Sharp differences between the ways so-called red and blue states govern themselves are likely to drive the partisan power scramble for elected offices up and down the 2024 ballot.
A traveler across the country might see and hear how the political ecosystems vary with the landscape as dramatically as the weather.
Statehouses under full Republican control have been acting to loosen vaccine-related requirements well beyond COVID-19 while adding anti-vax activists to their ranks. In Iowa, students will no longer have to be educated about the HPV vaccine. Tennessee dropped vaccine requirements for home-schooled kids.
The map on abortion restrictions follows voters’ binary choices between parties as well. New York, California and other Democratic-run states have expanded abortion access since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022 while such states as Alabama have banned or severely curtailed the practice.
Naturally, people in the minority parties of those states bristle at their disempowerment. That goes for New York, the mirror image of a red state.
Lightened criminal enforcement, attempts to prod denser suburban housing, gun-carry restrictions, and hefty taxes and business regulation drive Republican frustration and electoral victories where the GOP is currently strong, namely Long Island.
Differences in approach to public schools, and how they educate, are becoming sharper from state to state. So are differences among states on climate laws, social service programs, and matters of public order. Both parties, in states that they dominate, are manipulating legislative maps and electoral operations to further consolidate power.
One stark fact crystallizes the partisan polarization that will shape strategies in presidential, Senate and House races: This year, there were 39 statehouse trifectas — where one party holds the governorship and both legislative houses. Twenty-two trifectas are Republican, the other 17 Democratic. It’s the highest total in 30 years.
Has it always been this way, more or less? Not exactly. Decades ago, the ideological packaging of the parties seemed less rigid, not so urgently sales-driven or condemning of the other side. Attitudes about reproductive rights, education, foreign alliances, religion and even the economy seemed to cross the parties’ borders. In the past, one could recognize cultural conservatives among elected Democrats and independent liberals among elected Republicans.
The state parties nowadays can be viewed as rival teams of interest groups, lobbying for power inside and outside the federal government. Voters these days get no real choice other than Party A or Party B.
Outside all historical context, one side’s champions essentially scream “Communist!” and the others shout “Fascist!” Hopefully, this won’t end up in a maniacal fight for the steering wheel while the vehicle we’re all riding in roars down the highway.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
States get bluer and redder; we hang on
15
0
28.12.2023
Sharp differences between the ways so-called red and blue states govern themselves are likely to drive the partisan power scramble for elected offices up and down the 2024 ballot.
A traveler across the country might see and hear how the political ecosystems vary with the landscape as dramatically as the weather.
Statehouses under full Republican control have been acting to loosen vaccine-related requirements well beyond COVID-19 while adding anti-vax activists to their ranks. In Iowa, students will no longer have to be educated about the HPV vaccine. Tennessee dropped vaccine requirements for home-schooled kids.
The map on abortion restrictions follows voters’ binary choices between parties as well. New York, California and other Democratic-run........
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