Book Review: Our Patchwork Nation

Are we a red nation or a blue nation?
That is a question that journalist and author Dante Chinni asks us to move beyond. We are more diverse than those two colors suggest.
Is the man in Wisconsin who votes Republican the same as the soccer mom in Alabama who votes Republican? The answer is certainly no.
The book, Our Patchwork Nation, analyzes different parts of the United States and breaks the nations counties into 12 specific types.
The University of Oklahoma is located in Cleveland County and would thus be labeled by Chinni’s system as a campus and careers county. We are an area defined by the education that is provided in that country and the jobs that appear as a result.
We are similar to Ann Arbor Michigan in many ways, which is used in the book as a sort of example by which to follow.
Chinni said that about 5 percent of the country did not neatly fit into the 12 sections, but most places when looking at the data were associable with other communities by the amount of service industry or manufacturing.
In the book, it is clear that you cannot even go so far as to say that one region is simply defined by certain characteristics because the map is much too complex and the people that live in those districts share that complexity.
This book highlights why we cannot seem to understand the electorate.
We do not realize that the motivations behind our citizenry are much more complicated than red or blue.
As the title of the book suggests, me are a patchwork of many different beliefs and ideals. Taking those into consideration, it is a wonder we ever get anything done.