6 ms·

I don't mind elaborating. I need to know which parts of the American voting record concerns you to be specific though. I will say that America is very diverse.

I don't mind elaborating. I need to know which parts of the American voting record concerns you to be specific though. I will say that America is very diverse. Various states and postal codes have wildly different attitudes about things and very few Americans want to change or homogenize that.

piva00 9y ago
For instance: I know that Texas is a red state but was quite surprised to find out that the largest urban centres are actually blue. And it seems that this trend follows all along the country, large urbanised areas are blue (even in red states) while the countryside votes more for the GOP, meaning a more conservative worldview (and that clashes with the statement "courteous, helpful, hospitable people that are very tolerant of other people and ideas". I understand that people from the countryside can be seen as kinder towards people they like but my impression is that hatred and prejudice is much more prevalent there... So care to elaborate if my impression is wrong?
- dagw 9y ago
  was quite surprised to find out that the largest urban centres are actually blue. Looking at maps like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Nationwide_US_presidential_county_map_shaded_by_vote_share.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Nationwide_US_presid... http://www.270towin.com/2016-house-election/ http://www.270towin.com/2016-house-election/ is always useful to remind yourself that there are still plenty of 'red' pockets in deeply 'blue' states and vice versa. In 2016 presidential election I believe there where only two states where all counties went Republican and two states where all went Democratic.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > I understand that people from the countryside can be seen as kinder towards people they like but my impression is that hatred and prejudice is much more prevalent there... That's not my experience at all. I dealt with more overt racism in NYC than any tiny red state town, and I've spent plenty of time in both. There are racist people everywhere, but even in rural areas, they tend to be ignorant and antisocial so they are not really in any position to oppress anyone. People tend to mistake talking heads on TV for actual people. People also tend to mistake voting patterns for personal quality of character. There's a caricature on TV (a bigoted one IMO) that small towns are full of shirtless racist rednecks that throw beer cans at all minorities that wander in town. That's because it's a useful trope and an easy way to advance a narrative. Every all town church I'm aware of sends missionaries overseas to build schools, wells, etc. That doesn't mesh with the "we hate foreigners" narrative. I had dinner in a tiny red state town last week. The most popular place in town is run by Mexican immigrants. And it's thriving. Life is more complicated than most media lets on. Even if we narrowed everything down to political views, the traditional red state view is that diversity in government (federalism) provides better prosperity, diversity, justice, freedom, and so on. Most red state types are fine leaving Colorado with its marijuana and Nevada with its brothels. They value the ability to self determine more than they value the ability to control other people.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Trill-I-Am 9y ago
    What about the red states bordering Colorado suing to try to get federal courts to nullify its legalization?
  - splawn 9y ago
    The GOP continues to be impregnated with racism thanks to the southern strategy.[0] If you don't think out in the open racist culture is alive, well and considered normal in the rural south, you are fooling yourself. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      I think there are overt racists, but they are in a minority and certainly not exclusive to any political party. Though this is a hard conversation to have meaningfully since different people mean different things by racism. The context here is a Northern European visiting the U.S. I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say they'll have a hard time in the rural south. I'd say (accented) rural Southerners would have a harder time in NYC than Scandanavian visitors would have in Mobile.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        Accented rural southerners would have no trouble whatsoever in NYC. This is one of those analogies that sounds like it should be true, but has no basis in fact. It's also a super weird comparison. Southern intolerance is subtextually about animus towards African Americans and Latinos. Nobody is arguing that a Scandinavian would have any trouble in Mobile. Further: Mobile is a weird choice for a comparison as well, since it's comparatively urban and well-educated. Mobile is more diverse than many parts of Chicago. When we talk about Southern racism, we're generally not talking about the urban south. Finally, and I want to make this point gingerly, but if we want to drag US political parties into this discussion, the Republican party is almost mathematically determined to be more racist than the Democratic party, which is a coalition of labor, minorities, and liberal whites. It's also just empirically true that the Republican party harbors more overt racists, but we don't have to dive into a lot of value judgements about conservatism and nationalism to conclude that; we can just observe that the Democrats have African American and Latino voters as one of the foundations of their constituency.

