Suburbia runs (and ruins) America

This is one of the big censored news stories of postdemocratic America that we'd like to see more investigation of: The wealthy suburban vote counts more than your vote does.

America has seen 8 presidential elections in my lifetime, and it's pretty much certain that the Democrats have won the nonsuburban vote in at least 7 of them (not just the 3 they've "officially" won when the suburbs are added in). The disparity now isn't as big as it used to be before the DLC dead wood ruined my Democratic Party, but it still lingers. The only election of the past 8 where the Republicans might have won outside the suburbs is Reagan's 1984 landslide - and even that's gotta be damn close. (We're pretty sure Mondale soundly carried the county that includes Chicago, even with all the suburbs.)

Through most of recent history, American politics has had this fundamental truth: The Democrats (minus the DLC clods) are the party of the poor and working class, and the Republicans are the party of the rich. Another truism is that the suburbs are the land of big lots and high incomes. Central cities and rural counties (beyond the exurbs) form a coalition of lower-income individuals.

These days the boundaries are changing. Inner suburbs of 30 years ago are now becoming more like central cities, because the city boundaries were often fixed, and the only room for growth has been in immediately adjacent suburbs. The real suburban brand of suburbanite is moving further into the exurbs, often into new subdivisions for the very rich in unincorporated areas. Rural America almost seems to cease to exist, as exurbs infringe on rural areas and as factory farming drives family farming out of business. (Note that some rural areas that are too far from big cities to see exurban growth remain as Democratic as ever.)

But misleading people with statistics has become a fine art. The common view over the past 30 years has been that a majority of Americans live in suburbs. But this is debunked when you see what the government officially counts as suburban. The government considers Jersey City, New Jersey, and Hammond, Indiana, to be suburbs. Covington, Kentucky, is considered a suburb, even though anyone who sees it firsthand would call it a central city.

The misclassifying of some central cities as suburbs is important. Political strategists point to the misleading statistic that most Americans live in suburbs, and then point to the fact that suburbs are more conservative than other areas. Ergo, they prime their candidates to appeal almost exclusively to suburban voters by moving the center of debate further and further to the right. This disease afflicts Democrats and Republicans alike. This is a main reason why now we see so many bullshit policies like public school uniforms and special tax breaks for the wealthy.

It means we're getting screwed on several fronts. Not only is the suburban vote often just enough to cancel out our vote, and not only is turnout suspiciously much higher in suburbs, and not only did the government deliberately undercount the central cities in the past 2 censuses (which itself affects political representation). We nonsuburban voters are also usually forced to vote for candidates who appeal primarily to the suburbs, because no other candidates exist.

It was pointless for the Democrats to let the suburb-loving DLC wing take over the party, because most wealthy suburbanites will never vote Democratic anyway. The few who do aren't enough to make up for the Democrats' losses to third parties on the left. (That shows you just how right-wing the outer suburbs are.)

We need to think of a way to stop the wealthy suburbs and exurbs from holding the rest of America hostage. Maybe the easiest and the most likely way to get the ball rolling is to stop counting places as suburban unless they're actually suburban.