"I love the poorly educated"

if living in russia taught me anything, people in distress reduce themselves (and got reduced) to the most basic questions, like who is to blame, and populists have them like a piece of cake.

Most vatniks, not unlike MAGAs, don't have answers to many questions, they want to be left alone to manage the hole they happened to be born into, and the promise of a candidate or ideology that does just that or even paints their quest as a herioic one, or a sacred sacrifice, would win again and again until there is someone to work with that and educate them.

They are used to live in shit and depend on themselves, don't know anything better and become pretty jealous if others get that. Others having it worse, especially their 'enemies', kinda makes their own living more bearable. Their struggle is a downpainment for a mission of punishing the unworthy ones.

When a person is downscaled to that childish level of consciousness it's impossible to reach them with rhetorics that don't directly benefit them.

As long as they continue to be like that and their thoughts are unchallenged, they'd always vote maga.

Really well said
I haven't seen an analysis from your perspective before. Lines up very well with my experience from the Southern US.
And as they continue to vote against their own interests it becomes a self-perpetuating system.
- If you look at the impacts to their lives from the Clinton presidency, it is understandable that they would think that Democracts are not necessarily working in their interests.

Another way to view this is that the poor are voting republican now. Trump won those making less than $100,000 handedly while Harris won those making above. Probably because he's offering them a solution to there problems, deport the immigrants and bring manufacturing back. His plan is dumb and won't work but at least he's putting something forward unlike Harris who says everything will stay the same.

The democrats are slowly becoming the party of the out of touch elite, and memes like this don't help. The democrats need to be putting forward solutions to those problems, and trump has shown it doesn't matter if they're viable or will actually help. If these "dumb poor people are rubes who will fall for anything" give them something to fall for. Say your going to tax the billionaires at 50% and use that money to pay for Healthcare and child care, don't cozy up to them so you can raise another billion dollars to lose another election .

Say your going to tax the billionaires at 50% and use that money to pay for Healthcare and child care, don't cozy up to them so you can raise another billion dollars to lose another election .
That was basically Harris' tax plan.
What Would Kamala Harris's Tax Plans Mean For You? | Kiplinger - https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/kamala-harriss-tax-plans-2024
- It doesn't matter what your platform is if it's not communicated effectively to the median voter
Probably because he's offering them a solution to there problems, deport the immigrants and bring manufacturing back. His plan is dumb and won't work but at least he's putting something forward unlike Harris who says everything will stay the same.
This is exactly what I was pointing out to my friends. Every one of us are making six figures, and could not understand why anybody would vote Trump.
And I asked them how many people in their lives are poor, living paycheck to paycheck. I have family members who are working two or three jobs to get by. All the work Biden did is not being seen or recognized by them.
Are they are under-educated yokels? Are they morons for not keeping up with politics? You can call them what ever you want. Theyre still a voter.
Face it: what they're hearing from Democrats vs what they're hearing from Trump are pretty clear cut and we can stay in this echo chamber all we want on Lemmy. Those folks aren't listening to us. They're just trying to survive and will vote accordingly.
- Six figures? Lucky you.
And yet. Manufacturing was down under trump in 2016 even before covid hit and under Biden manufacturing is the highest it's been in decades.
The Democrats must be doing something right, if their states have better everything.
Maybe if the Republicans would listen to us, we could all have the best schools and hospitals.
he also proposed nuking a hurricane...
but yes, democratic leaders have left us, so it's easy to say both sides are corrupt, especially as long as insider trading and conflicts of interest are OK to them.
So according to you it's worse to acknowledge we can't go back in time than to lie to people and promise that which we (in the 3rd party pov sense, meaning NYC republicans) actively subvert every day? One would have to be exceptionally stupid and stubbornly uninformed to believe this is reasonable.
bring manufacturing back. … unlike Harris who says everything will stay the same…. The democrats need to be putting forward solutions to those problems
Perhaps like the CHIPS act or IRA? Instead of demogoguing, democrats followed through with actual investment in manufacturing, unionism, infrastructure. Supposedly 80% of that manufacturing investment went to red states
Is this one of these scenarios where people are too impatient with the time it takes to get a factory off the ground, so votes out the group making that investment over someone who’s “good for business” or at least taking credit ?
- Yeah, but what about the vibes, man?
- The chips act was more about national security then employment. Semiconductor manufacturing doesn't require much labor and isn't a mass employer. Even in Taiwan it only employs around 300,000 or 2% of people. Even if the chips act somehow brought all 300,000 of those jobs over here, which it wont, it would still be a drop in the bucket in the u.s.
  The ira was better but was still limited in it's effect. Most Americans don't see the effect it had or don't think they're effected. You need universal programs that are easy to see the effects: Free school lunch, Medicare for all, raising the minimum wage, subsidized child care, student loan forgiveness etc.
  Also I don't believe Americans actually want to work in manufacturing. They really just want the stability, dignity and pay that union manufacturing jobs provided. If they got those from unionizing a Walmart or Starbucks then they'd probably be happier as those jobs are safer and less monotonous. This combined with the fact everything would get more expensive if it were manufactured here, no one could afford an iPhone built in america, makes me think the onshoring movement is a dead end politically and we should instead be focused on unionization.

