In 2013, both republican senators from Texas voted against emergency federal aid for New York and New Jersey, after Hurricane Sandy.

Contrary to the absurd belief that republicans are rugged individualists, born in log cabins they built with their own bare hands (😂) red states like Texas frequently receive WAY MORE from the federal government than they give. Put another way, red states, on average, enjoy the redistributed wealth produced in places exactly like New York and New Jersey. This blog post lays it out in a series of charts.

7 Republican States

Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Mississippi
Total population: 91.5 million
Total electoral votes: 136

6 Democratic States

California, New York, Illinois, Virginia, Massachussetts, and Oregon
Total population: 91.3 million
Total electoral votes: 133

Factors I considered

GDP Totals
GDP $ per square foot of landmass
Federal Assistance Given vs. Taxes paid
Total Federal Disaster Money Allocated (in $$$ billions)
Average Obesity rates
Average Educational Attainment Levels
Average Covid Vaccination Rates

Total GDP (in $$$ billions)

On average, Democratic states contribute more to national GDP than do Republican states.
Data was pulled from: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/.

Additional GDP facts

Sum of statewide GDP of 7 Republican states: $5.1 Trillion
Sum of statewide GDP of 6 Democratic states: $6.6 Trillion
In terms of GDP, New York City by itself is…
- Larger than Florida and Indiana combined
- Larger than North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Mississippi combined
- Roughly equivalent to the country of South Korea

GDP $ per square foot of landmass

On average, Democratic states produce more wealth per square foot of land.
Data was pulled from: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/

Additional GDP landmass facts

High/Low (Republican states)
- Florida: $.63 per square foot
- Mississippi: $.08 per square foot

High/Low (Democratic states)
- Massachussetts: $2.03 per square foot
- Oregon: $.08 per square foot

Federal Assistance Given vs Taxes Paid

On average, Republican states receive more than they give. Specifically, these states get $1.39 in federal money for every $1 they pay in to the federal tax coffers. The reverse is true of Democratic states: they receive $.95 in federal handouts for every $1 they pay in.
Data was pulled from: https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/#key-findings

Total Federal Disaster Money Allocated (in $$$ Billions)

On average, Republican states ask for 4.1 x more federal disaster bailout money than do Democratic states. California, for example, required $11.7 billion of disaster relief, but this was dwarfed by Texas’ $28.7 billion, and Florida’s $15.35 billion. The figures below were taken over a 3-year period (2017-2020).
Data was pulled from: https://recovery.fema.gov/state-profiles

Average Obesity Rates

On average, people from Republican states are more obese than those from Democratic states.
Data was pulled from: https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/

Average Educational Attainment

On average, people from Democratic states are more educated than those from Republican states.
Data was pulled from: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/educational-attainment-by-state

Average Covid Vaccination Rates

On average, people from democratic states are more considerate in their concrete actions – by masking up, social distancing, and getting vaccinated, they’re alleviating a public health emergency. They don’t do dumb performative shit like strap a rifle on to their back just to buy baby formula at costco.
Data pulled from: https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/blob/master/public/data/vaccinations/us_state_vaccinations.csv

Dear Americans…

“We’ve got too much pluribus and not enough unum.”

— Arthur Schlesinger

Its’ no coincidence E Pluribus Unum has 13 letters

Out of many, one – that was the intent. Although there were 13 original colonies, the historian Colin Woodard believes that regional cultural differences in American society arose from 11 distinct founders’ mentalities, each with very different priorities and values.

I agree with this idea, and love Woodard’s book, but would add this: tribalism, science-denial, and the collapse of the existence of objective truth drastically lower our chances of successfully solving the primary challenges of our time: climate change, failed states, super viruses, financial boom/bust cycles, etc.

Large-scale problem solving in technologically advanced democratic societies have lower capacity to absorb the costs of science illiteracy

Back in the 18th century, an appropriate heuristic to gauge a citizen’s contribution to society would be if he/she could carry a bucket and correctly answer the question “Where’s the well?”. The stakes were low most of the time. The Earth felt big, and if someone burned down what passed as a factory; or dumped 1,000 ships worth of garbage into the ocean, you could forget about it, and life would go on unchanged. Susan Jacoby explains this beautifully in her book Age of American Unreason.

In the 21st century, the same is not true. We live in a vastly different world where the stakes are not low at all. Annual video game consumption alone burns through 34 terra-watt hours of electricity – the equivalent of 5 million cars. Countries with a billion+ people are growing their economies at staggering rates, and those people want x-boxes and iPhones. You might want to check out Yuval Noah Harari’s book Homo Deus.

Imagine this common 21st century election scenario:

Some voters aren’t simply science illiterate – they are science ignorant and proud. They don’t understand what a molecule is, think the world is both flat and hollow (at the same time), and are distrustful of experts
There’s an election where these voters are asked (along with others) to weigh competing budget amendments
- One amendment promises tax cuts, relies on tweets and social media memes, and delivers sick burns and zingers that “own the libs”
- The other amendment relies on overwhelming scientific consensus, decades of peer-reviewed research, and a basic understanding of chemistry, the life sciences, geological timescales, and statistical reasoning.
Many of the science illiterate voters, if they don’t get the electoral outcome they want, feel entitled to overthrow the government, and are baffled when the justice department pursues criminal charges

We should accept as a given that there will always be voters who simply don’t know much about science. However, the cost of too many of them simultaneously being wrong, a critical number of times would be irreversibly catastrophic. This is our situation.

“True Americans must stand together”

Peter King doesn’t often say or do things I agree with, but he got this one right.