if living in russia taught me anything, people in distress reduce themselves (and got reduced) to the most basic questions, like who is to blame, and populists have them like a piece of cake.
Most vatniks, not unlike MAGAs, don’t have answers to many questions, they want to be left alone to manage the hole they happened to be born into, and the promise of a candidate or ideology that does just that or even paints their quest as a herioic one, or a sacred sacrifice, would win again and again until there is someone to work with that and educate them.
They are used to live in shit and depend on themselves, don’t know anything better and become pretty jealous if others get that. Others having it worse, especially their ‘enemies’, kinda makes their own living more bearable. Their struggle is a downpainment for a mission of punishing the unworthy ones.
When a person is downscaled to that childish level of consciousness it’s impossible to reach them with rhetorics that don’t directly benefit them.
As long as they continue to be like that and their thoughts are unchallenged, they’d always vote maga.
Really well said
Massachusetts is also 4th in the country for states with the most people leaving to live elsewhere.
No doubt due to cost of living because Massachusetts is ridiculously expensive. The friends I have there are either leaving or totally resigned to not owning a house or ever retiring. Comparing a historically important coastal population center to a historically poor and strategically insignificant flyover state doesn’t prove much.
The states with highest domestic emigration (e.g. people voting with their feet to leave) are overwhelmingly left leaning. (Except for Louisiana and Ohio)
So progressive places make a place so desirable to live in that people are willing to compete with each other for the experience.
“Why are blue states always so expensive?!”. It’s supply and demand. High demand to live someplace makes it expensive.
My million dollar house is worth as much as it is because of its located near high paying jobs, good school, and good neighbors. It’s expensive to live where I live because lots of people want to live here.
Wasn’t Oklahoma supposed to be given back to the native tribes? Like more than 50% of it?
Oklahoma was built on genocide. Is it any wonder those that govern it are garbage people.
I crisscrossed Oklahoma on one of my cross-country trips, the state absolutely sucks and they even know it that’s why you can legally drive like 80mph through the whole thing.
Sadly Mass is also close to #1 in terms of cost of living.
I like it here but I don’t like what it costs.
Oh no! #1 in cost of living and #1 in quality if life? And among the lowest poverty?
Do people really just need social support to thrive? No way! It’s gotta be stuff! Cheap stuff! That’s what life’s all about!
No arguments from me, that’s why I don’t want to live anywhere else.
It does sting a bit to be stuck living with high rent in an apartment when my income would allow me to buy a decent house in another part of the country. But then I likely wouldn’t have this income in other parts of the country, either.
When I moved back to the US from China, I immediately had health insurance thanks to Masshealth. Helped me have peace of mind while I was searching for a job back here. And now I get to work for an organization that helps other people land on their feet when big life changes happen, which is easier to do here than elsewhere.
It’s pretty difficult to find anywhere in the US currently that has good jobs, good entertainment and restaurants, access to healthcare, good schools, and isn’t expensive. Sure, you can get a house cheaper in rural Kansas or something but then you have to live in rural Kansas.
Very well said. I live in the other state from the meme and I’m broke af. I could be living in a better state and still be broke af but getting things from my taxes rather than them being used to put Bibles in schools.
What’s the wealth inequality metric for them?
Well, all it does is drive up the cost for the working class who live there who are then forced to move out.
If you were born there, that does indeed suck. If you bought your way in there, it’s a win. If you were born there and can afford to keep living there, also a win
Education, healthcare and quality of life aren’t cheap. Want cheap? Go to Oklahoma.
I have also thought that before I moved from Mass to Oregon. Just my experience of course, but my state taxes increases 2x and everything seemed to be more expensive.
I moved from CA to NC and the taxes were absolutely worse.
I love the “Have you actually considered that the state doing the worst under consistent Republican policy is voting because they’re unhappy with the DEMONRAT status quo???”
They really don’t give a shit about consistency in their arguments. People have or lack responsibility for their moral and political choices according to whatever suits their “LIBERALS BAD” talking point of the day.
Republicans have had a vice grip on our state and local politics for 40 years…BUT ITS THE LIBRULS FAULT
That would make sense if Oklahoma hadn’t voted that way every time regardless of who the previous president was. But I mean, conservatives are pretty good at inverting their arguments. So I’m sure when Bush left office, they voted for Romney because they were so happy with how the Bush admin went. But when Obama left, they voted for Trump because they were so unhappy with how the Obama administration went. Simple!
Time is a circle.
First in education, clearly that means education makes you lib’ral, and gay! And trans!
Oklahoma has much bigger numbers in the rankings there. USA! USA!
West Virginia also voted straight red, I believe
Holy crap, they did.
I spent a lot of my life there and boy oh boy.
I hear it’s nicer up north, but I couldn’t afford to go anywhere and check it out. It is WILD where I came from.
I can only imagine lmao. I’m an okie currently, so I may have some idea, what with our state mineral being meth.
