• @chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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    4711 days ago

    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.

      • @HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
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        111 days ago

        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.

        • So then the trend is getting reder with time then? I don’t see your point.

          It’s not saying 100% of people always vote red. But the majority have for a VERY long time.

            • @jj4211@lemmy.world
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              411 days ago

              But the point, for this population and this meme, is that they have consistently voting in the same people and the results they have received are similarly consistent, and they keep voting that way.

              Yes broadly there’s been a “vote out the incumbent”, but this illustrates why that’s misguided, as it illustrates the different results of two states with consistent policies for each party.

              • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                110 days ago

                Not even just consistently, the person accidentally made the point for them that they’ve actually gotten more red over that time. So they’ve somehow kept convincing more people to vote for them despite them never doing a thing to help them.

              • @chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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                210 days ago

                When an entire country shifts away from a party, it means the party is doing something to drive them away. Trump is the worst candidate in the history of the country, yet he’s won 2 elections. Why is that?

                It’s because the Dems have abandoned the economic policies that formed the heart of their party and lost the working class vote they’ve relied upon since the Depression.

  • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    2112 days ago

    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.

    • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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      11 days ago

      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.

  • ilikenoodlez
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    511 days ago

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

  • @Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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    11611 days ago

    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 .

    • @yogi_pogi@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      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.

    • @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      1111 days ago

      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.

      • @Manmoth@lemmy.ml
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        1111 days ago

        They don’t have better retention rates.

        CA, NY, IL and MA are all in the top 5 for states that have the most people leaving.

        TX, FL, NC and AZ are attracting the most people.

        Massachusetts has priced out average people. If you aren’t the inheritor of some generational wealth you have a better chance of being upwardly mobile elsewhere.

          • @Dragonstaff@leminal.space
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            11 days ago

            You can’t blame “rent gouging” without blaming the government for condoning it and setting up the conditions that encourage it.

            The cost of living in blue states is absolutely due to city/state level Democrats. Democrats write the zoning laws. Democrats decide the tax laws. Democrats build the infrastructure and public transportation. Democrats also vote down rent control and affordable housing requirements.

            Red states are controlled by rich Republicans. Blue states are controlled by rich Democrats. Sure, Republican rule makes Oklahoma the shit hole that it is. But don’t try to give Democrats a pass for making Massachusetts as expensive as it is.

        • @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          11 days ago

          That really has mostly to do with the high cost of living. And it’s going to be high in an area inhabited by businesses on the cutting edge of technology. Those jobs have high wages because they need highly educated people, and highly educated people come from the best universities in the country, many of which are in Boston, and Cambridge. Not to mention the great schools in commuter range in Providence and Worcester.

          Red states don’t have higher education, and they don’t have innovative industry, so they don’t have the population density issues that blue states have.

          Maybe if red states had these things, they’d have a high cost of living, too.

          Most of the people fleeing MA for those states are working remotely for their companies still in MA. Mostly DINKS and young (primarily male) single professionals that don’t really have public education or healthcare as any sort of immediate concern. That’s gonna lead to problems when the average age of red state populations inverts itself. Better make sure that they can’t not have babies.

    • @Landless2029@lemmy.world
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      1311 days ago

      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.

    • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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      210 days ago

      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 ?

      • @Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        110 days ago

        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.

    • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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      11 days ago

      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.

        • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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          5811 days ago

          How do you communicate effectively to someone with their fingers in their ears screaming nananananananana? Please advise, oh political oracle.

          • @Tinidril@midwest.social
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            1111 days ago

            Trump seemed to get through.

            Democrats are forbidden by their patrons from using too much populist rhetoric. That’s the number one reason why they fail to connect with what has become a very populist country, thanks to decades of wealth transfer to the top.

            Bernie used populist language and the Democratic establishment pulled out all the stops to give us “anybody but Bernie”. Now we are living the consequences.

            • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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              811 days ago

              What’s neat is that you appear to have internalized the conservative view of the Democratic machine in this country. They are completely incompetent…but also such shadowy and powerful figures they control what everyone says and does and control who votes for who…except when it comes to republicans who these scary shadowy figures are unable to competently manipulate ever…

              • @Tinidril@midwest.social
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                811 days ago

                If you want to argue today that the Democrats aren’t failures at fighting Republicans and specifically Trump, I would love to hear that argument.

                There was nothing “shadowy” about the “anybody but Bernie” effort in 2020. They might have preferred it to be quieter, but I think just about every relevant detail of that scheme leaked, and it played out quite transparently. Are you arguing that it didn’t happen?

