They need to have a positive vision for Americans, push as hard as possible to achieve it, and don't flip flop reactively like they have been. They also need to use examples of how they bettered states and localities as models for what they want to do for the nation as a whole.
