The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by Jeffrey D. Sachs Read Free Book Online Page A

orientation. Let me explain through a simple numerical illustration how powerful a role demographic shifts can play in national politics.
    Figure 5.2: The Rise of the Sunbelt, 1940–2010

Source: Data from U.S. Census Bureau.

Source: Data from U.S. Census Bureau.

Source: Data from U.S. Census Bureau.
    Suppose that Snowbelt voters support federal government social programs by a 70–30 margin, while Sunbelt voters oppose those programs by a 70–30 margin. To keep things simple, also suppose that there are 100 million voters in all, initially divided as 60 million in the Snowbelt and 40 million in the Sunbelt. Sixty percent ofcongressional seats and hence (roughly) 60 percent of electoral votes will be in the Snowbelt and 40 percent in the Sunbelt. It’s easy to see that nationwide 54 percent of the voters support the social programs and 46 percent oppose them.
    Suppose now that a random mix of 20 million northerners move to the Sunbelt. Of those migrants, 70 percent (14 million) support government social programs and 30 percent (6 million) oppose them. Assume as well that there is no change of political values among the 100 million Americans, so that a 54–46 majority nationwide continues to support the social programs. Nonetheless, with the new demography, Congress is now likely to vote down the programs. Here’s why.
    In the “new” Sunbelt, there will now be 60 million voters. The “old” 40 million Sunbelt residents oppose government programs by a vote of 28 million versus 12 million. The “new” residents (who have arrived from the Snowbelt) support government programs by a margin of 14 million to 6 million. In total, therefore, 34 million voters of the new Sunbelt (57 percent) will oppose government social programs and 26 million (43 percent) will support them.
    The South will still be a majority anti-government region, though less decisively than before the in-migration from the North. Yet now it will command a majority of seats in Congress and in the Electoral College and will elect an anti-government majority to Congress and the presidency. Even though there is no change in national opinion (which is still a majority in favor of the social programs), the rise of the Sunbelt population by itself is enough to shift Washington from a pro-government majority to an anti-government majority. Demography is not quite destiny, but it plays a major role. 9
    Sunbelt Values
    With the rise of the Sunbelt came new and deep cultural cleavages in American politics. Well before the 1960s, state and local politicsin the South had long resisted a large role of government in the local economy. After all, this was the home of “states’ rights” and the losing side of the Civil War. Moreover, the anti-Washington sentiment was a reflection of the long-standing traditional resistance of southern white voters to funding public goods in a population with a significant African American minority. With the rise of the Sunbelt, that anti-government fervor gained weight, indeed an effective majority, in national politics. Anti-Washington sentiments came easy to a region that had long harbored deep historic resentments against the federal government, sentiments newly stirred by the civil rights movement, immigration, and the cultural upheavals of the 1960s.
    The South is also the bastion of fundamentalist Christianity: 37 percent of southerners count themselves as evangelical Protestants, and 65 percent are Protestants, including mainline and evangelical denominations. 10 This compares with just 13 percent of northeasterners who count themselves as evangelical Protestants and 37 percent as Protestants of any denomination. With Sunbelt presidents backed by powerful evangelical constituencies, the evangelical cultural agenda—right to life, prayer in the schools and other public facilities, anti–birth control, anti–gay marriage, antievolution school curricula, and so forth—came to national prominence and supercharged the