                It’s not as much about competence as it is about perspective. The Democratic establishment is somewhat competently running strategies that are well suited for the 90s but completely out of touch with where voters are today.

            • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              110 days ago

              So basically you lie to them and tell them what they want to hear? Stoke fear of “the others” among them to keep them scared and angry?

              Yeah, no, I’m good.

              • @Tinidril@midwest.social
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                110 days ago

                Is that what you think Bernie does?

                People are scared and angry already. Not everyone has the financial stability you apparently do. Republicans focus that fear on the powerless. Democrats pretend it’s not there. You can’t respond to struggling families with “the economy is great!”

          • @yogi_pogi@lemmy.world
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            511 days ago

            Ah yes, now that you made fun of the prior commenter, we have convinced the world and now Kamala is president?

            Bernie is fucking right.

              • @yogi_pogi@lemmy.world
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                511 days ago

                You lumped a huge percentage of people as putting their fingers in their ears.

                Maga is going to vote maga. And there’s a huge chunk that didn’t vote or were surprised Biden dropped out. Those folks didn’t put their fingers in their ears. Like Bernie said, they were ignored.

                • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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                  11 days ago

                  People who were surprised 5 months after Biden dropped out didn’t have their fingers in their ears in your version of the world? I think you and I mean very different things by that phrase.

          • @Manmoth@lemmy.ml
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            1711 days ago

            You go on Joe Rogan for one. Kamala ran the last presidential campaign that will ever rely so heavily on the legacy media apparatus. This whole cycle proved that they are only broadcasting to themselves and real people are elsewhere on podcasts, twitter and YT.

          • dwraf_of_ignorance
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            19 days ago

            Let Bernie be Encharge. I am jealous that the US has Bernie. Seeing all this shit storm from afar, I now just believe the US doesn’t deserve Bernie at all. He is too good for the US.

          • @Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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            11 days ago

            With all the fucking TV ads and mailers the campaign spent billions on. If the average voters is just covering there ears then why spend so much on advertising or why even campaign at all? Yeah some people are like that but they’re deep in the maga cult, there’s still a large amount of people open to both sides if the messaging is right that decided this election. Harris’ messaging didn’t work though.

            • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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              11 days ago

              I mean the marketing was effective. A lot of people including Donald trump thought he was going to lose. Just not effective at getting people who support Biden to get off their ass.

            • @frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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              911 days ago

              Check out leopards eating faces for the next few years…those people, whether it’s moms surprised the education department is again going to punish their kids, Muslims surprised trump hates Muslims and wants them eradicated, EV company owners who think being allowed to support means being part of the narcissists inner circle, Latinos shocked that their friends or family members there illegally won’t get special protections no matter how many times McCarthy rears his head.

              • @Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                11 days ago

                “EV company owners” aside, most voters in this country just want something to change, and they’ll vote for whoever promises the most of it. Harris’ campaign didn’t do anything nor promise anything that resonated, and practically everything she said ended up morphing into her highly-rehearsed stump speech. No talks about Medicare for All, no talks about the minimum wage, no talks about legalizing weed, and kowtowing to the right on border policy by accepting the ‘crisis’ framing. Harris also failed to address the situation in Gaza in a way that mattered, even though it was a major issue for undecided voters in key states like Michigan. Over 100,000 Democratic primary voters there cast an uncommitted vote over Biden’s handling of Israel and Gaza, which is more than the margin by which she lost the state.

                The right took advantage of this. An EV company owner paid a PAC to distribute ostensibly pro-Harris pamphlets in predominantly Arab neighborhoods in Michigan saying she was the most pro-Israel candidate on the ballot. The right helped put abortion rights directly on the state ballots as propositions, letting people believe the choice could be separated from who they voted for (see Florida, where the proposition lost at 57% support when the state voted roughly the same percentage for ol Don).

                Harris had a potential base on the progressive left, but the DNC insisted on tweaking her campaign to try to win over right-moderates. That doesn’t work anymore, precisely for the “sticking fingers in ears” attitude you mentioned from right-wing voters. It’s asinine for the DNC to continue to try and appeal to them, when the median Republican voter thinks Democrats are agents of a satanic agenda. Regardless, the message the DNC seems to have gotten from Nov 5 was that they lost this election because they failed to move to the right hard enough. The ratchet effect continues.

                As a side note, I know several trumpets who would’ve voted for Sanders in 2016 were he the Democratic nominee, and would’ve voted for Walz even this election were he the main guy on the 2024 presidential ticket. Such people are not very coherent ideologically, they just want someone in who has big ideas.

