According to previous research, the more polluted a state is, the more likely it is to vote red (chapter 5). So far from being an oddball state, what was true for Louisiana was true nationwide. But what went on within each red state? Was it, as journalist Alec MacGillis claimed in the New York Times, that within red states the people facing poverty, poor schools, and broken families didn’t show up in political polls because they didn’t vote at all and meanwhile, others living in the same state, two class levels higher, did vote as Republican? If we apply MacGillis’s logic, we might expect that
...more
