This is why I mentioned what I did upthread. Michigan is nominally blue state, except in the last election. Internally we’re a bit conservative, and we have fairly liberal gun laws, given the restrictions of the federal government. For example, we’re a shall-issue state when it comes to concealed carry. Open carry is allowed without special permission.
National politics are not the same as local politics, and assigning character to an entire state based on a winner-take-all presidential election doesn’t really do justice to any state.
Either a college town or new england (well, Vermont. Rural NH or ME isn’t really that good but rural VT is probably fine for you).
In most blue state, if you look at the political maps i is basically blue in the urban areas, red in the rural areas. Vermont and MA are both blue pretty much everywhere, urban and rural. However I assume Vermont has more of a liberal vibe than MA, which can be more racist. Thats my assumption.
To a lot of liberals, the minor inconveniences of gun control or having to pay a deposit when buying cans of soda is worth it to live in a state that doesn’t think climate change is a myth but creationism is a science. Or where people leave you shaking your head at how brainwashed and misinformed they are about civics. Or where people pick terrible ideas that are proven by science to not work or make the problem worse (like abstinence only, or opposing needle sharing) because they’d rather not face reality and would rather pick a terrible idea that makes them feel good but makes problems worse. Living in a blue state at least makes you feel like you are living somewhere where people are grounded in reality and want to use reality to solve important problems. Many red states make you feel like people would rather have superstition and feel good solutions and they can’t distinguish real problems from fake problems. To an outsider looking in, red state america is orwellian in their disconnection from reality. That doesn’t even touch on all the prejudice you can face if you aren’t an insider (If you aren’t a cishet white male christian).
It really does wear you down if you don’t agree with it seeing it happen daily. I’m not trying to denounce people who disagree with me, but it does feel like that and it wears you down.
Pretty much. Red states are much more dependent on federal tax dollars and have much worse quality of life indicators.The red and the black
I happen to be in the third world right now for work and with all the guns and camo, I feel like I’m at in Trumpland.
Wesley, I’d say that for a lot of liberals, gun control isn’t an inconvenience, but another sign that we are living in a community with reasonable, fact based public policies.
My suburb in Minnesota has a serious amount of services and parks that I’m quite sure wouldn’t exist in a red state. There’s a 2,000 acre county park just down the road, partly in my 63,000 pop suburb and partly in the adjacent 52,000 pop suburb. We have about three dozen parks, small lakes managed for panfishing, a public ice rink (mainly for school teams, but can also be reserved) and a waterpark. We also have top notch snow removal in winter and a decent police department not staffed with twitchy assholes. Hell, we have a county magazine that comes out twice a year filled with classes of all kinds that you can take, for different ages, and there’s even a Father-Daughter Princess/Fairy ball in the winter.
I have zero issues with paying my taxes for these kinds of services. This is a great place to live.
I’m pretty disinterested in gun control issues in general - strategically, it probably makes more sense for the Democrats to drop the issue entirely, if they want to do better electorally. But if California’s gun laws are keeping conservatives out of the state, I’m all for them.
Sounds like a strawman. But Orwell’s states sound like he means “libertarian” attitudes, not literally some ultra-orthodox definition of libertarian. For example, Vermont is very, very, blue. But their attitudes don’t necessarily match the national Democratic party, nor the traditional liberal definition. Similarly, Alaska legalized marijuana while California shot it down several times until other states dipped their toes in without any problems.
“Alabama: better than Mississippi”. Of course, that’s every state’s motto.
This is poor statistical evidence if that is your evidence (and it doesn’t appear that the cite is trying to make the same argument). Red states tend to be more rural, and that means more dependent on tax dollars. Delaware is full of financial companies.
The cite includes blue New Mexico, Vermont, Maryland, and Oregon (but go to eastern Oregon) among the “leeches.” Not to mention Puerto Rico. And red Texas, Arkansas, and Georgia among the contributors.
Not all statistics fit stereotypes. Objectively bad Mississippi has the #1 vaccine rate. Crunchy Colorado is #50.
I’m not a red state guy but this is not true at all - there are many places in red state America that are doing fine. Don’t assume that all of red state America is some tornado bait trailer park in rural Arkansas. This is one of the biggest misunderstandings that liberals have about conservatives (and Trump voters)
As for the OP, I am a recovering libertarianish center-right conservative who has become a center-left to solid progressive over the years. I grew up in red state America - I get red states. I just don’t have as much in common with them in anymore. I lived on the West Coast (CA and OR) for about 7 years and really felt that this was my spiritual home (if it makes sense). Moved to the Rust Belt region a few years ago and happen to live in a liberal island within what’s generally a much more conservative region. In the city, I feel like not much is different in terms of people I meet and attitudes they have, but conservative America is a much closer drive than it used to be.
My wife and I sometimes think ahead to the future and consider retirement and places to move to. She’s asked me if I could ever live in the South again and I’m not sure that I could, though I wouldn’t rule it out entirely. I’m not really one to start political discussions on the street anyway so it’s not like I’d be sticking my chin out, holding up Trump sucks placards, and daring a conservative to take a swing at me. But being able to relate to people like your neighbors and coworkers…that does matter. I don’t think I’d be able to stomach hearing people’s conspiracy theories about how healthcare reform is an attempt to turn the country into a totalitarian state, especially when I know that conservatives are far more sympathetic to authoritarianism than I am.
And like Chimera pointed out, there are some things that progressive governments are willing to do for their communities that just make them more livable. I’d rather live in a state that sees more value in educating people and giving them good housing and medical care, as opposed to just locking them up. I’d rather live in a community that funds higher education and job training over new sports stadiums for pro teams that might leave in 10 years anyway.
Characterizing Grinnell, Iowa as “ultra-liberal” is a stretch. Town-gown tensions were evident when I was there decades ago, and matters apparently haven’t changed much. For instance, in 2016 only one of four election districts in the town went for Clinton (overall Grinnell voted for Trump, but very narrowly because of the overwhelming Clinton sentiment in that one district, where I suspect a lot of faculty live). The county (Poweshiek) itself went for Trump as well.
As for Oberlin, you’d be on a small blue island, seeing that the surrounding county (Lorain) also went for Trump.
The OP may be misstated, in that what discontented red state liberals might really want is to assure themselves of living in a “free” large city on the East or West coasts, which are bound to be sanctuaries for the unhappy Left.
As for parks, the Twin Cities indeed are generally rated highly for their park system. So is Cincinnati, which is not exactly a blue bastion and a place I wouldn’t want to live based on other factors.
1> I live in a suburb and stated as much. So your comment is unnecessary.
2> I didn’t say you didn’t. I pointed out that we have a LOT of them and that they aren’t just land with a bench, but have things going on there.
Tennessee is even worse now then it was then; but living in Nashville does make a big difference - probably just like living in any blue city in a red desert (Austin comes to mind).
It wasn’t the citizens so much. It was more of a pissing contest between the past governor McCrory and Charlotte, the city in which he was once mayor. The issue has largely died. Not everything is a trample on minority rights. Sometimes it’s just stupid political saber banging.
