“One thing we have really found is a place to feel comfortable being ourselves,” Dean said. Americans are segregating by their politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history.
One party controls the entire legislature in all but two states. In 28 states, the party in control has a supermajority in at least one legislative chamber — which means the majority party has so many lawmakers that they can override a governor’s veto. Not that that would be necessary in most cases, as only 10 states have governors of different parties than the one that controls the legislature
This can only end badly as conservatives seem to have no problem ruling over land in empty states.
The problem is that the real divide still is urban vs rural, not state v state. I always lived in red states and am very leftist. There’s always strong leftist communities in every red state, even in small cities. Every state is less than 10% off from true purple last I checked.
People know that. But power isn’t divided that way. So when people look to alternatives to federal power, they usually look to the existing political infrastructure of states, not, for instance, less-organized/-powerful counties.
Yeah, the urban/rural divide is awful, so now the question, how does that get addressed?
Democrats need to offer financial incentives to help bring back jobs to rural areas. There needs to be something to counteract republicans using Christian out as a means to get votes. Until that happens you want see the left winning anything in rural areas. It sucks but the democrat platform tends to heavily favor cities.
We also need to figure out how to get people to stop choosing the worst possible reponses to crises all the fucking time. “Oh wages are stagnating? I want to commit genocide against trans people now! THIS MAKES PERFECT SENSE AND I AM A GOOD FACTS AND LOGIC BOY!!1!” ~Strawberry
Let’s be honest, they are not choosing that. Interest groups and their leaders are and it’s being disseminated to the populace through their mass media arms. Their voters have been conditioned to accept only the most extreme and conservative view because of a lack of opposing viewpoint that comes from their own communities. Democrats are always seen as the Other in rural areas largely because of the rural/urban divide and the fact the Democrats do not market their platform to rural voters. Even when they run candidates here it’s very rarely they actually run on how to improve people’s lives here.
A lack of an immediately presented opposing viewpoint doesn’t automatically force someone to become a genocidal fascist. They could look for something else. They could come up with something else. They could tell the fascist to fuck off while they wait. Not knowing what to do doesn’t magically turn someone into a fascist just because a fascist scumbag happened to grace their Facebook timeline first. ~Strawberry
I don’t think you will ever convince the ones voting for those policies. You need to convince the ones not voting that candidates actually care for their well being and inspire them to believe their vote matters. Our voter turnout remains low because most feel their vote doesn’t matter.
How can you compete with an echo-chamber of lies?
Ignoring their economic issues is not an option. Republicans run unopposed in many rural areas because there is no counter to their platform.
How do we set one up? And how do we get people to stop responding to crises by rushing over to the first dipshit that says genocide is the best response? Why was that the response for many people??? ~Strawberry
I honestly think the infrastructure bill is the message that needs to be pounded into their ears. So many rural areas are absolutely crumbling from an infrastructure perspective. Literally everything is old, crumbling, and jobs are leaving. Democrats need to point out where the money for projects came from and where the new jobs came from. Then build off that. Representatives always have to run off of constituents saying, what have you done for me lately? Show them and plan for their future, cause the republicans don’t have anything but identity politics.
Of course, but we also need to convince people to stop defaulting to horrible bullshit that has nothing to do with solving the root causes of the ongoing crises in response to said crises just because some fascist scumbag happened to end up on their TV or Faceboom timeline first. And also do something about the fascist scumbags. ~Strawberry
I can see how a platform built on internet access to rural areas could really negate the need for local jobs. You could be educated online and work remote jobs from anywhere. A lot of tech people are moving to rural areas for this reason. Unfortunately I don’t think rural people are very interested in that kind of work, but their children are.
Why can’t we admit rual areas are a failure and get people closer to where they work and what they provide?
Farms have been living on government hand outs for decades. It’s just unfair to act like rural areas arent ALREADY taking more than they give.
Rural America is a failed state.