Time is a circle.

when is it from?
- About 1974. Massachusetts was the only state to not vote for Nixon during his re-election and the bumper stickers appeared after the Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation only a year and a half into his second term.

I love the "Have you actually considered that the state doing the worst under consistent Republican policy is voting because they're unhappy with the DEMONRAT status quo???"

They really don't give a shit about consistency in their arguments. People have or lack responsibility for their moral and political choices according to whatever suits their "LIBERALS BAD" talking point of the day.

Republicans have had a vice grip on our state and local politics for 40 years...BUT ITS THE LIBRULS FAULT
That would make sense if Oklahoma hadn’t voted that way every time regardless of who the previous president was. But I mean, conservatives are pretty good at inverting their arguments. So I’m sure when Bush left office, they voted for Romney because they were so happy with how the Bush admin went. But when Obama left, they voted for Trump because they were so unhappy with how the Obama administration went. Simple!
- That would make sense if Oklahoma hadn’t voted that way every time regardless of who the previous president was.
  They probably mean at the state level which has been consistently led by Republicans since Obama was elected.

Maybe they voted against the incumbent so overwhelmingly because things are hard.

People vote based on their feelings.

When they were feeling pain, the message from the Dems was about how great the economy was, but the reality is that the stock market and GDP don't speak to the quality of life of these people. To them the Dems saying how great things were was dismissive of their real concerns.

Meanwhile, Trump latched onto their fears and concerns. Yeah, his policies are idiotic, and millions will suffer and be in worse shape. But when they said they couldn't pay the mortgage or buy groceries, he listened. The Democrats didn't because they've abandoned the working class that should be their backbone.

Maybe they voted against the incumbent
I wouldn't be so confident about assigning such motivation.
- They haven't been unanimous in the counties all those times.
- In that one case, they're a pretty consistent electorate. The general sentiment across America and around the globe since the post-pandemic inflation crisis began has been anti incumbent, which is why we see a lot of changed governments and populist uprisings now.
Sounds like making an avg citizen feel heard was the Trump card
- The audacity!

This type of meme isn't helpful when people already think the Dem Party isn't for working class people and elites only lol. Trump listened to people issues about material needs even if he lied. It still worked. Harris and Dems went on the whole time not addressing issues with the economy. Adopting a real working class agenda and free college would do wonders and putting resources to getting the crazy folk away from Education.

Working classes don’t need healthcare or education? Quality of life is irrelevant? A strong economy doesn’t matter? One of the highest minimum wages doesn’t affect working class? I
Free college (depending on income)doesn’t matter?
- It's probably more like no one has helped us improve our healthcare / education / quality of life, so we'll take a gamble on someone different.
- i think you're missing their point. the working class does want these things, but the meme reinforces the idea that the dems only take care of the rich.
- Misses the actual pain points. These are good things objectively but these are not the things that people want change
Ever been to MA?
Crapton of working class people there. I mean a lot. It is possible to have top-tier education and health care yet have working class people in the same State.
Being a rural state does not by default equate to “working class”. If anything it probably means more people per capita on government assistance or in poverty.
Are Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh not "working class" cities? I think there are a whole lot of people who would like a word with you for writing them off.
Almost as if working class people don't have to be stupid.

