The Coming Two Americas?

On July 12th, THE WASHINGTON POST published an article by Phillip Bump in their political section that, in many ways, was right in my wheelhouse. It discussed demographics 20 years from now. The point was that by 2040, eight states will have nearly half (49.5%) of the U.S. population. Add the next eight most populous states and that will be home to nearly 70% of Americans. So what, you may say. Well, clearly, young people want to go where the jobs are and where the action is. Living in rural areas has little appeal especially in those areas that are getting grayer and actually losing population. The author then talks about how this seismic shift, which strikes me as a demographic tidal wave, will put us in an odd situation. His thesis is that the U.S. House of Representatives will likely get far more progressive in nature as today’s millennials pile in to the 16 most populous states. Conversely, the U.S. Senate may get far more conservative as, even states that are losing members of the House and may join the handful now that only have one at-large House member will still have two U.S. Senators. His projection, and I have seen others that are similar, is that 30% of the population will control some 68% of the U.S. Senate seats. (A link to the article is https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/12/in-about-20-years-half-the-population-will-live-in-eight-states/?utm_term=.c24c1ad51732).

Growing up in Rhode Island, I had a sense of this type of issue by studying Little Rhody’s history. When the Constitution was being drafted, people in smaller states felt that the larger ones (New York, Virginia and Massachusetts) would dominate things.So, the idea of an upper chamber, the U.S. Senate, was put forward. The two smallest states, Rhode Island and Delaware, might not have many members of the House but each would get two Senators just as the big states would. Delaware seemed to like the compromise and became the first state to ratify the Constitution. Stubborn Rhode Islanders held out but finally gave in and became state #13.

When I first read the article, I wondered if the author was going to call for an end to the electoral college. Many progressives are still smarting over George W. Bush losing the popular vote in 2000 by gaining the White House. There is an even larger discussion of the issue with Donald J Trump’s electoral college victory in 2016. Yet, no, the author does not go there. He does, say, however, with some merit, that the House and Senate may well represent two different Americas.

Right now, the divide between urban and rural in America, to me, is largely cultural. It seems if these population shifts come to fruition (they do seem likely), things will get even more polarized than they are now. By the way, this is not true only in America. On May 22, 2012, I put up an MR post entitled “Urbanization, Globalization and Media” that discussed how DAILY across the globe some 180,000 were leaving rural areas to move to a city. Soon we will be facing issues that aging nations in Europe deal with daily. Hospitals in some Scandinavian countries are being closed due to declining populations. Countries with a deeply entrenched provider state are trying to see how they can maintain services in areas will declining economic prospects and aging populations. We are seeing cracks now in places such as Northern Maine, Western Kansas and Nebraska. Local schools have become regional and rescue squads are manned by folks in their seventies.

I thought about these data and forecasts and ran them by my hero—a no-nonsense, feet on the ground type who shares with me a tendency to look ahead. She immediately grasped the details and said “One caveat. Climate change.” If things do heat up, people will move back to certain places. Minnesota and Wisconsin will grow and Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester will have a comeback. These places have lakes and upscale people like to live near the water. If the winters moderate somewhat, some will relocate to formerly forbiddingly cold areas that have good medical care and universities. Far fetched? Maybe. Yet, I have learned to take her forecasts seriously.

So the Post raised some interesting political questions. Will the Senate be dominated in two decades by people, who, if a mirror image of their small state constituencies, be out of touch with the population as a whole? I hope to live to see the outcome!

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com