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I have spent my whole life intimately involved with southern Republicans. They will never ever not vote Republican, let alone vote Democrat. It is an identity m

by cael450 9mo ago

I have spent my whole life intimately involved with southern Republicans. They will never ever not vote Republican, let alone vote Democrat. It is an identity marker. It doesn’t even really matter what the policies are. They’ll complain for a while, but they will always internalize a Republican policy shift no matter what it is. They used to treat “free market economics” as a religion just 10 years ago. Secondarily, they love to define their identity as opposition to the northeast (a stereotypical fictional version of northeast). Democrats and “coastal elites” are the same to them. Once they elected a black man, they all got more racist. They nominated a woman, then they got more sexist. They campaigned on social programs, fuck the poor (even if they are poor). And there is a cognitive dissonance between their beliefs and their experience. They’ll say “deport them all” but be personal friends with immigrants from church. They simply don’t connect their political beliefs to their reality. I’m a southerner and I don’t see a future for this country. I used to think if they felt enough pain, then they would take politics seriously, but then a whole bunch of them died of COVID and it changed nothing. If I was a non-American, I’d be telling my government to do what they can to remove all dependence on this country as possible because it won’t get better.

bee_rider 9mo ago
I don’t really know how we’d get there, but the US would be better structured as an EU of regions, IMO. The states are too small, but we’ve got regions with definite noticeable cultural differences (Northeast vs Southeast, etc etc). These areas have more similar values than the country as a whole, and are big enough to handle 99% of their issues. Like, we should not have done the ACA, just merged all the various already successful Northeastern healthcare systems. Then the South could decide to copy it if they wanted, after they saw it working. Or not. What can you do? Trying to impose it seems to have drastically backfired. Since these regional governments would be picked from the inside, hopefully there wouldn’t be as much of a contrarian reflex to oppose everything they do.
- yardie 9mo ago
  The EU is moving in the opposite direction and trying to become more cohesive. The politicians and technocrats see the Euro as hamstrung with weak fiscal policies.
  - bee_rider 9mo ago
    There’s probably a nice spot in the middle somewhere. The EU has smart folks, I hope they are studying exactly what went wrong over here.
    - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
      I think pissing off technocrats is a good thing, given what they are doing with "the free market" in the US.
- brianwawok 9mo ago
  Kind of, but also it’s complicated. For example, Chicago is blue blue blue. 500 miles in every direction outside the city is red. 90% of the area of Illinois is red. But Chicago is so much more massive that Illinois votes blue in the end. So what the heck region is Chicago in, and the red part of IL? I don’t know CA well but I know it’s blue with very deep red pockets.
  - tptacek 9mo ago
    50 miles out of Chicago will get you to red counties.
    - brianwawok 9mo ago
      Right so what region is that? There aren’t really shared cultural values across 50 miles.
      - michaeldh 9mo ago
        Except for nearly all of them, sure.
1718627440 9mo ago
This really sounds like the population just isn't ripe for democracy yet. We also had that, this is a major reason why our 1848 revolution failed and why we didn't become a democracy between 1848 and 1918. So what you actually kind of miss is a nobility that has common sense and class-consciousness of the leading class.
- toomuchtodo 9mo ago
  Great comment. To have democracy, you must have an educated, informed electorate. Religiosity is still very high in the US, and religiosity is negatively correlated with intelligence. Perhaps “democracy ready” levels can be inferred from other countries with more functional governance systems and their lower levels of religiosity as a sort of baseline. Graphs About Religion: The Generational Collapse of American Religion - https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-generational-collapse-of-american https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-generational-colla... - January 19th, 2026 15,000 churches could close this year amid religious shift in U.S - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484284 - January 2026 (5 comments) Gallup: Drop in U.S. Religiosity Among Largest in World - https://news.gallup.com/poll/697676/drop-religiosity-among-largest-world.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/697676/drop-religiosity-among-l... - November 13th, 2025
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  >So what you actually kind of miss is a nobility that has common sense and class-consciousness of the leading class. I don't agree here, but I can seen in this lens if needed. But that's not what Trump voters miss. And that's the issue. What they want is a "return to good times", aka times where anyone else who wasn't a white male did in fact not have good times. But they don't care about the non-white non-males. They are smart enough to not say the quiet part out loud, and even now there's signs they are trying to backtrack internally on all of this[1]. But this is always what's in their minds. I don't know what needs to be done on that end, but the positive thing we can do is hyper-energize the country to come out in droves and not let this sneak back in again (or at least, have way more guardrails for next time). 1: https://www.salon.com/2026/01/19/some-trump-voters-are-sneaking-away/ https://www.salon.com/2026/01/19/some-trump-voters-are-sneak...
NickC25 9mo ago
>... It is an identity marker. It doesn’t even really matter what the policies are....They simply don’t connect their political beliefs to their reality. In other words, they're stupid.
- disgruntledphd2 9mo ago
  Hilariously enough, people with a higher IQ are actually much better at rationalising these sorts of contradictions. (You could call this depressing I suppose, but I prefer to laugh).
matwood 9mo ago
> They will never ever not vote Republican As someone who grew up in the south, I know many people who left the GOP over Trump. Obviously not enough people have, but there is a glimmer of hope.