So wait, the poor and the hopeless, looking for some kind of help, voted unanimously for TRUMP, and those happy with their current conditions and wanting no change voted for Harris.

maybe youre just completely unfamiliar with the word "conservative". those red states dont want change. they want to conserve their regressive stance.
- I think it's pretty clear that the current Republican party is fundamentally different than the one of 15 years ago. Whether they consider themselves conservative or not, they are the party that is promising change from the status quo.
  The parties have clearly changed roles with respect to manual laborers. The blue wall doesn't exist anymore because of this. What it all means, I have no idea, but we need to update our mental model of the two parties. Their demographic have fundamentally changed.
You think a rich nepo baby wants to help working class Americans instead of himself and his rich friends? LOL
- I don't, but a large chunk of america does. I think that speaks a lot to the democrats messaging.
  The world's richest man is helping a billionaire get elected and that's not one of your main points to voters? No but Harris can't attack billionaires because that'll anger all the ones on her side.
Oklahoma has voted for Republican presidential candidates all but once since 1952 (in 1964), with the Democratic candidate having failed to pick up a single county in the state in all elections since 2004
History. What you obviously weren't taught.
You must be from Oklahoma.
The maps were identical in 2020 (following a republican administration):
Oklahoma 2020
Massachusetts 2020
And 2008 (following a republican administration):
Oklahoma 2008
Massachusetts 2008
Once you get back to pre-social media era internet, you begin to see Oklahoma have shades of blue.
2000 1996 1992 1988
Perhaps we could collaborate on this.
Now that I have pulled Oklahoma’s electoral results going back to 1988, now you can pull Oklahoma’s education results going back over the same period of time and we can see if there is, in fact, a correlation between the quality of education (overall education rankings) and how the state votes in presidential elections.
I suspect that it was not purely the quality of education which influenced the “red shift”. I would bet that the lower-quality of education made the influence of social media more effective for those targeting the less educated to adopt a conservative political position.
Just share your findings here and we can work together.
- Well done. I'll leave my response up, but I'll admit that the Massachusetts/Oklahoma example is a bad one to make the case that Trump was the populist in this election and Harris was a vote for the conservative "no change" position.
- Just because the person you are replying to has a different opinion about how people vote, doesn't mean they are a trump supporter.
  I don't think this person is your enemy.
- They never said they voted for him. They pointed out that the living conditions in the red state are worse, and the chose to vote for Trump. Presumably under some kind of belief that he will ameliorate those conditions.
  Before you tell me he won't, I know that he won't. They don't know that though. And they have gigantic right wing echo chambers telling them all about how he will.
I see the ones under republican state leadership, clamoring for change, yet in reality voting for the same assholes that govern them into the ground? Not sure how you’re not seeing that, though I imagine it’s willful
- theres a reason education goes out the windows in red states.. otherwise they might understand theyre voting against their own best interests.
  its a priority to keep them stupid to stay red
- it is. racism and hate go a long ways.
The states that consistently vote Republican are also consistently amongst the worst states for quality of life. There's a correlation there.
- They also consistently take more money from the federal government than they provide.
Way to tell on yourself about your lack of education.
- It's necessary.
  If their comment wasn't smartass idiotic, maybe not.
- TBF, being wrong is kinda their whole thing.
I think we are interpreting this correlation in two different ways.
The demon buer sees it as:
bad living standards → vote republican
(because in this election the selling point of the republicans was the economy(/+immigration (because they also partly blame immigrants for the economic problems)), while for the democrats it was the the "protection of democracy" (which isn't really the biggest concern of someone struggling to pay their bills (or also not desired if that democracy got them to where they are now)))
others are seeing it as
vote republican → bad living standards
(because if republicans are no good, and if a state has been consistently voting republican in the last years of the state's local elections, then the state also won't be no good)
(the arrow means "causes")
(not directly directed at anyone, besides everyone who reads this post: ) Just because there's a correlation, we can't say in which direction the causation goes, if there is one.
The ignorant and gullible voted for trump. Just like past time, nothing in their lives will improve and the US will be less secure and worse off.

