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If I could relocate to a state where my views aren’t swamped by the overwhelming redness of the state, I would in an instant, but sadly it’s not in the cards until retirement.
Yeah… living in a deep red state goes against every bit of my moral fiber. But I can’t leave. I can only sit here, helplessly trying my best to vote for equal rights but then I see people are voting for red no matter what is at stake. The party system is trash and it needs to be gone.
Your comment fits me perfectly. Listening to my coworkers discuss the most garbage vitriol and bullshit mental gymnastics to justify they’re beliefs while trying to shoehorn them into their religion. Good times
TBF considering red states want to make my existence illegal and send me to jail for being me(Trans) it does make sense for me to go to a place where I’m not threatened. Pennsylvania is more of a purple state but at least I know they aren’t going to turn on me for some political points.
From a political perspective, moving to purple states (e.g. PA, GA, AZ, NV, NC, WI, MI) makes much more sense than sorting into blue and red states, which would give Republicans disproportionate power at all levels.
These states also have a high cost of living compared to some blue states like NM (Where I moved to from Florida) Besides Florida was a purple state until it was gerrymandered.
Florida is different because so many older, more conservative retirees move to Florida. And they vote. If it wasn’t for that, Florida would probably have been pretty solidly blue at this point.
On the other hand, that has opened up other states for Democrats, e.g. Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Plus it was made the q-anon COVID conspiracy haven. I haven’t seen hard numbers in terms of relocation but I’ve heard tell it’s statistically significant.
Tbh, I prefer to live in a purple state.
I am in a battleground state, in a pretty rural area, filled with a decent amount diversity, including trump crazies.
I feel I’m doing more good here than living in the city.
I like to get down and dirty, pushing.
(Tbf I am a straight white male, so I can totally see getting out of dodge if that wasn’t the case)
I totally respect the stay-and-fight position. Godspeed.
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The wealthy want us to fight a culture war to distract us from the class war we should be having.
.
In any war the only winner is the rich. If the rich lose, then it’s called a revolution instead.
It was the bourgeois that win in France, not the peasants.
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No, the Revolution got rid of the monarchy and neutered the clergy and nobility, but it was an urban revolution of the Parisian middle class, or bourgeoisie. The situation of the peasants changed little through the revolution, and it was persistent efforts of the bourgeoisie to impose Parisian culture on the countryside. It took until WW1 to construct a coherent French nation. Weber (not that Weber) showed that in Peasants into Frenchmen in the 70s.
And Napoleon had family connections in the Italian nobility. His uncle was a cardinal. His father was a lawyer and inherited a fair chunk of change. Napoleon was hardly any sort of peasant.
I think most revolutions just lead to a new ruling class that is just as bad as the old. It didn’t take Stalin long to become just as bad as the Czar. After fighting a war to stop taxation from Britain, one of the first things Washington did was put down a rebellion to enforce a federal tax on whiskey.
The thing is the American revolution wasn’t about taxation itself. The taxation without representation bit was more of a minor component over how society should be organized. The question was whether the inherited aristocratic titles or ownership of land(later means of production) determined your social power. There’s nothing about the ideology of the American revolution that is about the levying of taxes, it is about who gets to collect them.
With the soviets, the problems and successes are significantly more nuanced than “Stalin was bad dictator”(although that is a true statement). Which on one hand makes a lot of western criticism of the USSR questionably true, but also makes the actual issues(which there were) harder to address because they happened not because of one guy being bad.
Taxation was the main reason for the war. Britain had levied some new taxes to recoup the cost of the French and Indian war. It put a significant strain on the economy.
The rich waged wars on democracy since the beginning of European colonization in North America. They’ve been winning steadily, with few losses since the beginning of money in society.
Democracy is good for the oligarchs. Trump is a populist. The oligarchs definitely don’t like him. Even the Koch family is against him.
You’re being down voted, but you’re correct.
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I don’t think so, I think this is actually disastrous for Republicans. You have a number of trends and statistics reducing their voter count and appeal in battleground states. Consolidating their base in safe red states hurts them even further here, and some of the people they drive away are going to settle in swing states instead.
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This also isn’t accurate. There are bright blue cores of red states like Austin in Texas. I doubt that the wealthier republicans are moving to a trailer park in Alabama.
It isn’t smart from a strategic political position, but it’s probably smart from a personal position. Hopefully eventually the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact goes into effect and we don’t have to worry about crap like this.
Even with NPVIC the Senate is going to Senate.
That’s true. That requires something else. It makes the existence of red states less of an issue, though still somewhat of an issue.
Important data to understand, there are fewer blue states than red states. These actions allow for Republicans to gain far more power in Government as the states elect the President and Congress. Democrats are essentially giving Republicans full control of the Federal Government which will be used to erode all progressive laws in blue states.
The only reason some states are red is due to gerrymandering. Blue voters outnumber red voters by a large margin.