                Unfortunately, it’s just not enough to be “not the other guy”, even if the other guy is a convicted felon, rapist, and just all-around a downright awful human being.

                edit: grammar and wording in a couple spots

        • @prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          10 days ago

          Many of those people will inexplicably be against a 50% tax on billionaires for two reasons: 1) they have no concept of how progressive tax brackets work, and think that means they’d be taking literally half that person’s wealth, and 2) they believe that one day they could be in that situation, and when they are, they sure as shit won’t want to pay half of their wealth! (spoiler alert: they won’t)

          And until we can change this type of thinking, we will never make those people pay their fair share.

          This is what decades of American Exceptionalism, and Rugged Individualism, does to a nation; Empathy dies, and it becomes every man for themselves.

    • thermal_shock
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      11 days ago

      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.

  • @Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4012 days ago

    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.

    • @Hux@lemmy.ml
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      12 days ago

      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.

      • @Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        12 days ago

        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.

        • Todd Bonzalez
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          1912 days ago

          Ah yes, of course, Kamala was the more conservative option in the last election. Donald Trump is also an actual populist that cares about you. You are very smart. /s

          • @Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            111 days ago

            Yes, I believe that was actually true. Look at him, slashing and burning his way through cabinet appointments.

            She was definitely the more conservative choice. It’s ok that I’m not smart.

    • Todd Bonzalez
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      12 days ago

      I like how you put “trump” in all-caps bold to help us better recognize that you are on TEAM RAPIST.

      Also, the state that always votes blue is happy with their situation, and the state that always votes red is begging for change. You really can’t figure out how each state got into their respective positions?

      Perhaps the state that wants change should try voting for someone other than a Republican every single election.

      • @Fuzzy_Red_Panda@lemm.ee
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        712 days ago

        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.

      • @LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        312 days ago

        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.

    • Ioughttamow
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      2512 days ago

      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

      • originalucifer
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        2612 days ago

        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

      • @Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        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.

    • originalucifer
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      8412 days ago

      maybe youre just completely unfamiliar with the word “conservative”. those red states dont want change. they want to conserve their regressive stance.

      • @Yondoza@sh.itjust.works
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        512 days ago

        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.

        • @Freefall@lemmy.world
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          210 days ago

          They are just lieing to the uneducated gullible masses they created. I suppose you can phrase it as “promising change from the status quo”, but it isn’t exactly accurate.

          • @Yondoza@sh.itjust.works
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            210 days ago

            I have to disagree, It is 100% accurate. The change will not make non-billionaire lives any better, but there is definitely change from the status quo. There are huge shifts with the cabinet appointments already away from qualified “Washington Insiders” to unqualified “Trump Loyalists”. That is a huge change from the status quo. Even during the first Trump admin he appointed mostly qualified career politicians. This is different, as promised. It won’t be better…

    • @Freefall@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      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.

    • masterofn001
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      4612 days ago

      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.

    • @doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works
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      You know, folks are giving you a lot of unnecessary shit for this comment. And I get that when viewed with sufficient context and cultural awareness of American politics, the meme clearly implies at least a correlation between voting blue and an improved quality of life. (edit: which mind you I do believe exists, at least in so far as it compares to voting red)

      But I also saw it and thought, “this meme could easily be interpreted by MAGA cultists to justify their vote for Trump”. They would of course be wrong, but with the isolated set of data provided by the meme, it really doesn’t only imply what it thinks it implies.

    • @Faresh@lemmy.ml
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      11 days ago

      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.

  • @Stovetop@lemmy.world
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    3212 days ago

    Sadly Mass is also close to #1 in terms of cost of living.

    I like it here but I don’t like what it costs.

    • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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      111 days ago

      Yeah, I alternate between proud that we have a $15 minimum wage and horrified at what it probably should be

      • @Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        I was advocating for the $15 minimum wage back in 2010 when I was barely earning $9 in retail, as even then $15/hr was considered the bare minimum needed to avoid poverty.

        I’d say we should be pushing for $25 now given how much the value of a dollar has changed between then and today. But then by the time the state finally implements that in 10-20 years, we’ll probably need to be at $30 or more to just break even with inflation.

    • @Peck@lemmy.world
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      812 days ago

      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.

      • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        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.

      • @Manmoth@lemmy.ml
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        411 days ago

        How is Massachusetts being outrageously expensive not diametrically opposed to “quality of life”? The average person can’t get ahead in Massachusetts which is why they are leaving to go elsewhere.

        • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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          111 days ago

          Because quality of life is that much higher to make up for the cost, at least mathematically

    • @Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca
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      6312 days ago

      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!

      • @Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        1311 days ago

        Pretty easy to have high quality of life and low poverty if all the poor people leave because there priced out.

          • @Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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            511 days ago

            You got a better explanation? People are leaving Massachusetts and the cost of living is high . The most likely reason is that poorer people who can’t afford to live there any more are leaving. Otherwise why would you leave a state with such a high quality of life?

            • @Freefall@lemmy.world
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              110 days ago

              Supply and demand. High quality state is going to be more desirable and so more expensive, where the dumpster states that noone WANTS to live in are so cheap anyone can afford to live there, even if they don’t want to. I would rather bring the whole country up to MA standards, increasing supply of QoL, instead of bringing it down to OK standards because “bUt iT CheEp ThEir”.

            • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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              211 days ago

              I only know that my town has high population of immigrants and if blue collar jobs and we’re growing like crazy.

              I mean all the land was developed a couple hundred years ago, so we’re getting taller

            • @PugJesus@lemmy.world
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              811 days ago

              The people leaving largely aren’t the poor, though. They’re the middle and upper class looking for lower taxes. They’re leaving because the high quality of life there benefits those with less money disproportionately compared to those with more money; public transport and good public schools matter less to the wealthy than to the poor.

              • @Stovetop@lemmy.world
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                11 days ago

                Will also add, not sure how big of a difference it makes, but the data in that article also captures the window of time when Mass implemented its millionaire tax. There was a lot of blustering from the 1% about moving out of state and taking the jobs with them; I doubt the last part but wouldn’t be surprised if a good chunk ended up leaving for elsewhere to avoid paying.

                Also worth looking at how the transition to remote work is a contributing factor. Since the pandemic, it’s no longer necessary for a lot of people who used to work in Boston to live around Boston, and so they can keep their high-paying jobs while moving to more affordable surrounding states (or even other parts of the country). That is definitely middle-upper class migration and it affected regions with high percentages of pre-pandemic office jobs the most, which applies significantly to Boston.

                That being said, I know anecdotally many members of my generation here in Mass (80’s-90’s Millennials) still live with their parents well into their 30’s, and those who did not have that as an option often resorted to moving out of state. Rent remains high and property is even higher, so it’s a waiting game to see if/when this bubble pops. Mass also happens to be close to the bottom in the US in fertility rate (which is not an inherently terrible thing) but speaks to the difficulty of starting a family here.

                I guess the medical care is just so good here that the old people aren’t dying off fast enough!

                • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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                  111 days ago

                  Every company I know are careful to watch where their employees live and adjust wages appropriately. That’s probably the real reason most are hybrid: if you have to come into Boston twice a week, can you really live up in the mountains somewhere cheap?

        • @Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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          11 days ago

          Not the worst but top 10 in inequality

          Also with the high cost of living most of the poor move out so that would make it seem lower then if you look at the inequality to the neighboring states where people may move to or the u.s. as a whole. Probably harder to find but it would be interesting to see inequality among people born in Massachusetts, including those who left. Would be interesting to see if there system is actually creating successful people, or if they’re just kicking out unsuccessful people and attracting already successful people from other states.

          • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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            111 days ago

            The data certainly deserves a deeper look. It may also be because we just have that much more well paid jobs than what people generally think of as wealth inequality.

            I realize that looks inconsistent so let me explain. Most people think of wealth inequality as the different between the Bezos of the world and them. However in this case, I see their measuring by quintile but we have a ton of software and medical- maybe we just have bigger quintiles three and four. Still wealth inequality mathematically but very different from what people expect that means

          • @Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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            210 days ago

            It’s why I left 25 years ago, as much as I liked living there, I couldn’t afford it. The house i grew up in is currently on the market for $2.5mil… my mom sold it for $400k in the 90s. All my high school friends have moved away, though some farther than others…

      • @Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        No arguments from me, that’s why I don’t want to live anywhere else.

        It does sting a bit to be stuck living with high rent in an apartment when my income would allow me to buy a decent house in another part of the country. But then I likely wouldn’t have this income in other parts of the country, either.

        When I moved back to the US from China, I immediately had health insurance thanks to Masshealth. Helped me have peace of mind while I was searching for a job back here. And now I get to work for an organization that helps other people land on their feet when big life changes happen, which is easier to do here than elsewhere.

