Observing voting trends in dense groups of a society
In Networks, we have discussed how a new technology can be incorporated into a society. In general, depending on the nature of the ties within a dense community (such as a neighborhood, a group of college friends, a friend group of working colleagues, etc), a community can choose to adopt a new technology or to not adopt that technology– and it can decide this as a whole. Depending on the nature of the ties within the community (either weak or strong), the entire community can choose to adopt the new technology and can even pass it onto other communities.
In light of this year’s recent tumultuous election, it’s worth examining the trends of communities and how they were expected to vote (versus how they actually voted). Pew Research Center (in the article below) looked at different communities– not just political, but racial and economical. The source noted that there is a preference for “diverse communities” among Democrats, liberals, college grads, blacks, and secular Americans (more so than in other communities). Despite this claimed preference for diversity, these communities tend to follow similar trends of voting. Communities of similar political beliefs exist– and these communities attempt to spread their views as much as possible.
This is news to no one, of course– and politicians use this fact to their advantage. Politicians have implemented grassroots campaigns to go door-to-door in communities, in hopes to create a strong enough tie to have a new community adopt similar political leanings. This is why politicians go to as many cities and states as possible–to attempt to form strong ties with people of communities in the hopes of changing communities’ voting preferences.
This is the magic that will help one candidate win over another. (It’s no coincidence that Trump was campaigning at around 5 rallies/day in the last month of the campaign.) And it is absolutely no coincidence that this magic helped to elect our new president.
Americans Say They Like Diverse Communities; Election, Census Trends Suggest Otherwise