Even if they can't vote, some of their family members can, and their kids and their friends will be able to. There's a reason major cities are often blue (largely linked to their history of immigration), and across generations, these loyalties can build up. (Also, the Democrats largely gave up on the rural areas as a matter of political strategy, but that's a separate story).
Asylees and refugees on the other hand... I can entirely believe that, but I guess we won't see the bigger picture of that (vs large-scale immigration from Central/South America) for a while.
Immigrants go to cities because there are jobs, not because they are blue.
As an aside, when you think of selecting a vacation destination in a foreign country, do you prefer to go to rural areas where you risk negative attention based on where you were born?
Would you do the same when selecting somewhere to live?
I think that's reversing the cause and effect a bit? I'm not saying immigrants go to cities for Democratic policies, but that cities tend to lean Democrat partially because they are full of diverse immigrants from different places and backgrounds. The Republicans over the last few decades took a measured approach to both focus on rural voters and also project a USA-first image that can at times be seen as anti-immigration. The Democrats took advantage of that to solidify their grasp on urban areas.
Oh I see what you're saying now. Took advantage sounds a little strong to me but I mostly agree. I don't think either party had a choice and were just maintaining their constituencies as they have been for 70+ years. It's not like all the republicans recently moved to rural areas from non-rural ones and ONLY THEN the politicians started pandering to their respective demos.
I think the knowledge of this strategy's existence grew, but the strategy itself has been the same for a long time.
It goes back to early generation of European working-class industrial immigrants, then continued with techy Asians and Indians (who were often Democratic not for economics but because the Republicans got more and more nationalist). These days the Hispanic vote (which is a lot of the "immigrants" group) still leans blue, even though they don't necessarily swing culturally as left as the white young Democrats.
Reading some of these articles, here is what I disagree about your characterization:
For almost all of the east coast/midwest cities I have lived in, the Black "great northern migration" was a much larger factor in the Democratization of cities than foreign immigrant populations.
I agree that, especially in the northeast, where democrats started to take hold were communities that were distinct from the traditional anglo-protestant axis (particularly Irish catholics), but by the time this really accelerated and became an urban trend in the early to mid to even late 20th century (urban = democrat emerged most strongly in the 80s and 90s as your articles identify), most of these populations were already multi-generational American households, not new immigrants. Sure they had not been there since the Mayflower, but plenty had been there since the 19th century. What united these disparate groups was an attraction to industrial policy, less so some immigrant axis.
Your article #3 is not about the US but rather Europe, your articles #2 and #4 (especially #4) explicitly disagree with you about immigration being the driving factor, and your first article indicates that it has more to do with industrial policy than immigration.
Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly read these (and in more detail than I did! Lol, how embarrassing, especially #3! Good catch, and careless on my part. Sorry!)
Re #1 (the Atlantic), these passages capture most of my thoughts. And the other two articles touch on similar themes.
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> There is no obvious reason why a 19th-century movement led by Irish Catholic noneducated factory workers should become a 21st-century party for college grads, nonwhite voters, and software developers that defends gay rights, women’s rights, and legalized abortion. But it makes sense if you understand the Democratic Party through the lens of the modern city. Starting in the 1970s through today, Democrats and Republicans have been compelled to take sides on issues that hadn’t previously been politicized. And they have routinely sorted themselves along urban-rural lines, creating a pattern where there was once merely a tendency.
[...]
> As the writer and researcher Will Wilkinson argues, cities are magnets for individuals who score highly on “openness”—the Big Five personality trait that comprises curiosity, love of diversity, and open-mindedness.
[...]
> Urban residents trade cars for public transit, live in neighborhoods with local trash codes, and deal with planning commissions about shadows, ocean views, and parking rights. City residents are natural “externality pessimists,” to use Steve Randy Waldman’s clever phrase, who are exquisitely sensitive to the consequences of individual behavior in a dense place where one man’s action is another man’s nuisance. As a result, residents of dense cities tend to reject libertarianism as unacceptable chaos and instead agitate for wiser governance related to health care, housing policy, and climate change.
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I understand what you're saying, and it makes sense -- that (foreign) immigration was not the decisive factor of cities becoming more Democratic. I stand corrected. That's not just a technicality, it's a substantial correction. Thank you.
However, I do want to make the case that MIGRATION in general (of people, classes, workers, etc., both foreign but especially domestic, as you pointed out) shapes cultures in a way that ultimately helped further the urban-rural divide. Whether it's seeing other ethnicities, religions, cultures, education levels, or just economic classes and job types, the sheer density of city living forces people to learn to live together. Granted, it's not always easy easy, per the article's quote, "one man’s action is another man’s nuisance". But it happens.
And all these factored played together, weakly at first, and then more and more through the decades as party leadership polarized themselves to form stronger and stronger tribal identities... broadly, the Democrats taking the dense urbanites who favored openness (to cultures, religions, immigrants, etc.), protection through regulation, and education vs the Republicans who valued tradition, freedom (from other people and the central government, especially), and hard work that doesn't require higher education.
I don't think it has to have played out this way if not for the two-sided winner-take-all politics we have. But because we only had those two choices (for many decades), all those forces/themes from immigration to industrial policy virtuously/viciously reinforced each other. But I do stand corrected... foreign immigration was not the major input to those changes. Thank you for taking the time to really think through and discuss this!
Nothing in there I disagree with, my disagreement was mostly over the 'largely'/monocausal suggestion of your original comment - migration definitely is a big part of the story of the modern urban Democratic party.
What's interesting is that one of the articles linked indicates that this Democratic shift has been substantial even among people who have generationally been in the same city for a long time. I don't think this really undercuts migration as a massive effect, but indicates the impact of your neighbors as well as perhaps some realignment of the Democrats towards industrial policy that benefited people in the cities.
> Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly read these (and in more detail than I did!
Quickly skimming articles to see if they hold up is a skill learned from years of highschool debate, only a minute or two to prepare to respond to your opponents arguments
I've redacted my statement since it is no longer relevant, interesting data. I wonder how refugees would vote comparitively to immigrants, one would assume it would be close but I could be entirely wrong.
I think it's a fascinating question though (how asylees and refugees would vote if they could, vs immigrants and migrants), one which I don't even have a gut feeling for.
Most migrants from Central/South America will already be somewhat familiar with US culture due to geographic proximity, and often will have family and friends here who can help assimilate/absorb them into both local/municipal cultures and the broader US political landscape.
Refugees and asylees don't necessarily have that, especially if they are coming from a non-democratic and non-Western culture.
I ask because a lot of these people come from countries that are highly conservative in nature and culture.