I’ve only ever heard stories and seen one documentary (The Wild and Wondeful Whites of West Virginia) from out of WV but it sounds…different out there, even compared to OK, haha.
And the people of both states will continues to be ordered like this irregardless of which party is in power. Funny, huh?
MA law doesn’t force insurance providers to cover gender-affirming hair electrolysis, so most don’t. Trans women with facial hair and cis women suffering from hirsutism are all expected to live with their beards and hairy shoulders.
Washington, Oregon, California and other states have laws on the books making it illegal for medical insurance providers to deny coverage of treatment for these conditions.
MA doesn’t get to do victory laps for its progressive bone fides until it gets with the program and takes care of its women.
“Its not exactly what I want so it sucks” is never a useful take for anything.
Agreed. It’s a good thing that “no victory laps yet” is not the same as “it sucks”.
“No victory laps yet” means “the work isn’t done yet.” You only get what you demand and are willing to fight for.
Yeah, fuck those Oklahomans! Those idiots deserve to suffer and struggle.
That’s not the message to take from this.
Oh? What is?
You reap what you sow.
Some might say that makes you deserving of it, and others might disagree. But the apparent causal relationship exists outside of moral judgments.
That red states are shittier than blue states. An objectively true fact.
Even other red states say this shit about redder states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_God_for_Mississippi
I know. How does that make my comment wrong?
We generally don’t hate people from red states, I’m in Oregon. We see them like a kid that won’t stop touching a hot stove. It’s more a disappointment than a “fuck em”.
Like maybe they are just stupid?
Apparently you’ve never had people tell you that you don’t matter because you’re from a red state. I’m trans, stuck in a red state, and get to have people tell me I deserve what the state is doing to me and my trans siblings because we were born here.
Obviously Texas wouldn’t be so red if we would just vote for Democrats, right? Therefore, we must be part of the problem! As long as one person votes blue then that cancels out all the red votes so we really have no one to blame but ourselves!
I voted blue. Fuck you.
Apparently you’ve never had people tell you that you don’t matter because you’re from a red state. I’m trans, stuck in a red state, and get to have people tell me I deserve what the state is doing to me and my trans siblings because we were born here.
Girl, that is absolutely bullshit, I am so sorry to hear that. I have family in both Alberta and Saskatchewan (Canada’s blindly right-wing provinces) and it is brutal if you’re not white, male, and hetero. Even moreso if you’re visually not one of those things, and you’re in a rural area.
One of my kids is trans, and we’re about to get a Con federal government, so we’re pretty worried for her. Who knows what care will be removed when Canada’s Trump Loving Party takes over (the Conservatives are looking like they’ll get a majority).
(For anyone who doesn’t know our parties, that’s the Federal Liberal Party (Centre/Centre-Left Wing), Conservative Party of Canada (Right Wing), New Democratic Party (Centre-Left/Left Wing), Bloc Québécois (far tougher to describe. They swing from Right to Left Wing.)
Could you share more about your trans siblings? I had understood that being transgender was relatively uncommon, and I realize there may be genetic or other factors involved. It’s new to me that multiple members of a family might identify this way, and I’d love to learn more if you’re open to sharing. Thanks!
Individual responsibility, bootstraps, etc.
Maybe. How many times does a kid have to burn himself on a hot stove before we accept that he’s just stupid and a lost cause?
Never. But we can still be disappointed. Not everyone in red states sucks, the majority of them seem to though.
Why you have to call them stupid?
Gestures broadly
That the states that consistently vote Republican are also consistently among the states with the worst quality of life, and that there’s a correlation between the two.
That Republicans don’t actually care about Americans.
That they keep voting for people who “love the working class” and who “have great economic policy” but every classically Republican state is a fucking shithole that constantly needs money from blue states to stay barely afloat.
It’s yet more evidence that the GOP don’t have any interest and/or ability to properly run a country. All their ideas fucking suck and everything they touch is worse for it, and their base needs to realize this. Also educated or not it’s so insanely obvious these days just how bad shit is and whose at fault but us North Americans(I’m Canadian, same problems here but more boring) can’t stop but chase the right when the center falters. At this point people should be mocked, this shit’s inexcusable in ways it wasn’t as much even only 10-15 years ago.
At this point people should be mocked…
That’s what I did.
Mocked, yes, but saying they deserve to suffer…I dunno honestly yea I kinda agree but I’m trying to take something more productive from the data.
Mocked, yes, but saying they deserve to suffer…
Well, is it not true?
Do you think it’s true?
That red states vote against their own interests. They have massive needs and lag on many wellness metrics, yet consistently vote for politicians who are happy to keep them that way via the policy they enact
Exactly. They’re idiots and they deserve what they get.
Man you seem pretty happy about it, almost like you want your country to suffer.
Every Oklahoman I have ever met would agree with this statement unironically
Blue-voting Oklahoman here!