Oh no! #1 in cost of living and #1 in quality if life? And among the lowest poverty?
Do people really just need social support to thrive? No way! It's gotta be stuff! Cheap stuff! That's what life's all about!
- Pretty easy to have high quality of life and low poverty if all the poor people leave because there priced out.
- Well, all it does is drive up the cost for the working class who live there who are then forced to move out.
  If you were born there, that does indeed suck. If you bought your way in there, it's a win. If you were born there and can afford to keep living there, also a win
- What's the wealth inequality metric for them?
I have also thought that before I moved from Mass to Oregon. Just my experience of course, but my state taxes increases 2x and everything seemed to be more expensive.
- I moved from CA to NC and the taxes were absolutely worse.
  EDIT: They were, I even had a check that was half in one state and half in another, and guess what? The CA check was bigger.
Education, healthcare and quality of life aren't cheap. Want cheap? Go to Oklahoma.
Yeah, I alternate between proud that we have a $15 minimum wage and horrified at what it probably should be

Second in American health care. ..

Obviously. What else would it be when comparing two American states.
- a decent amount of americans seem to think they are the global best in every category so probably not obvious enough even.

Some states need to lose their right to self govern

Post civil war, the USA should have imposed rules that enforced integration.
They didn't have the will, and now we reap the consequences as a nation, to have the south still stuck in the moral degradation that comes with dehumanizing a portion of our population to the point of enslavement.
I've recently been imagining separating the countries of the US, or as Americans like to call them; the states.
- Unfortunately there are liberals in those red states. That would be death sentence for them.

I crisscrossed Oklahoma on one of my cross-country trips, the state absolutely sucks and they even know it that's why you can legally drive like 80mph through the whole thing.

Kansas also sucks but khp uses the highway as a way to punish people with the wrong license plates. A majority of traffic stops in Kansas were of out of state drivers as recently as a few years ago.

Wasn't Oklahoma supposed to be given back to the native tribes? Like more than 50% of it?

It was. And in fact the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that the reservations still exist. One consequence is that Google Maps now shades the entire eastern half of the state in dark shading showing the borders between the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and so forth.
The tribal governments are taking an increasing role in providing public services to all of the citizens within their borders, as the civil state government descends deeper into libertarianism.
Oklahoma was built on genocide. Is it any wonder those that govern it are garbage people.
- America was built on several genocides. Oklahoma isn't special.
It was, but Oklahoma passed a law saying tribal lands couldn't use postal addresses and had to use PO boxes instead. Then they passed a law saying you needed a postal address to vote.

This doesn't really tell the fully story, 1/3 of MA's pop. Still voted for Trump...

This shocked me the most. I thought we would be a darker shade of blue than ever, despite what other state voters do. I’m so disappointed

Yeah, fuck those Oklahomans! Those idiots deserve to suffer and struggle.

That's not the message to take from this.
- Oh? What is?
Every Oklahoman I have ever met would agree with this statement unironically
- Blue-voting Oklahoman here!
  ...yep
- I feel called out.
  I dont want my blue friends to suffer, but yeah i deserve to suffer for being born here.
I can't believe they would vote for a different candidate after suffering under the current candidate! FOOOLSS!!!!

West Virginia also voted straight red, I believe

Holy crap, they did.
I spent a lot of my life there and boy oh boy.
I hear it’s nicer up north, but I couldn’t afford to go anywhere and check it out. It is WILD where I came from.
- I can only imagine lmao. I'm an okie currently, so I may have some idea, what with our state mineral being meth.
  I've only ever heard stories and seen one documentary (The Wild and Wondeful Whites of West Virginia) from out of WV but it sounds...different out there, even compared to OK, haha.
New Mexico also voted straight blue

You can’t come at these people with facts.

Damn, did know that. Carry on Massachusetts and the Oklahomans fail to learn and continue to eat shit.

MA law doesn’t force insurance providers to cover gender-affirming hair electrolysis, so most don’t. Trans women with facial hair and cis women suffering from hirsutism are all expected to live with their beards and hairy shoulders.

Washington, Oregon, California and other states have laws on the books making it illegal for medical insurance providers to deny coverage of treatment for these conditions.

MA doesn’t get to do victory laps for its progressive bone fides until it gets with the program and takes care of its women.

"Its not exactly what I want so it sucks" is never a useful take for anything.
- Agreed. It's a good thing that "no victory laps yet" is not the same as "it sucks".
  "No victory laps yet" means "the work isn't done yet." You only get what you demand and are willing to fight for.