This depends on how you define red and blue. If it’s who the state voted for president, then gerrymandering doesn’t impact that
I’m a progressive living in a red state and I would love to leave, but who has the money or connections to just fucking move states? Like who the hell do I know in Washington state? And because the cost of living tends to be higher in blue states, it’s impossible to save enough to move to one of those areas from fucking Arkansas.
I’ve moved a ton all over. I apply for a job in the place I want to move to and move when I’m successful in landing a job.
It might seem impossible but it’s not. Do you live alone? It will be easier to cut costs if you don’t need to convince family.
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The hardest part is saving to leave. Once you land a job elsewhere, the pay should cover the differences in COL.
When one group became openly hostile to multiple populations of people based on things like race and sexuality, it’s no longer ‘voting with your feet’, it becomes ‘go somewhere they’re not gonna shoot my son’
Yeah this article was interesting, but absolutely drenched in both-sides-ism. “I wanna be able to fly a thin blue line flag” doesn’t compare with “I’m LGBTQ and fleeing for my life.”
Thin blue line flags and safe places for trans people can not coexist.
“People want to live where they know their neighbors don’t want to wipe them from the face of the earth. More at 11.”
There is a real threat of harm to various minority groups living in red states. Hell, there’s a real threat of harm to women who can fall pregnant living in red states. I’d certainly not want to live there if my accidentally falling pregnant (which would likely be ectopic in my case) would result in a very high chance of my death.
Exemplified by the fact that we have started having free states again like during the civil war. The Maryland governor has been very clear and direct that the state of Maryland will take in political and social refugees from Florida and Texas. Where transpeople are being forced to die or pretend not to exist in Florida, Maryland is codifying their right to be and live as who they are.
You can’t blame lefties and progressives for wanting to escape to freedom when their other option is death or hiding.
Both sides?
My generally open minded historically liberal friend called me the other day.
He moved to a very conservative area a few years ago, and the other night in a phone call he was saying “I’d feel far safer being a liberal at a Trump rally than wearing a Trump hat at a BLM antifa rally”.
It is very much perceived on the right that the left is a violent mob waiting to burn down your neighborhood at the smallest slight. While the right is a bunch of friendly Sunday school help thy neighbor types.
I tend to lean towards this is all bot farm propaganda trolling, and that only a very small percentage of either side are actually bad people I would want to avoid.
The problem is, this is how people are getting their information now days, and the idea that “Oh that’s just people on the internet” is no longer valid. Social media and algorithmic rage bait driven content are having a very real impact on the “real” world.
Since he is an old friend, I was able to get him to pause for a breath in this talking point fueled screed he was on, and point out “Dude, I just want the same simple things you do, abortion access, religion out of schools and politics, reasonable gun ownership, healthy air/food/water, a strong national defense, etc”.
When one of the first arguments you bring up is the “violance” of drag people reading books to kids, well shit, I just don’t think we’re having the same conversation.
liberal at a Trump rally than wearing a Trump hat at a BLM antifa rally
So in the discussion of red states vs blue states, the ‘both sides’ examples are:
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Trump, a member of the republican party (Red) who rose to presidency as the republican candidate, still has many followers and is part of the republican mainstream
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BLM antifa, fringe movements which have no official part in the democratic party (Blue) and have never held any political power
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I’m sure both sides are actually doing this. It’s just that only one side is actually being persecuted and forced to leave their homes.
It’s such a weird time in the U.S… Also, it might be a better choice to go to a battleground state.
That’s what I did. Moved to AZ, which is a purple state, from CA. I joined a writing group here, and one member is an out gay conservative. No way could he have been that outspoken in a casual writing group in CA, he’d have been chased out.
As someone more on the liberal side of things in general, it’s incredibly refreshing to be able to hold a good-natured conversation with him involved where he didn’t feel worry or concern about discussing his ideas.
We have another lady in the group who writes hardcore far-left poetry, and those are always followed up by great conversations. She’s nice and not condescending to the conservative guy.
I love being in a purple state, I wish more states were battleground states.
I joined a writing group here, and one member is an out gay conservative.
I find it unreal that an LGBTQ person would actually even consider the current Republican Party as a viable option.
How many of them do you talk to though? They certainly exsist, so seeking one out to talk about their experiences and views with might help you understand where they come from, even if you disagree with them.
I know a lot of people in the LGBTQ community. I have yet to meet someone who would vote for a Republican. But I’ll certainly ask about it if I ever meet one.
I’m not surprised. Since the LGBTQ community is fairly political, they’re not very accepting of LGBTQ people who don’t align with them politically. There are lots of LGBTQ people who don’t want to be part of the community because of how rigid it is in that regard.
These are what the LGBT people that I’ve met has said specifically.
Other than that, it’s likely that there are some who lean conservative but don’t speak up about it for fear of being shunned by the community.