        • @zeppo@lemmy.world
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          1512 days ago

          It’s pretty difficult to find anywhere in the US currently that has good jobs, good entertainment and restaurants, access to healthcare, good schools, and isn’t expensive. Sure, you can get a house cheaper in rural Kansas or something but then you have to live in rural Kansas.

        • @frostysauce@lemmy.world
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          1012 days ago

          Very well said. I live in the other state from the meme and I’m broke af. I could be living in a better state and still be broke af but getting things from my taxes rather than them being used to put Bibles in schools.

        • @Soup@lemmy.world
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          1712 days ago

          That they keep voting for people who “love the working class” and who “have great economic policy” but every classically Republican state is a fucking shithole that constantly needs money from blue states to stay barely afloat.

          It’s yet more evidence that the GOP don’t have any interest and/or ability to properly run a country. All their ideas fucking suck and everything they touch is worse for it, and their base needs to realize this. Also educated or not it’s so insanely obvious these days just how bad shit is and whose at fault but us North Americans(I’m Canadian, same problems here but more boring) can’t stop but chase the right when the center falters. At this point people should be mocked, this shit’s inexcusable in ways it wasn’t as much even only 10-15 years ago.

        • That the states that consistently vote Republican are also consistently among the states with the worst quality of life, and that there’s a correlation between the two.

          That Republicans don’t actually care about Americans.

        • @Zink@programming.dev
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          612 days ago

          You reap what you sow.

          Some might say that makes you deserving of it, and others might disagree. But the apparent causal relationship exists outside of moral judgments.

            • @pahlimur@lemmy.world
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              3012 days ago

              We generally don’t hate people from red states, I’m in Oregon. We see them like a kid that won’t stop touching a hot stove. It’s more a disappointment than a “fuck em”.

              Like maybe they are just stupid?

              • @TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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                512 days ago

                Maybe. How many times does a kid have to burn himself on a hot stove before we accept that he’s just stupid and a lost cause?

                • @pahlimur@lemmy.world
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                  512 days ago

                  Never. But we can still be disappointed. Not everyone in red states sucks, the majority of them seem to though.

              • Mossy Feathers (She/They)
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                912 days ago

                Apparently you’ve never had people tell you that you don’t matter because you’re from a red state. I’m trans, stuck in a red state, and get to have people tell me I deserve what the state is doing to me and my trans siblings because we were born here.

                Obviously Texas wouldn’t be so red if we would just vote for Democrats, right? Therefore, we must be part of the problem! As long as one person votes blue then that cancels out all the red votes so we really have no one to blame but ourselves!

                I voted blue. Fuck you.

                • @solstice@lemmy.world
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                  512 days ago

                  Could you share more about your trans siblings? I had understood that being transgender was relatively uncommon, and I realize there may be genetic or other factors involved. It’s new to me that multiple members of a family might identify this way, and I’d love to learn more if you’re open to sharing. Thanks!

                • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)
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                  12 days ago

                  Apparently you’ve never had people tell you that you don’t matter because you’re from a red state. I’m trans, stuck in a red state, and get to have people tell me I deserve what the state is doing to me and my trans siblings because we were born here.

                  Girl, that is absolutely bullshit, I am so sorry to hear that. I have family in both Alberta and Saskatchewan (Canada’s blindly right-wing provinces) and it is brutal if you’re not white, male, and hetero. Even moreso if you’re visually not one of those things, and you’re in a rural area.

                  One of my kids is trans, and we’re about to get a Con federal government, so we’re pretty worried for her. Who knows what care will be removed when Canada’s Trump Loving Party takes over (the Conservatives are looking like they’ll get a majority).

                  (For anyone who doesn’t know our parties, that’s the Federal Liberal Party (Centre/Centre-Left Wing), Conservative Party of Canada (Right Wing), New Democratic Party (Centre-Left/Left Wing), Bloc Québécois (far tougher to describe. They swing from Right to Left Wing.)

    • osaerisxero
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      1412 days ago

      Every Oklahoman I have ever met would agree with this statement unironically

    • @x00z@lemmy.world
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      311 days ago

      I’ve recently been imagining separating the countries of the US, or as Americans like to call them; the states.

    • @isaaclw@lemmy.world
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      2011 days ago

      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.

  • @PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    8212 days ago

    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.

    • @zeppo@lemmy.world
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      1512 days ago

      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!

      • @vividspecter@lemm.ee
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        111 days ago

        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.

    • BigFig
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      4712 days ago

      Republicans have had a vice grip on our state and local politics for 40 years…BUT ITS THE LIBRULS FAULT