Why does Milwaukee have such staunchly conservative suburbs?

[Docere]

The so-called "WOW" counties seem to have been barely touched by the increasingly Democratic trend of most major US metros. Is it a lack of diversity in the area? Is there a particularly hostile relationship between the city and suburbs?

For example Trump did about as well in Waukesha County as George Bush Sr. in 1988 (60%) who was the last GOP presidential candidate to really clean up in the suburbs nationwide.

[pdxtex]

probably because they are full of rich and religious, white german protestants. same with cincinatti.

[JoeMusashi]

The relationship between Milwaukee and its suburbs is particularly toxic. Suburban Milwaukee doesn’t have much racial or income diversity outside of the city of Waukesha (12% Hispanic) and Milwaukee itself is the most segregated city in America. The “WOW counties” are the wealthiest in Wisconsin and they try to keep low-income housing out.

Conservative talk radio in Milwaukee is extremely powerful and influential in local/state politics (and national, to a degree). During the primaries, Trump was deeply unpopular in Southeastern Wisconsin which handed Trump a unique lopsided defeat to Ted Cruz in the Rust Belt. Milwaukee talk radio was strongly Never Trump leading up to the primary.

The Democrats are much to blame for this. Crime is high in Milwaukee, the schools are often a mess, social dysfunction on display on the news every day, etc. The misguided Walker recall turned Wisconsin into a red state for a decade. It is easy to make the Democrats into a punching bag when their platform for years was shilling to enrich the public employee unions while the rest of the state suffered under brain drain, job loss, and some of the highest taxes in the US—kind of what Illinois is having to deal with and why Rahm is on the hot seat in Chicago in trying to fix it. Now the platform for 2018 is killing the Foxconn deal, one of the biggest foreign investments in US history that is going to play a massive role in the future of Southeastern Wisconsin.

[dc_denizen]

public employee unions are an existential threat to urban america, IMO.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

public employee unions are an existential threat to urban america, IMO.

They sure are. They define what made me turn away from the Democratic Party—forever

[SIGSEGV]

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0672...7i13312!8i6656

Guess which side of the street is Milwaukee County and which is Waukesha County.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0672...7i13312!8i6656

Guess which side of the street is Milwaukee County and which is Waukesha County.

Creepy at the total lack of traffic in that google street view image!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

public employee unions are an existential threat to urban america, IMO.

The strongest urban areas in America have the strongest public employee unions. Correlation isn't causation, but it appears pretty crazy to consider public unions a threat to urban vitality, when the vibrant cities have strong unions and the hollowed out cities have decimated unions.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

They sure are. They define what made me turn away from the Democratic Party—forever

The Republican party, in high cost areas, tends to be as pro-public union as the Democratic party.

Long Island, until about 20 years ago, was dominated by Republicans, and has possibly the most generous salaries/benefits of public workers in the U.S. If anything, union power has declined in recent years, with the political transition.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The Republican party, in high cost areas, tends to be as pro-public union as the Democratic party.

Long Island, until about 20 years ago, was dominated by Republicans, and has possibly the most generous salaries/benefits of public workers in the U.S. If anything, union power has declined in recent years, with the political transition.

I never said I was a Republican. But I will say that given the choice, in local elections I tend to vote for them.

And at least in Chicagoland and Wisconsin, the GOP is not pro-public union

[Capsicum]

. Please delete this message. I meant to write it in a different thread I started.

[Docere]

People go on about how public sector unions with their gold plated will "bankrupt us all" and somehow if they were abolished things would be better for others that don't have the benefits they get. The reality is that gutting their pay and working conditions do nothing to improve conditions in the private sector and would just increase competition for jobs.

[Docere]

What's striking is not only the conservatism, but it's also basically unchanged from the 1980s. According to this, Obama did no better than WALTER MONDALE in the WOW counties. That is striking.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/u...an-voters.html

[SIGSEGV]

You would think that police unions would be the one union both parties could agree to hate

[LouisVanDerWright]

I grew up in these counties, the reason is simple:

The WOW counties are the only place in Wisconsin where "white collar wealthy professional" is the prevailing demographic.

Everywhere else in the state is either semi-rural (but not redneck rural) small towns with a super high percentage of blue collar manufacturing jobs or intensely liberal urban areas. I don't get the feeling that it's any more intensely conservative than the suburbs of Chicago or other Midwestern cities. The difference in Wisconsin is that, unlike virtually everywhere else in the country, the countryside is actually quite liberal. As I said, it's not redneck, but it is blue collar and agrarian.

So the real question isn't "why are Milwaukee's suburbs so conservative", it's "why is rural Wisconsin so liberal compared to literally anywhere else in the country?" For example, 2008 presidential results in Wisconsin:


wikipedia

PS: the two red counties in the extreme W/NW "bump" of Wisconsin are suburbs of the Twin Cities, which I suspect is why they went red as well. Other than Milwaukee and Twin City suburbs there were literally three counties in the state that went for McCain and one of them he didn't even have 50% of the vote.

