It’s easy to think that we control all of our own decisions, and to a large extent we do, but it can also be crazy to see how things like sea levels 100 million years ago have a direct impact on elections today.
Take the 2020 election results in Alabama, that looked something like this:
Perhaps not surprisingly, the black population of Alabama closely resembles those voting results.
Going back further, the black population is largely in that belt because of slavery 150 years earlier.
So why was slavery so common in that belt? It held the largest farms in the state.
So why did the largest farms happen to be in that area? Well, that was some of the best soil.
Why was the soil so good there? Because of sea levels 100 million years ago, which left cretaceous sediments along that band.
Following it from start to finish is simply an amazing journey from sea levels 100 million years ago to an almost identical voting streak in 2020. Here is the full layout of images:
Voting patterns can look weird in many states, and there are often interesting reasons for them. In this case, it really caught my attention and made me realize that some patterns of today’s behavior can literally go back millions of years.
Kudos to Ryan Starkey of Starkey Comics for putting together such an amazing set of images. The insight to even realize what happened here is outstanding, and putting together those graphics took it to another level.
You can read more about this work, including more details and statistics behind each image, over on his Facebook Page.
