I agree it's not great, but red states are actively persecuting minorities. Why would a minority willingly stay in a red state at this point? And if you're an ally or liberal or whatever and see what's happening clearly, why would you stay and be a part of it?
Polarization is the logical outcome of Republican policies.
It’s an interesting dilemma. As one example, I feel a tinge of regret that two blue votes are leaving Texas when my partner and I leave. On the other, which of us are obligated to stay and sacrifice personal security or comfort for an uncertain political “battle”?
Honestly? We should cut them off.
All these red states rely on blue states for their money. They literally couldn't afford to have roads and schools if it wasn't for federal funding paid for by states with healthier economies and more liberal policies (no coincidence).
So let's take their fucking money. They want to drive the country into the dirt? Let them pay their own way and we'll sit in our relatively progressive bubbles until they realize they do, in fact, need us.
100% agreed, not sure why we're subsidizing an entire third world country stapled to America that wants to drag us back to the dark ages and use our own money to do so.
I've contacted my state level Democratic party representatives! You should too! If enough people bring the idea forward, maybe they'll use it!
Seeing the real harm caused by recent legislation in states like Florida, I'm not convinced this effect isn't mostly women and POC actively fleeing red states.
Yeah, I'm fleeing Florida with my partner because we're not safe here anymore. I'm riding out the lease here while she finds a place out of state where she can get her hormones and we won't get hate crimed. ffs, I'd been to Pulse the week before the shooting and the sociopolitical climate has only gotten worse with the current legislation.
We're trying to get my s/o and her kid out of Florida but her ex husband is kind of a shitbag and purposefully avoiding family court to keep her locked there. It's straight up awful. We're already on a like 10 month wait for this process.
There's also a really good chance she gets locked there for custody for the next decade. Which sucks because she absolutely needs medical care for her bits and bobs and Florida is actively fighting her on it because they're close to abortions in their nature. Several doctors giving her the run around for endo treatment and such.
All the best to both of you, it's a shit situation all around. I was incredibly fortunate to be able to find a doctor willing to give me a hysterectomy; she says the number of those surgeries have skyrocketed (bisalps/tubals too) because none of us are sure just how much worse this is going to get.
I'm planning on moving my family out of Texas. It's not safe to be a woman here and I can't put my kids through public education that is being systematically dismantled by underfunding, book bans, and restrictive curriculum.
And bullets.
The new kind of lead poisoning
Had to escape Florida for the safety of my partner and myself. She couldn't even get her hormones anymore.
Yeah, it’s wrong to frame it is a “can’t we all get along thing”. People are moving for health, safety and general well-being.
And red states are also the ones suppressing blue votes as well. That's the only reason GOP win any presidential elections, or probably federal elections in general.
Conservatives want to eradicate anyone that isn't Straight, White, and Christian, so why would I ever move to a red state if I'm not in that group?
Right? I just want to live around people I’m not certain would shoot me if there were no consequences.
I feel like I will be forced to move out of my state if they manage to pass the proposed anti-transgender laws. 😔
Move if you must to protect your safety and life. You are a precious valued member of society, and don’t let anyone tell you different.
Thanks. Luckily I work in Massachusetts, which will hopefully continue to be a trans friendly state. So, i am planning to move there when i can.
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.
This offhand comment that was quoted in the article is really unsettling:
“Here, the tax dollars naturally goes to the citizens, not the immigrants,”
This isn't a conservative vs liberal policy thing, this is more insidious. This person's worldview subconsciously classes "citizens" and "immigrants" as mutually exclusive groups. There's "us, who were here before and belong here", and "them, who came here from somewhere else and shouldn't receive the benefits of our government". It seems like it wasn't long ago that the dominant left-vs-right conversations I observed were mostly discussions about economic and foreign policy where both sides had reasonable points and compromise was possible, but this isn't that. This ideological divide built on religion, xenophobia, nationalism, etc. can't end well.
It won't. Sometimes it feels like some people have been reading certain dystopian science fiction and alternate history novels and stories as if they were a blueprint instead of a warning.
At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus.
"Us vs. Them" has been standard-issue fascism for a long time.
It is a real shitty time to be a gun loving transgender anarchist...feels like there is nowhere for me to go.
This is by no means to compete but to add, I'm an autistic adult and I don't feel welcome anywhere. Living in the bible belt
I'm in MTG's district, the thought has definitely crossed my mind to leave. But this is my home, and it's going to have to take something truly horrific for me to leave. Honestly, I feel that a situation like that is inevitable at this point, but I'm staying put until I can't.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the US will break up like the USSR in my lifetime.
It's going to be messy, and there's going to be some serious consequences for certain states that wanted to control their own laws based on Church/Hate despite being completely unable to go it alone economically.
It’s gonna be that or fascism for everyone, so I’ll take the messy breakup.
Splitting us up is the goal, divide and conquer. It's one thing to hate your queer neighbor, it's so much worse when you can point to another geographic region of "queers coming to harm your children" that military force can be used against. The separation is for two reasons, one is to help hold on to senate power by getting blue voters out to make sure red states don't turn blue or purple, the other I think is to prepare for war and make war more likely, separating the sides. Civil war is hard when everyone is mixed up.
We've seen what "conservatives' do when they have power, they literally owned other humans, chattel slavery. We've seen what the goals of the military industrial complex (arguably the most powerful industry), more war,everywhere. Giving these groups the benefit of the doubt is dumb and will lead to real bad things.
No one really wants a civil war. People are too comfy for that. Something will shift and people will realize they are being manipulated. The anger will just burn out eventually.
Nobody wants a war? A good 15% of the US population is seething to use their guns against gays or liberals.
I don't believe that. People that say that are just LARPing. People in general are good. They don't sit around in extreme states of anger all day every day. Something has to trigger and feed the hatred. Eventually the fuel for it will stop working.
What evidence would it take to change your mind? What makes Americans more likely to be good than people who participated in authoritarian atrocities historically? Where is your confidence that things will be fine coming from?
I don't know that they're actually ready to pick up a gun, but I've definitely seen that hate in people's faces. There are some people who flip a switch in their brains the moment they see me and instantly go into anger mode.
I'm pretty good at diffusing it in some people and avoiding it in others, but it's 100% there. And powerful people are doing their absolute best to cause it to spread.
Wanting civil war isn’t the question. The question is, what do we do when the right manipulates the system to give itself perpetual, absolute power? Give up? Fight? Leave? Leave and fight? Not many people want civil war because it’s not obvious to them yet that the alternative is worse. Give it time.
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