“Good ole boy”
My only objection to that otherwise well put statement is that you can’t be an “occupied territory” because occupation is against the will of the people being occupied. Those “real nasty fuckers” were ELECTED by the people. THEY are responsible for putting them in power and, even worse, keeping them in power even after they have shown themselves to be, beyond even a shadow of a doubt, to be “real nasty fuckers”.
Oh–in the spirit of “No True Southerner,” lemme tell you what I discovered a few months back.
When you make your cheese grits, add one or all of the following:
- Cumin
- Turmeric
- Chili Powder
- Garlic Powder
- Garam Masala
It’s fucking delicious.
Are you missing the part about voter suppression? Here in NC, gerrymandering has been raised to a technical triumph. In more than one election we’ve elected majority Republicans despite the majority of votes being cast for Democrats–and between felons losing their votes, changes to laws to make voting harder, and straight up intimidation and voter fraud, I stand by what I said about an occupied territory.
Isn’t that half her posts?
Our system of government is designed to withstand sudden changes with minimal institutional damage, but those same systems become iron-clad strangleholds once gerrymandering and voter suppression become entrenched. You can’t underestimate how effectively progressive change can be pushed off.
Even when Florida managed to pass Amendment 4, which would have ended one of the last and worst Jim Crow-era disenfranchisement laws left, the deep red legislature shrugged and ‘implemented’ it in a way that completely neutralized it.
I tend to agree that “occupied territory” overstates the case. Most southern states elected solid Republican majorities under the same voting laws that had entrenched Democratic majorities for decades. The rise of Republicans to power was not imposed from without. You clearly see Republicans now attempting to rewrite voting laws to hold onto their power, but they generally got there fair and square.
I use red pepper flakes or hot sauce. Mmmmm-mmmmm good.
bolding mine
Interesting, but I’d argue that eating grits at all makes one a Southerner, no matter what else you do to them (butter, salt, and pepper are usually sufficient for me, but some chili powder does sound good).
I think I’ve been to that part of Alabama.
Absolutely–I’m just playing with Southern stereotypes a little. Are they still grits if they’re bright yellow and full of coriander?
On the tangent, grits are such a lovely mild base that they take really well to different spices, and I’d love to find some other tasty combinations for them.
Bashing geographical regions is too scattershot. Defending them is also fairly ridiculous, but we’re a tribal species. It’s like raging about boomers or millennials…yes, they all got together and…
Is West Virginia a southern state? Because that place sucks most of all.
No, then they’re polenta.
Yes, our politicians turn my stomach. We had Jesse Helms pulling us down to Neanderthal level for half a century, and our last Republican governor lost us millions in revenue when athletic tournaments and and major artists pulled out because of his ridiculous public restroom policies.
Our Democrats aren’t much better. John Edwards fooled around on his wife and fathered a child while she was dying of cancer.
Yet despite all this, we have RTP, considered the Silicon Valley of the east. Apple recently opened a campus in Apex, and I don’t care what that Philistine said upthread, our BBQ is awesome!
You do realize that the parties switched positions, and that the forces that entrenched those Democratic electoral wins in the past are the same forces doing their best to entrench Republican electoral wins now?
Like our esteemed 
former governor Rick Perry, who ran as a Democrat earlier in his political career, only to switch parties when it became more convenient.
Even though the ads creators have expressly stated that these ads are for “an audience of one”, and that they place them on fox news affiliates where Trump lives for the purpose of goading him into making idiotic and pathetic statements…
Trump goes ahead and watches the ads and then makes idiotic and pathetic statements. He can’t help himself, even when he must KNOW that he’s just dancing like a trained bear on command.
I hold no brief for cheating on one’s dying wife, but I really don’t think that personal lapses in marital ethics are comparable to sabotaging democracy for the sake of personal and partisan power.
You give the man too much credit. All he knows is people are being mean to him – the President of the United States – for no discernible reason.
Edwards was a vice-presidential candidate whose “personal lapse in marital ethics” would have looked really bad for democracy if he was elected. If he’s willing to let his wife die for the sake of nookie, who knows how much graft he would have accepted being one heartbeat away from the presidency?
Democrat Cal Cunningham could have defeated Republican Thom Tillis for senate if news of his dalliance with a married woman who was not his wife hadn’t come up before the election. If it wasn’t for this “personal lapse in marital ethics,” Democrats would outnumber Republicans in the US Senate. If NC Democrats had thought with their brains instead of their dicks, the whole party would have been more firmly in control of national power today.