Hello Interactors,

The land on which we stand can demand where we politically stand. But what happens when that land shifts, shakes, burns or blows away? Recent Southern U.S. floods displaced thousands. Disasters don’t just destroy — they can redraw political lines.

With second round of Trumpster fires deepening divides, geography and ideology matter more than ever. As climate crises, economic upheaval, and political struggles intensify, the question isn’t just where people live — but what they’ll fight for. History shows that when the ground shifts, so does power.

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SHIFTING LANDS AND LOYALTIES

From fertile fields to frenzied financial hubs, geography molds the mindset of the masses. Where people live shapes what they fear, fight for, and find familiar. Farmers in the Great Plains worry about wheat yields and water rights, while coastal city dwellers debate rent control and rising tides.

But political geography isn’t just about climate and crops — it’s about power, privilege, and the collective making of place. No space is neutral; as evidenced by the abrupt renaming of an entire gulf. History and the present are filled with examples of territories being carved and controlled, gerrymandered, and gentrified.

The recent floods in the South serve as a stark reminder of how geography has historically upended political identity. Especially during Black History Month. The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was a devastating deluge that displaced thousands of Black sharecroppers, washing away not only homes but also old political loyalties.1

The Republican-controlled federal government, led by President Calvin Coolidge, took a hands-off approach, refusing to allocate federal aid and instead relying on Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover to coordinate relief efforts through the Red Cross.

After the Mississippi River Flood of 1927, Arkansas’ Red Cross set up 50 refugee camps, including one in Forrest City for 15,000 displaced people. Overcrowding, segregation, and shortages of food, water, and clothing led to worsening conditions and disease, especially among the Black population. Source: Roberts Library

However, aid distribution was dominated by white Southern landowners, who withheld resources from Black communities. They forced many into quasi-forced labor camps under the guise of relief. Hoover, later touting his role in disaster response to win the 1928 presidency, was ultimately seen by many Black voters as complicit in their mistreatment.

This failure accelerated Black voters’ gradual shift away from the Republican Party, a realignment that would deepen under FDR’s New Deal in the 1930s.2 The flood was not just a natural disaster — it was a political reckoning. Who received help and who was abandoned shaped party loyalties for generations to come.

Yet, history proves that political realignments are rarely one-sided or uniform. While Black voters were shifting toward the Democratic Party, another Southern political identity crisis was brewing. Southern white conservatives — longtime Democrats due to the party’s historical ties to segregation — began their own political migration in the mid-to-late 20th century.3

The Civil Rights Movement and desegregation led many white Southerners to feel alienated from the Democratic Party, pushing them toward what was once unthinkable — the Republican Party.4 This shift cemented a racialized realignment, with Black voters backing Democrats and Southern white conservatives reshaping the GOP into today’s right-wing stronghold.

The Civil Rights Movement spurred white Southerners to flee to the party they historically despised. Alabama Democratic Governor George Wallace challenged the national Democratic Party's stance on civil rights weakening party loyalty among white Southerners. This made it easier for these voters to switch to the Republican Party. Source: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and AL.com

Both political shifts were responses to crisis — one to environmental disaster and racial exclusion, the other to social change and perceived status loss.5 The fact that geography remained constant but political identities flipped highlights a crucial truth: where people live matters, but how they respond to change depends on identity, history, and power.

The political path of any place isn’t just shaped by its space — it’s who claims the land, who crafts the law, and who casts a crisis as chaos or cause.

SORTED, SEPARATED, AND STUCK

Geography shapes political identity but doesn’t dictate it. Human agency, economics, and psychology influence where people live and how they vote. Over time, self-sorting creates ideological enclaves, deepening polarization instead of fostering realignment.

Psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner’s Social Identity Theory explains why people align with in-groups and see out-groups as threats, as identity shapes self-esteem and belonging. This leads to in-group favoritism, out-group bias, and polarization, especially when power or resources feel like a zero-sum game.

But Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (ODT) adds another layer to this understanding. Developed by Marilynn Brewer, building on Social Identity Theory, ODT proposes that people need to feel a sense of belonging to a group while also maintaining individuality within it.

This balancing act between assimilation and uniqueness explains why political identities are not just about partisanship — they encompass culture, lifestyle, and even geography. Individuals self-sort both by community and distinction within their chosen political and social environments.