The LGBTQ community is being assailed by the GOP at the moment. Literal physical threats. Whatever was left of support for the GOP from that community is quickly dissipating.
I don’t know if you’ve misunderstood, but I’m not a conservative, I just enjoy having political discussions with them, especially when they seem to be a contradiction in today’s world of party-line politics.
I live in a purple state in a rural area, and I HATE it. Not because there are conservatives, but because massive numbers of these conservatives are trembling with fear of the other and if they think that I am on their “side” for whatever reason, they won’t hesitate to say the most ignorant, racist, bigoted shit about “those people” - essentially anyone who isn’t straight and white, while demanding prayer of the exclusively evangelical variety in public meetings. Their world view is so insular that it’s suffocating to be around.
Interesting. I don’t live in a rural area, so maybe that’s why I’m experiencing more of a balance. No one here that I know who are conservative say any of that stuff, and they didn’t say it around me before they knew my political leanings, either.
Americans should stop giving Russian trolls this amount of power. This is clearly being an attack from Russia to destabilize the country, hence Russian bots trying to get Trump elected.
It was discovered as well the Wagner PMC ran a buttload of bot farms that were all over the internet spreading propaganda.
Oklahoma here and am ready to get the fuck out
There are a good number of Okies on here and Mastodon. Welcome!
I actually think Oklahoma is a few years away from a blue tipping point, similar to the effect Denver has had on Colorado, where the urban majority has rapidly tipped things blue.
The awful superintendent is low key the best thing to ever happen to education here—there is a bubbling reaction even within the right to react to him and Stitt’s policies. And turning around education is the only thing needed to stop “blue” families from declining job offers here. Which would cascade the social landscape rapidly.
I hope Stitt opens people’s eyes a bit. Guy is the sludge at the bottom of a sewer pipe.
Northern Michigan is about to have the same temp as Tennessee in the next decade. Blue states won’t be frigid for much longer and red states are about to swim in the humidity. Still, it varies quite heavily more by terrain than by lat/long.
I just escape that jail, moved to California, it’s actually shocking how much nicer it is.
There’s a streep aweaper that comes through the neighborhood once a week, so the streets are extremely clean, and like, the roads are actually well maintained. Just from the like, extremely surface level things.
Transplant now residing in Oklahoma. I wish things would get better. It’s honestly almost an embarrassment to live here.
Funny, I just moved to Oklahoma from Seattle and it’s been a nice change of pace.
Haha actually wanting to move to the washington area.
I wanted to in 2017 when I first went there, it just changed so much while I was there I really wish I could have bailed a year sooner.
But why are all the blue states cold?
My husband and I thought about Arizona, or Virginia to get away from one of the highest CoL areas in the country… but eventually decided to focus on Connecticut instead, because we don’t want to be in a red state. With the exception of CA, none of the liberal states are sunny and all of them are expensive!
Because warm states were better for a slave-based agriculture economy and the liberal/conservative divide (whose relationship to political parties has changed over time) comes, in large part, from cultural differences that emerged before the Civil War.
It’s likely also due to the populations living in southern states, another big part of the population in southern states are those who had jobs in the mining industries or people retiring, the biggest things the republicans are pushing are bringing back mining and making sure that people get to keep their money(such as lower taxes) where as democrats are pushing for a cleaner environment(so miners blame them for losing their jobs), and major infrastructure plans that could take a while to pan out(so people retired see that and don’t want higher taxes as they already got their grain and don’t want to pass it on).
This is an over generalization and there is other major factors but these two groups are significant sections that the republicans are appealing to where as democrats aren’t such. Democrats might be able to get big wins if they could campaign on programs to help mine works get new jobs and revitalize the economies in mine towns and maybe some more programs for people that have retired so they feel they are getting more then what they’re putting in.
That’s dark, but it makes sense.
Because all of the red people are retirement age… 😂
Virginia isn’t really a red state.
It is “blue leaning” but they keep threatening abortion access.
It’s sad how we can’t just talk, and always segregating themselves.
I have a fantasy where DeSantis and his supporters cause Florida to secede, then all the most die-hard evangelicals, fascists and chuds, the worst the republicans have to offer, all flock there to protect their glorious revolution. Then the rest of us can just wall it off and have healthcare, sane governance, green energy, adult discourse, and all the stuff we’re prevented from having because republicans refuse to support anything unless it allows them to be cruel to someone.
You can’t have a fantasy of Florida leaving without also having Texas leave as well.
You could literally solve pretty much all of America’s problems in one fell swoop by eliminating those 2 states.
Yeah but I think enough people from Texas might move to Florida to make it redeemable
Can’t take that chance. Kick them out, then seal up the border so none of whatever shit they are drinking, eating or smoking that is making them crazy, gets into the New United States
You misunderstand, I mean it might make texas redeemable
That ain’t happening!
