I kid you not, on Xitter they already argued that the increase in flooding is due to the clearing of forests for wind turbines. Also that wind turbines slow down cloud drift so much that much more rain falls in an area. So, wind turbines are the evil cause for all that.
Ugh these motherfuckers get literally every grain of truth wrong. Trees do prevent flooding(studied to be an arborist and utilizing trees in urban environments for cooling and flood control), BUT the amount of trees cleared for wind turbines is negligible compared to what we've cut down for parking lots and industrial complexes(pavement increases flooding).
Besides, no amount of trees is going to take care of that amount of rainfall in that period of time. Even if everything was forest there's only so much they can absorb. Some of them would uproot and tip over from the ground becoming so water logged. I've seen it happening in our forests from an unusually wet summer. Entire portions of forest where the trees just fell over from too much water in the soil after 3 years of drought.
See how many words and how much energy it takes to properly explain the situation thoughtfully? The morons spreading those falsehoods don't need to expend nearly as much time/energy because they're just lying.
It's at the point now that conservatives are willing to accept anything in place of the truth as long as it suits their agenda. Guess they could be called "Not-Sees" given their tendency to embrace blatant lies while ignoring obvious and clear truths.
Repeat a lie often enough and people believe it. Especially if you get then angry first so critical thinking is shut down. Help that along with social media echo chambers and 24/7 "news" broadcasts. Add cult of personality around it and you get this.
Fr not only do they lose the popular vote.. even the red states aren't all 80/20.. there are miserable intelligent Americans everywhere and nobody gives a shit. I've lived in blue bubbles my whole life and spent a ton of time in red places with red people (stop, you know what I mean), and there are always normal blue people. And most red people are only a disinformation or two away from being with it. Unfortunately that's all it takes in a two party system and they game it well. Take away angels and abortion and before the hell cult, most Americans are half decent and not Nazis.
That was the thing about Arizona it took the Democrats realizing it was a purple state and they should vote. That's why these states seem to flip so suddenly. Then of course it's a decade or two wait to get a state legislature that's not gerrymandered to hell and back.
With the abortion issue there's new organizing going on in a bunch of previously locked down red states.
Take away New York, or Baltimore, or Detroit, or any city really. It has long since ceased to be a state level thing. The system however is still running like it's the 1840's.
Tennessee is somewhat of an outlier, as its other major cities skew red, though at least in part artificially so. Nashville, for example, is part of three different districts now, the 5th, 6th, and 7th. It's been lost to gerrymandering. Knoxville, in the 2nd, and Chattanooga in the 3rd are heavily Republican cities.
The 4th contains conservative-leaning private universities and suburbs of Nashville and Chattanooga.
The 9th District, colloquially "Memphis" in my previous statement, is the only district in the state that currently has a significantly strong Democratic voter base. If anything, it became even more blue after the 2023 re-districting moved part of East Memphis to the already conservative 8th district.
Of the districts other than Memphis, the 5th, which can be thought of as the ghost of Nashville, is the closest to even resembling purple; even so, it has a CVPI of R+9.