As all know, life in conservative parts of the country is paradise. It’s euphoria and bliss mixed together and compounded. The red states are so goddamn stuffed with happiness that the only complaints the residents have is that their facial muscles ache from their nonstop smiling.
Well, there is the fact that “red state politics are shaving years off Americans’ lives.” And there’s also the myriad abortion bans that boost infant mortality, force teenage girls to deliver their rapists’ babies, harm literally every American, and basically kill women outright.
But at least you can get plenty of raw milk. You know, because of freedom, or something like that.
Ok, maybe an early death from botulism or an unplanned pregnancy isn’t appealing to you. Hey, there are other alluring factors that these areas provide.
There is the fact that doctors are fleeing red states, which decimates their already shaky healthcare systems. Or maybe you’re gay and want to live someplace where hate crimes against you have quadrupled. Or perhaps you are an ethnic minority, and really dig the vibe of fearing for your life.
That’s a whole lotta charm.
So why do people live in red states, besides the affordability and access to libraries with no books in them?
Well, the “disproportionate power that rural voters wield, and their unusual devotion to Trump” is a plus for those conservatives who hate democracy. They idolize places like Hungary, where free elections have been eliminated. These guys want the United States of America, “one of the world’s great superpowers, to sign onto the program of a landlocked country of fewer than 10 million people in central Europe.”
The GOP has based its entire existence on rural white people who see their power dwindling. These Americans believe they are being oppressed, which is hilarious in that being white is worth, by some calculations, hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of one’s lifetime, to say nothing of the cultural power and comfort that comes from being in the majority.
No, they are still upset over Brown vs. Board of Education, even though school segregation is on the upswing, and they go crazy if Latinos actually try to vote.
And what has all this anger, fear, and hostility brought us? For starters, the United States “is no longer among the 20 happiest countries in the world,” and we stand alone among industrialized nations for our rate of gun violence, which is highest in the red states.
Hey, sounds like heaven to me.