by cael450 9mo ago

bee_rider 9mo ago

I don’t really know how we’d get there, but the US would be better structured as an EU of regions, IMO. The states are too small, but we’ve got regions with definite noticeable cultural differences (Northeast vs Southeast, etc etc). These areas have more similar values than the country as a whole, and are big enough to handle 99% of their issues. Like, we should not have done the ACA, just merged all the various already successful Northeastern healthcare systems. Then the South could decide to copy it if they wanted, after they saw it working. Or not. What can you do? Trying to impose it seems to have drastically backfired. Since these regional governments would be picked from the inside, hopefully there wouldn’t be as much of a contrarian reflex to oppose everything they do.

yardie 9mo ago
The EU is moving in the opposite direction and trying to become more cohesive. The politicians and technocrats see the Euro as hamstrung with weak fiscal policies.
- bee_rider 9mo ago
  There’s probably a nice spot in the middle somewhere. The EU has smart folks, I hope they are studying exactly what went wrong over here.
  - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
    I think pissing off technocrats is a good thing, given what they are doing with "the free market" in the US.
brianwawok 9mo ago
Kind of, but also it’s complicated. For example, Chicago is blue blue blue. 500 miles in every direction outside the city is red. 90% of the area of Illinois is red. But Chicago is so much more massive that Illinois votes blue in the end. So what the heck region is Chicago in, and the red part of IL? I don’t know CA well but I know it’s blue with very deep red pockets.
- tptacek 9mo ago
  50 miles out of Chicago will get you to red counties.
  - brianwawok 9mo ago
    Right so what region is that? There aren’t really shared cultural values across 50 miles.
    - michaeldh 9mo ago
      Except for nearly all of them, sure.

1718627440 9mo ago

This really sounds like the population just isn't ripe for democracy yet. We also had that, this is a major reason why our 1848 revolution failed and why we didn't become a democracy between 1848 and 1918. So what you actually kind of miss is a nobility that has common sense and class-consciousness of the leading class.

toomuchtodo 9mo ago
Great comment. To have democracy, you must have an educated, informed electorate. Religiosity is still very high in the US, and religiosity is negatively correlated with intelligence. Perhaps “democracy ready” levels can be inferred from other countries with more functional governance systems and their lower levels of religiosity as a sort of baseline. Graphs About Religion: The Generational Collapse of American Religion - https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-generational-collapse-of-american https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-generational-colla... - January 19th, 2026 15,000 churches could close this year amid religious shift in U.S - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484284 - January 2026 (5 comments) Gallup: Drop in U.S. Religiosity Among Largest in World - https://news.gallup.com/poll/697676/drop-religiosity-among-largest-world.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/697676/drop-religiosity-among-l... - November 13th, 2025
johnnyanmac 9mo ago
>So what you actually kind of miss is a nobility that has common sense and class-consciousness of the leading class. I don't agree here, but I can seen in this lens if needed. But that's not what Trump voters miss. And that's the issue. What they want is a "return to good times", aka times where anyone else who wasn't a white male did in fact not have good times. But they don't care about the non-white non-males. They are smart enough to not say the quiet part out loud, and even now there's signs they are trying to backtrack internally on all of this[1]. But this is always what's in their minds. I don't know what needs to be done on that end, but the positive thing we can do is hyper-energize the country to come out in droves and not let this sneak back in again (or at least, have way more guardrails for next time). 1: https://www.salon.com/2026/01/19/some-trump-voters-are-sneaking-away/ https://www.salon.com/2026/01/19/some-trump-voters-are-sneak...

NickC25 9mo ago

>... It is an identity marker. It doesn’t even really matter what the policies are....They simply don’t connect their political beliefs to their reality. In other words, they're stupid.

disgruntledphd2 9mo ago
Hilariously enough, people with a higher IQ are actually much better at rationalising these sorts of contradictions. (You could call this depressing I suppose, but I prefer to laugh).

matwood 9mo ago

> They will never ever not vote Republican As someone who grew up in the south, I know many people who left the GOP over Trump. Obviously not enough people have, but there is a glimmer of hope.