…yepI feel called out.
I dont want my blue friends to suffer, but yeah i deserve to suffer for being born here.
I can’t believe they would vote for a different candidate after suffering under the current candidate! FOOOLSS!!!
So wait, the poor and the hopeless, looking for some kind of help, voted unanimously for TRUMP, and those happy with their current conditions and wanting no change voted for Harris.
I think we are interpreting this correlation in two different ways.
The demon buer sees it as:
bad living standards → vote republican
(because in this election the selling point of the republicans was the economy(/+immigration (because they also partly blame immigrants for the economic problems)), while for the democrats it was the the “protection of democracy” (which isn’t really the biggest concern of someone struggling to pay their bills (or also not desired if that democracy got them to where they are now)))
others are seeing it as
vote republican → bad living standards
(because if republicans are no good, and if a state has been consistently voting republican in the last years of the state’s local elections, then the state also won’t be no good)
(the arrow means “causes”)
(not directly directed at anyone, besides everyone who reads this post: ) Just because there’s a correlation we, can’t say in which direction the causation goes, if there is one.
You know, folks are giving you a lot of unnecessary shit for this comment. And I get that when viewed with sufficient context and cultural awareness of American politics, the meme clearly implies at least a correlation between voting blue and an improved quality of life. (edit: which mind you I do believe exists, at least in so far as it compares to voting red)
But I also saw it and thought, “this meme could easily be interpreted by MAGA cultists to justify their vote for Trump”. They would of course be wrong, but with the isolated set of data provided by the meme, it really doesn’t only imply what it thinks it implies.
I like how you put “trump” in all-caps bold to help us better recognize that you are on TEAM RAPIST.
Also, the state that always votes blue is happy with their situation, and the state that always votes red is begging for change. You really can’t figure out how each state got into their respective positions?
Perhaps the state that wants change should try voting for someone other than a Republican every single election.
They never said they voted for him. They pointed out that the living conditions in the red state are worse, and the chose to vote for Trump. Presumably under some kind of belief that he will ameliorate those conditions.
Before you tell me he won’t, I know that he won’t. They don’t know that though. And they have gigantic right wing echo chambers telling them all about how he will.
Just because the person you are replying to has a different opinion about how people vote, doesn’t mean they are a trump supporter.
I don’t think this person is your enemy.
You think a rich nepo baby wants to help working class Americans instead of himself and his rich friends? LOL
The maps were identical in 2020 (following a republican administration):
And 2008 (following a republican administration):
Once you get back to pre-social media era internet, you begin to see Oklahoma have shades of blue.
Perhaps we could collaborate on this.
Now that I have pulled Oklahoma’s electoral results going back to 1988, now you can pull Oklahoma’s education results going back over the same period of time and we can see if there is, in fact, a correlation between the quality of education (overall education rankings) and how the state votes in presidential elections.
I suspect that it was not purely the quality of education which influenced the “red shift”. I would bet that the lower-quality of education made the influence of social media more effective for those targeting the less educated to adopt a conservative political position.
Just share your findings here and we can work together.
Well done. I’ll leave my response up, but I’ll admit that the Massachusetts/Oklahoma example is a bad one to make the case that Trump was the populist in this election and Harris was a vote for the conservative “no change” position.
Ah yes, of course, Kamala was the more conservative option in the last election. Donald Trump is also an actual populist that cares about you. You are very smart. /s
maybe youre just completely unfamiliar with the word “conservative”. those red states dont want change. they want to conserve their regressive stance.
I think it’s pretty clear that the current Republican party is fundamentally different than the one of 15 years ago. Whether they consider themselves conservative or not, they are the party that is promising change from the status quo.
The parties have clearly changed roles with respect to manual laborers. The blue wall doesn’t exist anymore because of this. What it all means, I have no idea, but we need to update our mental model of the two parties. Their demographic have fundamentally changed.
One state has consistently voted for democrats and one consistently votes for leopards. It isn’t really surprising that the state consistently putting leopards in power is unhappy with their current situation.
Oklahoma has voted for Republican presidential candidates all but once since 1952 (in 1964), with the Democratic candidate having failed to pick up a single county in the state in all elections since 2004
History. What you obviously weren’t taught.
You must be from Oklahoma.
Conservative =/= Status quo
Conservative = Regressive
The states that consistently vote Republican are also consistently amongst the worst states for quality of life. There’s a correlation there.
They also consistently take more money from the federal government than they provide.
I see the ones under republican state leadership, clamoring for change, yet in reality voting for the same assholes that govern them into the ground? Not sure how you’re not seeing that, though I imagine it’s willful
theres a reason education goes out the windows in red states… otherwise they might understand theyre voting against their own best interests.
its a priority to keep them stupid to stay red
it is. racism and hate go a long ways.
this might just be the dumbest thing i’ve ever read
Way to tell on yourself about your lack of education.