piva00 9y ago

For instance: I know that Texas is a red state but was quite surprised to find out that the largest urban centres are actually blue. And it seems that this trend follows all along the country, large urbanised areas are blue (even in red states) while the countryside votes more for the GOP, meaning a more conservative worldview (and that clashes with the statement "courteous, helpful, hospitable people that are very tolerant of other people and ideas". I understand that people from the countryside can be seen as kinder towards people they like but my impression is that hatred and prejudice is much more prevalent there... So care to elaborate if my impression is wrong?

dagw 9y ago
was quite surprised to find out that the largest urban centres are actually blue. Looking at maps like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Nationwide_US_presidential_county_map_shaded_by_vote_share.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Nationwide_US_presid... http://www.270towin.com/2016-house-election/ http://www.270towin.com/2016-house-election/ is always useful to remind yourself that there are still plenty of 'red' pockets in deeply 'blue' states and vice versa. In 2016 presidential election I believe there where only two states where all counties went Republican and two states where all went Democratic.
humanrebar 9y ago
> I understand that people from the countryside can be seen as kinder towards people they like but my impression is that hatred and prejudice is much more prevalent there... That's not my experience at all. I dealt with more overt racism in NYC than any tiny red state town, and I've spent plenty of time in both. There are racist people everywhere, but even in rural areas, they tend to be ignorant and antisocial so they are not really in any position to oppress anyone. People tend to mistake talking heads on TV for actual people. People also tend to mistake voting patterns for personal quality of character. There's a caricature on TV (a bigoted one IMO) that small towns are full of shirtless racist rednecks that throw beer cans at all minorities that wander in town. That's because it's a useful trope and an easy way to advance a narrative. Every all town church I'm aware of sends missionaries overseas to build schools, wells, etc. That doesn't mesh with the "we hate foreigners" narrative. I had dinner in a tiny red state town last week. The most popular place in town is run by Mexican immigrants. And it's thriving. Life is more complicated than most media lets on. Even if we narrowed everything down to political views, the traditional red state view is that diversity in government (federalism) provides better prosperity, diversity, justice, freedom, and so on. Most red state types are fine leaving Colorado with its marijuana and Nevada with its brothels. They value the ability to self determine more than they value the ability to control other people.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Trill-I-Am 9y ago
  What about the red states bordering Colorado suing to try to get federal courts to nullify its legalization?
- splawn 9y ago
  The GOP continues to be impregnated with racism thanks to the southern strategy.[0] If you don't think out in the open racist culture is alive, well and considered normal in the rural south, you are fooling yourself. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    I think there are overt racists, but they are in a minority and certainly not exclusive to any political party. Though this is a hard conversation to have meaningfully since different people mean different things by racism. The context here is a Northern European visiting the U.S. I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say they'll have a hard time in the rural south. I'd say (accented) rural Southerners would have a harder time in NYC than Scandanavian visitors would have in Mobile.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      Accented rural southerners would have no trouble whatsoever in NYC. This is one of those analogies that sounds like it should be true, but has no basis in fact. It's also a super weird comparison. Southern intolerance is subtextually about animus towards African Americans and Latinos. Nobody is arguing that a Scandinavian would have any trouble in Mobile. Further: Mobile is a weird choice for a comparison as well, since it's comparatively urban and well-educated. Mobile is more diverse than many parts of Chicago. When we talk about Southern racism, we're generally not talking about the urban south. Finally, and I want to make this point gingerly, but if we want to drag US political parties into this discussion, the Republican party is almost mathematically determined to be more racist than the Democratic party, which is a coalition of labor, minorities, and liberal whites. It's also just empirically true that the Republican party harbors more overt racists, but we don't have to dive into a lot of value judgements about conservatism and nationalism to conclude that; we can just observe that the Democrats have African American and Latino voters as one of the foundations of their constituency.