The south gets made fun of for its backwardness, but let’s be real, most of the Midwest isn’t much better.
Like, outside of Minneapolis, Detroit, and Chicago, the Midwest is as red as it gets.
You’ve never heard the phrase “flyover country” used dismissively?
The Midwest is better at hiding the blatant racism.
The Midwest didn’t lose a civil war.
It’s just not interesting enough to evoke any strong emotions.
The mid-west is hopelessly red, while the south there are possibilities for purple and blue. Hence, more attention and arguments and mocking and humiliation among parties discussing the south.
That, and the whole confederacy thing.
Isn’t that true for pretty much most states? Urban=Blue Rural=Red
Exactly right. St. Louis voted 80% Democratic in the 2020 election. Kansas City was somewhere around 60-65%. Even Des Moines was about 55% blue, as was Omaha.
Wisconsin still has a tradition of rural folks voting for democrats, most notably in the southwest section of the state. We still remember the Progressive presidential candidate “Battling Bob” LaFollette in these parts, and a good chunk of the state was settled by german socialists.
It’s diminished in recent years but not gone. And it’s helped carry the state for Democrats both for the presidential vote and for the Senate seats at times. I do fear for it though.
Whenever I travel and I tell someone I am from Ohio, they always give me this look:
I kind of hate how over-genralized the mid-west is. I really think the great lakes - including two fo the cities you mentioned - were considered to be their own geographic region because they really don’t have much in common with what people think of as “midwest”
When I tell people I grew up around Cleveland, they always dismissively talk about the midwest and they’re basically talking about Nebraska or other parts of the great plains when they do. It’s very annoying. Cleveland (and most of the Great Lakes region, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, etc.) are nothing like Nebraska.
I actually kind of disagree with your take. I hear people bashing the midwest all the time and the south not enough, and they treat the midwest a) inaccurately, they’re generally talking about the rural great plains type of culture when they mention it, and b) as if it’s the same/worse than the south, which not even the worst parts of it are.
I am really fucking sick of people talking about my home town as though it were the great plains. We were originally part of Connecticut, motherfuckers!
The mid-west is not where you think it is.
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, all blue. You’re probably thinking more of the great plains when you think of “midwest” as a lot of people seem to. And by some definitions some of the great plains is the midwest, but so is most of the great lakes region which is not a red stronghold.
Really, mid-west is archaic, it referred to unoccupied territories that were being expanded into in like the 1700s. It has almost no cultural significance, it’s just sort of shorthand for “boring middle America” by people, and they’re really thinking more about the great plains when they use it that way.
To be fair, while Wisconsin and Michigan both went for Biden in 2020, they are effectively purple states – Biden’s victory margins in those states was slim, and they both went for Trump in 2016 (also by slim margins). In addition, while both states currently have Democratic governors, they both replaced Republican governors in the last election, and both states have Republican-controlled legislatures.
It’s only recently that Iowa was so reliably red. Indiana voted for Obama (at least once), Ohio used to be a swing state, Wisconsin only got much redder after that one governor was elected – before that, they were pretty swingy, and still are at the presidential level.
Plus, the whole Jim Crow and confederate flag thing that the South has.
Actually, it’s pretty close to where I imagined it (altho, definitions do vary):
Granted, some of them are blue but most of them are red.
Gerrymandering helped ensure the pubbies retain hold of the legislature. Wisconsin voters vote more for democratic candidates for legislative office than republican ones but given the district-riggings, Republicans keep control of state legislature AND the WI representatives to the US House.
8 of the 12 voted for Trump. 62 electoral votes.
4 voted for Biden. 56 electoral votes.
I thought Ohio had great spring break parties. I’ve never been though, and I’m way too old now.
To the OP, I don’t think anyone should “hate” a region. You hate the people! 
Specifically, you should hate only the idiots, since there’s lots of sane people in the midwest. Just, apparently, not enough to keep the Senate away from the Republican Party.
Being a card carrying Coastal Elite (did you know we have cards now?), I was kinda gobsmacked when I finally visited the upper Midwest, land of my longmothers. First of all, it is truly beautiful, if you find farmland beautiful, which I do. Driving from the west, Nebraska is where it changes from rangeland to farmland. Midwestern conservatism (we aren’t talking about the new trumpo-fascism, but historically), is more akin to New England tight-lipped rock ribbed conservatism that it is to the slave-owning South or hillbilly Appalachia. There’s a migration/settlement wave that went from New England through the upper Midwest, all the way to Oregon, and the politics still reflect that.
There are many small, long-established liberal arts colleges sprinkled around up there (Beloit, St.Olaf’s, etc.), and the industrial cities once furnished a strong Democratic voting bloc, until globalization gutted them. I would be happy to live in Wisconsin, for example.
Trumpism aside, if you think it’s not fair for the Midwest to avoid a good hate-on while the South still gets it, there’s plenty of fuel for all.
Us Baby boomers got our image of the South from the Civil Rights era, reinforced periodically right up through the Confederate. flag bullshit and Dylan Roof. But at least once, the good people of every Midwest state except South Dakota and Wisconsin saw fit to kill a Black man rather than allow for due process.
My parents worked in the Civil Rights movement in a small town in Illinois, and those kids who swarmed me on the playground and called me a nigger-lover didn’t drive up from Alabama. I doubt the grown men who entered our house and held a shotgun to my dad’s head had, either. Afterward, my parents told us we shouldn’t hate them. I did, anyway.
Some people were surprised that George Floyd was killed in “Minnesota Nice” Minneapolis. The outrage was understandable, but not the surprise. Despite any and all the animosity and legacy between them, when Black and white Southerners look at each other, they still see Southerners. White Midwesterners don’t see African Americans as having Midwestern identities.
Then there’s the gay thing. Why is there an archetype of a Southern gay guy: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Glen Shadix, etc. Homophobia aside, there can’t be an archetype where there is no level of acknowledgement. Besides Willa Cather, there is no Midwestern gay or lesbian cultural tradition.
While the South cultivates its eccentrics, the Midwest removes them like a farmer picking rocks in the Spring. The legacy they’ve built is factory and farm and all else is bullshit.
Trump found different weaknesses to exploit in different people. In Midwestern smugness the grifter saw where to sink his hook.