Modern political sorting has made partisanship an all-encompassing identity. It aligns with race, religion, and even consumer habits.6 This process has been amplified by geography, as people increasingly move to communities where they feel they “fit in” while also distinguishing themselves within their political faction.

ODT helps explain why urban progressives might distinguish themselves through niche ideological positions (e.g., Socialists in Brooklyn vs. Tech libertarians in San Francisco), while rural conservatives in swing states may lean into Christian nationalism or libertarianism (e.g. Christian nationalists in rural Pennsylvania vs. Tea Party libertarians in rural Wisconsin).

Democratic Socialists at the New York City Women's March on Jan. 21, 2017 and Techno-libertarians Peter Thiel and an early-balding Elon Musk in the early days of PayPal. Thiel is a large financial supporter and friend of JD Vance. Source: City and State New York and Paul Sakuma/AP

American political power is unevenly distributed. The Senate majority can be won with just 17% of the population, and the Electoral College inflates rural influence. The 10 smallest states hold 3% of the population but 20% of Senate seats and 6% of electoral votes. This imbalance amplifies rural conservative power, giving certain regions outsized political sway.7

ODT also helps explain why political polarization has deepened over time rather than softened with economic shifts. Historically, political realignments occurred when crisis moments forced cross-cutting alliances — like when poor white and Black farmers joined forces during the Populist Movement of the 1890s to challenge banking and railroad monopolies.8

However, these coalitions often fell apart due to racial and regional pressures. The Populist Party was ultimately absorbed into the Democratic Party’s white Southern wing, leaving Black farmers politically stranded. They still are. Around 1890 Black farmers made up an estimated 14% of farmers in America, now it’s fewer than 2% due to racist lending practices, discriminatory federal policies, land dispossession, and systemic barriers to credit and resources.9

Today, realignments are rare because identity-based partisanship satisfies both belonging and distinctiveness (ODT). Rural conservatives see themselves not just as Republicans but as defenders of a distinct way of life, reinforcing identity through regional pride, gun rights, and religion. Urban liberals, meanwhile, develop sub-identities — progressives, moderates, democratic socialists — within the broader Democratic Party. This illusion of uniformity masks deep internal ideological divides.

This sorting shapes where people live, what they watch, and which policies they support. The false consensus effect deepens political silos, as rural conservatives and urban progressives assume their views are widely shared. When elections defy expectations, the result is shock, anger, and further retreat into ideological camps.10

This explains why U.S. political alignments resist economic and geographic shifts that once drove realignments. Where hardship once built coalitions, modern partisanship acts as a psychological refuge. The question is whether climate change, automation, or mass migration will disrupt these patterns — or cement them. Will today’s anxieties redraw party lines, or will political sorting persist, turning geography into a fortress for the familiar, deepening division and partisan pride?

FROM REALITY TV TO ALTERNATE REALITY

If geography and identity sketch borders of polarization, then media is the Sharpie darkening the divide. The digital age hardens these political divides, where confirmation bias runs rampant and algorithms push people to one side of the ideological line or the other.11

In a recent interview, political psychologist and polarization expert Liliana Hall Mason, known for her research on identity-based partisanship and rising affective polarization, recalled a 2012 TiVO study that analyzed TV viewing habits of Democrats and Republicans.12 The study found that among the top 10 most-watched TV shows for each party, there was zero overlap — Democrats and Republicans were consuming completely separate entertainment. Cultural, and presumably geographical, divergence was already well underway in the 2010s.

Republicans favored shows like Duck Dynasty while Democrats gravitated toward satirical cartoons like Family Guy. While it predates TiVO, I was more of a King of Hill fan, myself. I thought Hank Hill humanized conservative rural life without glorifying extremism while critiquing aspects of modernity without being elitist. Hulu has announced its return sometime this year.

In 2012, while Republicans were watching Southern American culture, particularly related to hunting, outdoor life, and traditional Christian faith on Duck Dynasty, Democrats were watching a dysfunctional Rhode Island family strive to cope with politics, pop culture, and social issues. Source AE, IMDB

But Republicans and Democrats today don’t even consume the same reality — they don’t watch the same news, follow the same influencers, trust the same institutions, or even shop at the same grocery stores. Will both tune into watch Hank Hill walk the tight rope of a pluralistic suburban American existence?

