Mark Wieczorek

I think the red/blue/purple map by county is very interesting. I started asking myself what do all the blue counties have in common that the red ones don't. It seems to me there is a very close correlation to whether that county has a large city in it. Counties with large cities are almost always blue and counties without large cities are almost always red.

Even in the so-called "red states", locate that state's biggest city and You'll most likely see that it's blue. Conversely, even in the blue states, if you look for rural counties they are red.

I have a theory that the difference boils down to whether the voters believe in competition or cooperation. Do they believe "We're all in this together" or do they believe "It's every man for himself." Cooperators tend to live in cities and that's why those counties tend to vote for Democrats.

Big cities have more traffic lights, parking meters, curbside garbage pickup, etc. which are all examples of government requiring people to cooperate in order to make things run smoothly. People who believe in private property and the right to shoot trespassers can't stand living in big cities, so the move to the country and vote for Republicans.