I'm not sure that if you encourage narcissism, short-sightedness in the marketplace that this can have zero affect on the person in the public square.

A further thought, Mr. Smith seems to forget any basic human needs connected to political choices, or lifestyle choices for that matter. If you only look at certain variables, isolated communities appear based on the selected variables. You then are assuming the importance of these variables as opposed to variables you ignored in the study. Thus, you assume based on your selected variables, in this case political, that people are sorting because of these political choices.
I think there are other better models for studying the reasons why people don't want to deal with the opposition politically. And I don't think the nation stratifies quite so cleanly as predicted. There's a lot more to it than politics or marketing of ideas. I'm thinking of many layers of complexity.

Totally agree with Walker Smith; it's "lifestyle preferences" that are sorting us out. I call them "Consumption Circles." The sorting is more about taste and, thanks to the incredibly powerful effects of marketing, consumer patterns than about politics. (Just read Frank Rich's "Greatest Story Ever Sold" this weekend, so Marketing and Politics is very much on my mind.)

My only quibble:

"... politics has itself become nothing but another application of marketing science"

Gotta disagree here because Mark Penn proved this wrong on HRC's campaign. Politics is still visceral and in your gut. The "unsortable" quality in politics is that it is about constantly defining who we are as Americans. Our politicians tell that story to us. I don't see that changing despite marketing's incredible powers.

I didn't find anything definite to respond to in the comments. Sort of unfocused. Maybe I'll draw a response.

Let me begin by completely destroying every aspect of Mr. Walker Smith's post.
(As always, I will deconstruct Smith in the order of statements of his post. You have to refer back to his post to easily follow mine.)

1. It is trite to say that the Big Sort is just a mega-division into red state and blue state lifestyles. This position guarantees that everything Smith says will be conceptually trivial. As he will say: he's a marketer. For him, you are what you buy.

2. "Income, education and technology" have NOT "grown". We make less money than we used to, most of us, and marketers have gotten so much better at making us spend it on JUST THIS and THIS gadget or toy that our purchasing power seems almost hyperinflated - we rush to spend as if saving was impossible. Of course, there's a counter-cultural movement of immigrants and some others who for some odd reason insist on remaining relatively impervious to marketing.

As for education, the last 30 years have seen the rise of credentialism, in which degrees and credentials are handed out to many more people, but represent less and less in the way of actual knowledge.

There is more technology than there used to be, but there's a big argument about whether we have become wiser or more free because of it. (Before you snap-post, I am not saying that personal computers are bad. There is a lot more to technology than personal electronics.)

2. "mobility and self-determination" have NOT grown. The housing crisis and the fuel price rise are nailing people's feet to the ground, and it is just beginning. 2.5 million houses in the US stand empty, owned by foreclosing banks who apparently never imagined that they might have to dispose of these units.

3. We do NOT "settle down where we feel comfortable". Mostly, we RENT because we understand that the housing bottom is still years away, and buying now is like trying to catch a safe.

4. We don't settle down because a "neighborhood feels right". Jesus, once a writer of marketing copy, always a... We live in the nicest place we can afford, consistent with its apparent safety, first of all, and then based on its access to other locations we have to get to.

But something has happened; it's three a.m. in America. Just as we can no longer accurately determine the useful life or actual dollar worth of items we purchase in stores, we can no longer accurately determine the suitability, in many cases, of a house or apartment in a particular area based on criteria that USED TO work.

For example, a common model of housing choice involves the perceived safety of the suburbs. From their inception, sprawling suburbs were associated with white flight from urban blight. This perception lasted long enough to develop into the "gated community" model, complete with police patrols.

However, the housing crisis, the credit crunch, and the fuel price increase are a triple blow aimed at the suburbs. Suddenly, Stepford streets are losing residents to foreclosure. A lawn goes unmowed, and a For Sale sign stands in front for months and months... Little "Price Reduced!" panels are legion, but with gas at $4 a gallon, its no longer economical to drive into the City from here. As residents wither one by one, the local tax base of a "town" without any industry shrinks, reducing the number of police patrols and other services. Gradually suburbs appear to be almost as vulnerable to drugs and crime as urban areas; for some forms of crime, suburban developments are a growth area.

5. It has to be trivial at this point to say that politics has become almost indistinguishable from marketing. What is not trivial is that Walker Smith does not know what sets politics apart from marketing. (Maybe I'll explain if someone asks nicely.) His entire blathering post says nothing more than this: you have money to spend, and there are a whole helluva a lot of marketers out there trying to mine data, and whatnot, to figure out how to get you to spend your money on their products, etc., ad nauseam, ad infinitum. The funniest thing of all is the way he keeps talking about "strong" ties between people based on lifestyle choices - which themselves can be reduced to purchasing patterns! Ta-Da!

Listen to me, you bullet-headed Saxon mother's son, you tautology-blurting "satisfier of personal wants": the dominant force in America today is that money is getting damn tight and the really rich are heading overseas. What is going to happen is that your smarmy little service economy is going to keel over flat. Be sure and let me know just exactly what it is you market so I can sell your 12-step motivated ass short and profit from your business's death.

6. I'm going to do you a favor: I'm going to give you a free lesson in marketing a valuable service.

First of all, you identify a need: here's the last sentence of your post:

"Democracy, though, must be about more than that, and that's what's at risk from "the big sort."

OK, Walker, look: "at risk from" is wrong. It's just wrong. It makes you seem to continue a flaccid denial of the narcissism you normally seek to "satisfy" in the first part of the sentence, while doing a 180 in the second part. The answer is simple. Substitute "at stake in" for "at risk from".

"Democracy, though, must be about more than that, and that's what's at stake in "the big sort"."

See? That's actually what you meant to say.

Now, Walker, how much would you pay for a technology that actually corrects your very words and concepts? A technology that re-constructs your own aleatory thought process from remnants, and produces "sense". And with time, you can even understand the difference!

Now how much wouldja pay?

Oops, not enough. Guess you'll just have to find out how many people are out there trying to satisfy the personal wants of someone who has chosen the lifestyle, "I ain't got enough money."