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They also have a state owned bank. ND once had a very strong "Democratic Farmer Labor party". Not to get into R vs D here, as the parties have flip flopped a lo

They also have a state owned bank. ND once had a very strong "Democratic Farmer Labor party". Not to get into R vs D here, as the parties have flip flopped a lot since then & the Limbaugh movement changed the state from a very purple state (all Congress members were D in the 80s-90s). The only way you win in the state now is with a R next to your name, so the Rs are having an identity crisis. The real good call out is the coop attitude that has been very strong in ND for decades. Sadly I have seen some of those coops start to spend a lot of money on creating talk shows with extreme political personalities who have little actual knowledge on things. I would love to see the state go back to being more neighborly & community building. Either way the history of the coop attitude is a great one for building strong communities. Every community should take notice of this. For rural communities, especially in the early 90s & 00s, having internet access was equivalent to access to an elite private school.

tivert 2y ago
> They also have a state owned bank. ND once had a very strong "Democratic Farmer Labor party". Not to get into R vs D here, as the parties have flip flopped a lot since then & the Limbaugh movement changed the state from a very purple state (all Congress members were D in the 80s-90s). The only way you win in the state now is with a R next to your name, so the Rs are having an identity crisis. Minnesota had the DFL. North Dakota had the NPL. Yeah, I think the intrusion of national political culture has been pretty toxic everywhere. IIRC, Heitkamp, the last ND Democrat, lost (or at least had some trouble), because she had to hem and haw on abortion to appease her out-of-state donors and could not adapt to local circumstances. Didn't really follow that election too closely, so I don't really know what else was going on.
- adabyron 2y ago
  > Minnesota had the DFL. North Dakota had the NPL. You are right. I blame my recollection of it being very "farmer based". I believe Heitkamp lost to Cramer who was an early Trump backer, in a state that was/(still possibly is) in love with Trump - possibly due to him being 1 of few candidates to ever stop in the state due to lack of electoral votes. The polarization of the state also gave her no chances of winning. She had won the seat from Sen Conrad (of the Democrat party & in-law of former Republican governor Ed Schafer). Conrad was senator for roughly 26 years. It'll be interesting to see if/when the Dakotas ever goes back to being purple.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > It'll be interesting to see if/when the Dakotas ever goes back to being purple. IMHO, that'll be when the national political apparatus once allows politicians to be heterodox again. I wouldn't be surprised if Democrats the Dakotas used to reliably send to the federal government were of the "blue dog" variety that's practically extinct (i.e. relatively conservative, especially socially). But with the withering of local media and its replacement with stuff made far away for a national audience (cable news, New York Times, etc.), I think it's more likely things will just polarize more along national lines, since people will know less about their community and pay less attention to it, and instead know a lot more about the dumb national controversy of the day and pay attention to that. Honestly, I'd kind of like to see some kind of regulation that limits the reach of a media organizations beyond their home regions, to preserve local culture and attitudes. Sort of like Canada's Canadian content requirements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content).

tivert 2y ago

> They also have a state owned bank. ND once had a very strong "Democratic Farmer Labor party". Not to get into R vs D here, as the parties have flip flopped a lot since then & the Limbaugh movement changed the state from a very purple state (all Congress members were D in the 80s-90s). The only way you win in the state now is with a R next to your name, so the Rs are having an identity crisis. Minnesota had the DFL. North Dakota had the NPL. Yeah, I think the intrusion of national political culture has been pretty toxic everywhere. IIRC, Heitkamp, the last ND Democrat, lost (or at least had some trouble), because she had to hem and haw on abortion to appease her out-of-state donors and could not adapt to local circumstances. Didn't really follow that election too closely, so I don't really know what else was going on.

adabyron 2y ago
> Minnesota had the DFL. North Dakota had the NPL. You are right. I blame my recollection of it being very "farmer based". I believe Heitkamp lost to Cramer who was an early Trump backer, in a state that was/(still possibly is) in love with Trump - possibly due to him being 1 of few candidates to ever stop in the state due to lack of electoral votes. The polarization of the state also gave her no chances of winning. She had won the seat from Sen Conrad (of the Democrat party & in-law of former Republican governor Ed Schafer). Conrad was senator for roughly 26 years. It'll be interesting to see if/when the Dakotas ever goes back to being purple.
- tivert 2y ago
  > It'll be interesting to see if/when the Dakotas ever goes back to being purple. IMHO, that'll be when the national political apparatus once allows politicians to be heterodox again. I wouldn't be surprised if Democrats the Dakotas used to reliably send to the federal government were of the "blue dog" variety that's practically extinct (i.e. relatively conservative, especially socially). But with the withering of local media and its replacement with stuff made far away for a national audience (cable news, New York Times, etc.), I think it's more likely things will just polarize more along national lines, since people will know less about their community and pay less attention to it, and instead know a lot more about the dumb national controversy of the day and pay attention to that. Honestly, I'd kind of like to see some kind of regulation that limits the reach of a media organizations beyond their home regions, to preserve local culture and attitudes. Sort of like Canada's Canadian content requirements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content).