This media-driven fragmentation fuels geographic sorting, as political preferences influence where people choose to live. A person might leave a liberal city for a conservative suburb, or vice versa, based on what media tells them about their “kind of people.” Over time, partisan enclaves harden, reducing exposure to opposing viewpoints and making political shifts less likely.13

When political identities are so deeply entrenched that losing an election feels like an existential crisis, the risk of political violence rises. Mason’s research on rising authoritarian attitudes and partisan animosity shows that political opponents aren’t just seen as rivals anymore — they’re seen as enemies.14

January 6th, 2021, wasn’t an anomaly — it was the inevitable explosion of years of identity-based sorting and status-threat rhetoric. The rioters who stormed the Capitol weren’t just protesting an election loss; they saw themselves as defenders of a nation slipping from their grasp, fueled by a deep-seated fear of demographic change, progressive policies, and shifting cultural power.

Studies show that people who feel their group is losing influence are more likely to justify violence, particularly when they perceive existential threats to their way of life.15 Right-wing media reinforced these fears, political leaders legitimized them, and geographic and social sorting further entrenched them. In an era where partisan identity feels like destiny, and grievance is turned into a rallying cry, the potential for future political violence remains dangerously real.

History teaches us that political geography isn’t destiny — alignments shift when necessity forces cooperation. As the world faces climate crises, economic instability, and mass migration, new political realignments will emerge. The question is whether they will lead to solidarity or further strife.

At the end of the Mason interview, she mentions the role anger and enthusiasm play in political motivations. This concept is part of the Norwegian philosopher and social theorist, Jon Elster, who is best known for his work on rational choice theory, emotions in politics, and historical institutionalism. He has written extensively on how emotions like anger, enthusiasm, resentment, and hope shape political behavior and social movements, especially in historical contexts like the French Revolution and modern populist movements.

Anger mobilizes movements, making people willing to fight for change or push back against it. The Populist farmers of the 1890s, the labor activists of apartheid South Africa, and the displaced communities of Partition-era India all channeled rage into resistance. At the same time, enthusiasm — a belief in the possibility of transformation — is what sustains coalitions beyond crisis moments. The formation of the EU, the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and Brazil’s leftist labor movement all survived because hope outlasted grievance.

Political movements often begin with anger, but only survive through enthusiasm. This is why some burn out quickly (Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party) while others reshape history (the Civil Rights Movement, Brexit, Trump’s populism). Looking ahead, the political geography of the future will be shaped by whichever emotion proves stronger.

Will fear and resentment deepen polarization, or will shared enthusiasm for economic justice, environmental sustainability, and democratic resilience create new cross-cutting alliances? The past suggests both are possible. But if history has one lesson, it’s that the lines on the map are never as fixed as they seem — and neither are the people who live within them.

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Bibliography

1

Barry, J. M. (1997). Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. Simon & Schuster.

2

Woods, C. A. (1998). Development Arrested: The Blues and Plantation Power in the Mississippi Delta. Verso.

3

Mason, L. (2025, February 17). Lilliana Mason on Polarization and Political Psychology (S. Carroll, Interviewer) [Audio podcast episode]. In The Mindscape Podcast. Preposterous Universe.

4

Mason, L. (2018). Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. University of Chicago Press.

5

Jost, J. T., Federico, C. M., & Napier, J. L. (2017). Political Ideology: Its Structure, Functions, and Elective Affinities. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 307-333.

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Archer, J. C., Brunn, S. D., Martis, K. C., & Webster, G. R. (2024). United States Senate malapportionment: A geographical investigation. Political Geography.

8

Goodwyn, L. (1976). The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. Oxford University Press.

9

Jones, B. (2022). Progressive governance can turn the tide for Black farmers. Center for American Progress.

10

Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The “false consensus effect”: An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13(3), 279–301.

11

Pariser, E. (2011). The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. Penguin.

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Tucker, J. A., Guess, A., Barberá, P., Vaccari, C., Siegel, A., Sanovich, S., Stukal, D., & Nyhan, B. (2018). Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature. Hewlett Foundation.

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