The integrating Core and the isolating Gap ... within America

The pattern of embracing/rejecting globalization holds across our member states

Got this data (see below) from (Larry) Sabato’s Crystal Ball site in an article dated almost two years ago, so basically the capture from the times of the mid-terms, and it reminded me of all the ways I broke down the differences between globalization’s Core areas/players and those stuck on the fringes (what I called the Gap). The predominate difference there — of course — was connectivity associated with a nation’s progressive integration within the global economy.

But there were tons of other differences between Core and Gap states, which I — even back then in 2000 — differentiated as Blue and Red states within nations (like China’s liberal coastal provinces versus its conservative interior provinces). In that projection from the system to the subnational, the key differentiator tended to be access to the coast and sea lines of communication, meaning Blue/Core entities tended to be clustered in the littoral while Red/Gap entities tended to be clustered in the interior (often landlocked). Thus, cosmopolitan, connecting, highly diverse coastal areas versus traditional, isolating, racially uniform interior areas.

The political “brakes” that interior Red states placed on the desires and interests of the border Blue states likewise led me to argue that “the train’s engine [connectivity and content flows] can’t go any faster than the caboose” [favoring barriers and censorship].