Compare this to Illinois, Obama's own home state that he won in a landslide:


wikipedia

Or NY:


wikipedia

Or PA:


wikipedia

My family is a perfect example of this, my grandparents grew up on farms, then moved to a mid sized town and worked in union paper mill jobs, then saved up enough money to buy two dump trucks and run their own trucking business, and eventually they were able to buy the local biker bar that they ran for 25 years before retiring. My grandma is a diehard Democrat to this day, but lives in a town of 2,500 that's basically known as the walleye fishing capital of the world. My aunt and uncle also both work in mills in union jobs. My uncle is a semi-professional fisherman in his spare time when he's not working third shift. His son, my cousin, went to college and guess where he ended up... Working as the shift manager in a union paper mill, he's also a semi-pro fisherman. Then you have my parents who are both first generation college grads (my mom is literally the first person to go to college in her entire family) with white collar jobs who moved into the suburbs and are the only people in my Mom's entire extended family that have ever voted for a Republican. The difference is simple, my parents left the semi-rural semi-blue collar way of life behind. That's a way of life that I don't think really exists anywhere else in the US anymore, but rural Wisconsin is still staunchly pro-union, Democratic, and liberal. It's like a little slice of the old liberal industrial abolitionist North that spawned the GOP in the first place back in the days of Honest Abe has been preserved to this day.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

I grew up in these counties, the reason is simple:

The WOW counties are the only place in Wisconsin where "white collar wealthy professional" is the prevailing demographic.

That makes no sense. White collar wealthy professionals vote overwhelmingly Dem these days.

The parties have inverted re. college-educated whites. College educated whites were +17 for Clinton, high school or less educated whites were +40 for Trump.

So I could see these areas going hard right if they're working class strongholds (like Macomb County, MI) but if they're educated/affluent they generally should be pretty blue these days.

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Everywhere else in the state is either semi-rural (but not redneck rural) small towns with a super high percentage of blue collar manufacturing jobs or intensely liberal urban areas. I don't get the feeling that it's any more intensely conservative than the suburbs of Chicago or other Midwestern cities. The difference in Wisconsin is that, unlike virtually everywhere else in the country, the countryside is actually quite liberal. As I said, it's not redneck, but it is blue collar and agrarian.

So the real question isn't "why are Milwaukee's suburbs so conservative", it's "why is rural Wisconsin so liberal compared to literally anywhere else in the country?" For example, 2008 presidential results in Wisconsin:

I don't get this either. The map clearly shows that rural Wisconsin voted Trump. The only sizable counties that went blue were Milwaukee and Dane (Madison). The next largest blue counties have universities.

And I doubt rural Wisconsin is appreciably less "redneck" than other states. Outside of touristy/second home areas, rural America tends redneck, even in affluent states. It's not like rural far western Mass or rural northern CA is that different from, say, rural Ohio or Michigan.

[Centropolis]

rural wisconsin at least is one of the stranger places i’ve been (relative to my experience of rural places). i’ve witnessed a lot of funny mega-passive-aggression and posturing between chicagoans and wisconsoners sort of going out of their way to appear “country” when they aren’t particularly so compared to other places. in the ozarks it’s more hippy-billy live or let live or they kick your ass.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And I doubt rural Wisconsin is appreciably less "redneck" than other states. Outside of touristy/second home areas, rural America tends redneck, even in affluent states. It's not like rural far western Mass or rural northern CA is that different from, say, rural Ohio or Michigan.

Rednecks are rednecks but they do vary depending on what part of the country they're in. I'm not familiar with Wisconsin but I am very familiar with the northeast I do know the rednecks there tend not to be overly religious (if at all) while in the heartland and the south, they are very religious...and that effects their general outlook and politics.

[Centropolis]

the rural midwest trends less “religious,” but somewhat churchgoing and a lot more catholic than the south. i trace the weird border between the midwest and the south west of the ohio valley by this general metric, among a few other things. what ends up happening is that it becomes weirdly splotchy at the southwestern end of the midwest according to areas of heavy german immigration.

the catholic iconography/presence/churches becomes doubly important to delineate this central/western mason-dixon as the germans werent generally protestant but catholic in missouri. edit: also stars and bars help this question out but i’ve routinely seen it all the way to I-80 so it’s not really reliable anymore - it just means someones an extra racist midwesterner.

i guess the rural northern midwest is somewhat a different animal.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

I don't get the feeling that it's any more intensely conservative than the suburbs of Chicago or other Midwestern cities.

Huh?

The 2008 maps you posted clearly show that milwaukee's collar counties are more intensely conservative than chicago's collar counties (deep red vs. light blue).

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i’ve witnessed a lot of funny mega-passive-aggression and posturing between chicagoans and wisconsoners sort of going out of their way to appear “country” when they aren’t particularly so compared to other places.

You know, for all my decades as a chicagoan summer vacationing in wisconsin, I've never been a part of that dance anywhere up there. If the aggression has been passive, then it has been passive enough for me to never notice it. Generally speaking, I've met mainly great people travelling around wisconsin, down to earth beer drinkers. My kinda people.