Comment by TylerE
15 hours ago
What do call it when they repeatedly vote to slash the health care programs that almost half the state relies on for coverage? For candidates that defund education and basic infrastructure investment? It is objectively against rational self-interest.
what do they call it when a lot of the people in the state don't vote because of a history of disenfranchisement? or when power is taken away from groups of people due to redistricting? when many people can't get to the polls because it's far away or they have work? and when the absentee ballot process is hard? or when they purge the voter registration, requiring people to re-register, if they realize it before it's too late? this last one happened to me.
less than 60% of eligible voters in the state cast a vote in the 2024 election. there was lower turnout in 2024 election among black voters. here is more data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
what do you call it when both candidates aren't good enough for those people, so they resign to not vote?
what do you call it when college-educated liberals disparage the poorest, blackest state in the union? definitely not progressive. maybe "racist"
While I share your frustration can I also share with you that I think your original take is entirely dim-witted and ignorant that populations are not singular voting blocs? That's to say, I lived in Texas for a long time as a leftist and people like you would come in to dunk on our suffering. Nearly half the state votes Democrat but that didn't matter to folks like you. It's unproductive and isolates more people than it gratifies.
There is a huge difference between accepting someone’s opinion about supply side economics or US foreign policy or heck even abortion rights than “understanding” someone who doesn’t believe that people shouldn’t be treated equally and with respect because of the color of their skin, their sexuality, etc.
I’m from South GA and spent all of my adult life until 3 years ago in Atlanta. I live in another red state now - Florida. I’ve spent enough time in the bigger cities in Texas to have a feel for it. Alabama and Mississippi are just…different.
> “understanding” someone who doesn’t believe that people shouldn’t be treated equally and with respect because of the color of their skin, their sexuality, etc.
Can you steelman the culturally conservative viewpoint? I find this to be a big blind spot in today's progressive thinkers; i.e. it's hard for someone in that camp to explain why anyone would have voted for Trump, without dipping into the "they know not what they're voting for" or "they're just ignorant, racist, and hateful" buckets.
> Alabama and Mississippi are just…different.
I'm a visibly nonwhite immigrant who moved to one of those "different" states from a large coastal metro. I'm not treated any worse or differently in society.
Perhaps the biggest disparity I've noticed is that the Old South still believes that it's good for society for people of various backgrounds to assimilate to one central culture, whereas the more cosmopolitan metros seem to have declared assimilation as an imposition on minority groups.
I believe the former to be the correct position, and closer to the original "liberal" belief that anybody, no matter what they look like, will be treated equally as long as they are willing to play by the same rules. The latter viewpoint to me is very much like "separate but equal"; no one cultural group has any say over another, and there is not one standard set of behaviors that everyone is expected to conform to, because differences are valued over unity.
It has been fascinating to see, as someone with an outsider's background, the realignment of political thought over the past decade or two.
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