Amoeba’s Lorica: The Disadvantages Of a Silicon-Rich Diet

Two words, dear reader.

Hunger games.”

OK, let Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba guess your word associations. Katniss Everdeen. Underdog. Gratuitous viole … er, gripping, mind-boggling action. Country takes on city – the Capitol, no less – and wins. Corrupt, effete, overdressed, media-addicted weirdos – and boys – get theirs, yahoo! Jennifer Lawrence for President!

But we’ll settle for Joe Biden. First, we whup up on the Cheeto Mussolini. Then, we can work on getting somebody we really like! And everyone else will like her, too. Or else. What do you think tracker jackers are for?

Anyway. First part done, yeah? Took longer than it should have, and the CM hasn’t conceded yet, but he will, and he and his will meltdown into the ground, and goodness and mercy will follow us all the rest of our days, especially when we get everyone else to agree to our concepts of goodness and mercy. Or our muttations will get you.

Feeling smug yet? Sure sounds that way from social media. Begging your pardon.

Has YFNA ever mentioned his contrarian tendencies in this space?

Like, f’rinstance, has he mentioned how weird it is that, after four years of unprecedented havoc wreaked on the United States of America, its allegedly cherished system of governance, and whatever tattered shreds of respect the rest of the world had for it, the CM and his sycophants weren’t barrel-rolled out of the White House in a blue tsunami? And that he would like to figure out why?

So, while he was supposed to be doing something else (as usual), YFNA was websearching, and he happened upon this website, which generates cartograms based on county-by-county voting patterns in the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections. It showed (as of the date of this post, 11 November 2020) that citizens in 77.4% of the land area of the USA voted for Mr Trump in 2020. In 2016, peeps in 76.7% of the USA voted for Mr Trump. In other words, in 2020, Mr Trump gained ground. Yes, yes … Details aside (2020 votes were still being counted on 11 November), it is remarkable how little the maps of 2016 and 2020 differ.

Sorry, what? Gus has body odor? Why are you picking on … oh. Bogus. As in “you count people, not acres hectares“. Yes, YFNA is familiar with the trope. And with maps that show the population count by county and thereby tell the “true” story. That 40.6% of the population voted for Mr Trump in 2020, versus 45.4% in 2016. Populations overwhelmingly concentrated in the major metropolitan areas. Northeast Corridor. Pacific coast. Chicago. Miami. Houston. Phoenix, which went for Mr Trump in 2016, went for Mr Biden in 2020. Otherwise, the population maps for 2016 and 2020, just as for the land-area maps, look almost exactly alike. Almost certainly, votes in the capital cities were the ones standing between Mr Trump and the second and subsequent Presidential terms that were (in his own mind anyway) his by divine right.

So what do we care about what the hicks in the sticks think? You mean, besides the intention of the Founders of the United States of America to create a political system that prevented one or a few population centers from automatically steamrollering the entire nation? Which system, once upon a time, the Nation looked upon and proclaimed that it was Good? Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba asked the same question. And, once again while he was supposed to be doing something else, he went to the Web in search of answers.

What he found was this. It is perhaps worth remembering that agricultural products, besides being what’s for dinner for the 330 or so million people living in the USA, are also a key source of income for the nation. We sell food to the world, we buy trinkets from China. No sell food, We the People have to buy what our own crappy manufacturers, with their stinky feet and extortionate prices, produce. If we have any money to buy even them. (The year 2012 was the latest for which YFNA could find data organized by county; he presumed the patterns have changed little in the ensuing eight years.)

He then superimposed the agriculture graph on the land-area election graph.

He inverted the agricultural graph so that, on the combined image, the agriculture-intensive areas show up as white. White – on an almost universally red background.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba suggests that, if he were to do the same thing with mining activity, or forestry activity, he would get much the same result.

And that result suggests that We the People ought to very much care what “the hicks in the sticks” are thinking. City dwellers in these Untied States, swapping memes on social media – corrupt, effete, overdressed, media-addicted city dwellers, with their outlandish ways and overbearing, self-righteous attitudes – could suddenly discover that computer chips are a substandard form of nutrition. And concerns about whether sustenance is “vegan”, “organic”, or “GMO free” could be rendered as superfluous as they already are to most of the rest of the world. Quickly.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba would very much prefer it if We the People would collectively get over ourselves and work together to solve the nation’s pressing problems.

But the demonization that We have already subjected Ourselves to is deeply engrained, and throughout history, such demonization has been extraordinarily difficult to overcome short of “acts of God” (war, famine, pestilence). We have already dropped the drawbridge to pestilence, and are baiting famine and war. It would not surprise YFNA should the Capitol cities of the USA soon be confronted with revolt from the countryside, Katniss. With the leaders wearing mockingjay costumes.

Red ones.

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