rural areas correlate with less educated populations
Huntsville, Alabama is one of the reddest corners of the reddest states in the country. It has the highest per capita populations of rocket scientists in the world.
Look up the definition of the word “outlier”
Is it an outlier or a counterfactual?
I could also point at the Federalist Society or the Heritage Foundation. No shortage of conservative intellectuals in these circle. Plenty of conservatives in business schools, law schools, and medical colleges. And as red states try to purge their academic institutions of “marxist” liberals, we’re seeing a rising tide of conservatives as university faculty, staff, and senior administrators - virtually all with graduate level degrees.
On the flip side, the SEIU is full of liberal democrats despite their members rarely having more than a high school diploma. The service sector is flush with low-education liberal voters. The vocational trades are flush with liberal voters. As are agricultural workers, particularly in states like California, Arizona, Georgia, and Florida.
This isn’t a good litmus test for determining ideological bias.
Huntsville imported 1000+ Nazi scientists to work on rockets in the 50’s. That may explain the outlier.
Huntsville, Alabama is not rural. It’s the most highly populated city in Alabama. I’m not claiming that there are not intelligent people who are full of hate that support Republican policies, nor am I claiming there are no cities which support Republicans. The question was why do rural areas typically vote Republican.
It’s the most highly populated city in Alabama.
Then why does it have a Republican mayor? Urban + Educated should equal Democrat, right?
The question was why do rural areas typically vote Republican.
I would argue that it isn’t simply rural areas that trend Republican but mineral rich areas with exceptionally large wealth gaps that tend to have powerful GOP fundraising operations.
Your example describes about one percent of rural America. How does your theory hold up when applied to areas that are predominantly a service or agricultural economy? Where are these powerful GOP fundraising operations, because the party has been pretty notoriously hemorhaging campaign funds for awhile now.
While those conditions do allow for authoritarian regimes to maintain strength in third-world countries, they do not apply one to one to the U.S. In fact, they don’t apply at all, because our economy is structured very differently to those countries.
