Right?
The problem is, while one tells us where our political lines are drawn today with the impending election, the other shows us where they were drawn 160 years ago - before Lincoln won the Civil War.
The states in Red (in the map on the right) are States that seceded from the Union, where slavery was legal. The yellow areas in the same map were "open to slavery." The states in Red (in the map on the left) are States that will vote against another 4 years with the first African American president.
I might hesitate to say more. With such evidence, it's best to let people form their own conclusions.
However, a recent University of Washington study corroborates one of the obvious conclusions we might like to avoid. The study proves that, while there are substantially polarized individuals within each party, for whom race does not play a part in their selection of candidates, there is also a sizable subgroup - 10% of the total study participants - for whom race is a more determining factor than the issues. In other words, says the study, were Obama not black, he could very easily be 20% further ahead in the polls.
Don't take this as an accusation against certain states in the Union or conservatives as the "bad, prejudiced ones--that is not the point at all. This study took place in Seattle. And the substantial majority of participants were liberals.
The point is, there are unresolved issues in our country--in each one of us--going back over 150 years, and they still polarize us along almost the same lines. Fundamental biases and perspective differences have not changed. For anything to change, it would require a sustained effort on each our parts to have the challenging conversations--that bring us to face and expose the prejudice within ourselves--rather than the oversimplified, us-versus-them, tired dialogues that fire us up and sell ad spots on TV.
When Obama said in the debate the other night that Romney wanted to take us back to the foreign policies of the 80s, social policies of the 50s, and economic policies of the 20s, he left out one: the unresolved racial and political biases of the 1860s.
Only it's not Romney who's taking us there, it's we who are stuck there; Romney's just benefiting from it.
Sources:
http://storiesofusa.com/american-civil-war-timeline-battlefields-1854-1865/#confederate-states-of-america-1861
http://graphics.latimes.com/2012-election-electoral-map/
http://www.artsci.washington.edu/newsletter/Oct12/Greenwald.asp?src=eblastLD
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