I hate this map

This is the kind of map that looks like it should be telling you something, but in reality -- as philosophers like to say -- it does little useful work. It suggests absolutes based on the patterns that the author has chosen to include, but I guarantee you that any predictions implied by the map are more likely to be wrong than right.

Here are some examples of how it comes across as incomplete: 

• Within any one of these regions, city and non-city residents are culturally comparable?
• People living in LA are just like people who live in El Paso?
• The difference between the SF Bay Area and the LA Basis is bigger than the difference between panhandle Texas and northern Delaware?
• Someone from Saskatchewan is just like someone from southern Utah?
• The descendants of Germans in central Texas are just like the descendants of Scottish immigrants in eastern Kentucky?
• New Orleans and Montreal are really in the same bucket? Is there no accounting for the nearly infinitely deeper history of slavery in the Mississippi Delta versus in New France?
• On that note, African American culture and migration patterns fit in ... how?

I'll say this as well: the middle of the map looks really complex and gerrymander-ish. I'm guessing It was a struggle to pull it together. I would bet that the underlying patterns used to generate the map are really messy here.

Is this map better than "red states" and "blue states"? Or better than the "coasts" and the "flyover states"? Yeah, I guess so. But only if you're playing the odds on the outcomes of elections. Otherwise, if you're trying to actually understand the cultural stakes against which any one person makes their everyday decisions, this map and others like it are useless.