CHADachusetts completely topping Cucklahoma

Jokelahoma

Now, I have to hope our state Gov't can do everything possible to keep up the laws and quality to protect us.

Butcher knife is always gonna lose to hand pistol.

I prefer toe pistol, myself. No one ever expects it.

Massachusetts is fucked. Only a good place to live if your very well off or a career welfare recipient.

Go back to your kapusta.
- Am I supposed to know wtf that is?

In case you're wondering why you're getting down voted, it's because you didn't even offer up a valid argument and instead engaged in ad hominem, which is a logical fallacy.
I get that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but if the richest states are almost all blue and the poorest ones almost all red, that is a very strong correlation and trying to claim it is insignificant only makes you seem the fool.
You seem to be intelligent. Ask yourself why this post made you so upset.
- You really didn't have to throw in the "seem to be intelligent" part but that very conscientious of you.
  I'll go ahead and fix it for you though and be the asshole.
  In case you're wondering why you're getting down voted, it's because you didn't even offer up a valid argument and instead engaged in ad hominem, which is a logical fallacy.
  I get that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but if the richest states are almost all blue and the poorest ones almost all red, that is a very strong correlation and trying to claim it is insignificant only makes you seem the fool.
  ~~You seem to be intelligent.~~ Ask yourself why this post made you so upset.
Who said bad and good? Those are words that you brought to this thread.

Oklahoma has much bigger numbers in the rankings there. USA! USA!

I hate Republicans too, they're selling the whole country for parts, but this meme sucks.

First of all, "all counties were red/blue" is not what "unanimous" means.

Second of all, I don't think "ha ha your state is poor" is the grand slam argument you think it is.

I mean, take a second to look into why red states are poor.
- And the only reason their state and local governments are able to remain solvent...
  These states would collapse completely without the largesse of the federal government (funded by blue states) if they ever seceded.
First of all, "all counties were red/blue" is not what "unanimous" means.
I agree with you there.
Second of all, I don't think "ha ha your state is poor" is the grand slam argument you think it is.
Takes a lot of mental gymnastics to boil down all the listed differences as "state is poor". Unless you mean "poor" as in "in bad shape" and not "economically suffering". I'll assume you mean the former as that's the only way your argument makes sense.
I think it's more about how a state is voting against its own interests. There is NOTHING about the Republican platform that would improve any of the listed metrics. If anything, Republican politics would only further worsen an already bad state of affairs.
And of the off chance your initial argument was entirely economic, it's Democrats who want federal government involvement to help poor states.
- There is NOTHING about the Republican platform that would improve any of the listed metrics.
  They can make those metrics in other states worse.
We are pretty poor here.

That goes against democracy along with not allowing old people or people in prisons. It is opens the pandora's box to now allowing LGBT or people of color to vote by locking them in prison or fixing IQ tests to yield low scores.
That is a terrible idea that shows you should not pass said test if one were to exist.
Na, man. We need to get everyone to vote. Power to the people!
That is a stupid idea...no voting for you!
Everyone should be obligated to vote. What we need is to educate the population not deny votes.

Uh...Hawaii? West Virginia? Rhode Island?

These are also states, yes.

When plebeians do something that makes sense to them, but not to him, the "Intellectual Yet Idiot" uses the term “uneducated”.

Nassim Taleb, Skin in the game

Now do healthcare and quality of life
- The hidden costs of health care are largely in the denial of antifragility. But it may not be just medicine—what we call diseases of civilization result from the attempt by humans to make life comfortable for ourselves against our own interest, since the comfortable is what fragilizes.
  Less Is More
  For instance, a small number of homeless people cost the states a disproportionate share of the bills, which makes it obvious where to look for the savings. A small number of employees in a corporation cause the most problems, corrupt the general attitude—and vice versa—so getting rid of these is a great solution. A small number of customers generate a large share of the revenues. I get 95 percent of my smear postings from the same three obsessive persons, all representing the same prototypes of failure (one of whom has written, I estimate, close to one hundred thousand words in posts—he needs to write more and more and find more and more stuff to critique in my work and personality to get the same effect). When it comes to health care, Ezekiel Emanuel showed that half the population accounts for less than 3 percent of the costs, with the sickest 10 percent consuming 64 percent of the total pie.
  Nassim Taleb, Antifragile