They're not "red" states... in Those Public Entries

They’re “states oppressed by a GOP government through gerrymandering, redlining, redistricting, and the shutting-down of polling places in rural/poor/Black and brown communities, all to make it hard to impossible for anyone who isn’t a white Republican to vote.”

I haven’t seen much of this on PB, but I do want to address it, because I’m someone who grew up in a former swing state, Ohio, and then spent 17 years living in Indiana, and now I live in Vermont. As in, I own property here and pay taxes, and I have a Vermont driver’s license.

I’ve been on both sides of this discussion. I have far-right nutjobs in my family. And now, having lived in a notoriously blue state on and off since college, I can safely say that there are pockets of Vermont that love the Orange Shitgibbon, including in my small village. I’m not kidding; across the main road, there’s a house with an enormous “TRUMP 2020” flag still on full display on one side. Someone (I suspect the owners of the traitor flag) keeps putting “Let’s Go Brandon” stickers on the stop sign to VT-22, because apparently, they want someone killed. The state that’s been sending Bernie Sanders to the Senate for almost forty years, and a state that is, at the moment, promising to keep abortion legal (hopefully that means also passing a law that states abortion providers in this state don’t have to comply with GOP-controlled states’ extradition agreements), and there are Trump-humpers here, too. More than I’m sure my one college professor, who seemed genuinely shocked that I, a rare Midwesterner at that school, knew how to use a fork and knife, probably thought were here.

But the thing is, just because “red states” seem like Trump-humper havens, they’re really not. As I said before, states like Indiana are gerrymandered to the absolute legal limit, and when they hit one limit, the state congress passes another law to move the goalposts even further. And people in Indiana are extremely aware of how gerrymandered the state is. Not only that, but last election, several polling places in some of the state’s poorest and most rural ZIP codes were shut down, “due to historically low voter turnout” in those areas.

That sounds bad, doesn’t it. It sounds like people in that area just don’t care about who’s leading them. Which… Yes and no. Again, Indiana is one of the most ridiculously gerrymandered states in the country, and redistricting happens in Indianapolis at least once every ten years. When it comes to Indianapolis, which is the state’s bluest city, there are still areas where it’s at least hard, and at most impossible, for people to vote. Polling places being shut down is part of it. There’s also USPS taking mailboxes out of a lot of these areas (especially under Louis DeFuckjoy), meaning that if you’re registered for an absentee ballot, you have to go looking for another mail box. There’s also a severe lack of reliable public transit in Indianapolis (basically, the bus system is privately owned, and Indy”Go” only does whenever the controllers feel like putting the buses on the roads; really, we could rename it “IndyGoFuckYourself” and not only would no one notice, no one would be offended because it would be truth in advertising), and if you can’t afford a car, you probably don’t have one, so how are you going to get to your polling place? Plus, because so many of these neighborhoods are low-income and considered “dangerous,” candidates aren’t willing to hit the streets and talk with the people who live there.

So no, it’s not that people in these neighborhoods don’t care, it’s that they’re disenfranchised. A lot of them feel like the people running in these elections don’t care about them (which is true in many cases), and even if they do want to vote for a certain person, it’s harder for them to vote than is ethical or legal. After a while, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: “They don’t care, and if they did, they’d make the effort to get out and vote!”

Now, think back to November 2020. People who didn’t get an absentee ballot (people who were prevented, in many cases, from getting one, or prevented from mailing them in) stood in lines for upwards of eight hours to vote. Including in Indiana. Including in all “red” states. Under threat of intimidation from MAGAts. Sometimes in blistering cold. Volunteers in those states were handing out snacks and bottles of water so that people wouldn’t have to leave the line, and giving pep talks and encouragement. So no, it’s not that people “just don’t care,” especially in an election as consequential as that one. But the price they paid to vote, one of our very few constitutionally-enshrined rights, is sometimes staggeringly, impossibly high.

All by design, of course. The truth is, “red” states wouldn’t be if they weren’t gerrymandered to hell and back. And the GOP powers in these states know that better than anyone else. That’s why they oppose measures like ranked-choice voting or direct democracy, or even simpler measures like increasing the number of polling places, or offering better public transit, or even going to mail-in only elections. The more people are able to vote, the more they vote “blue” or even further left.

It really is important to remember that the GOP is a minority in this country. A vocal minority, and one with outsize power, but dyed-in-the-wool Republicans, ride-or-die Republicans, and the diet Nazis are outnumbered in a big way by Democrats and leftists. Even in “red” states, the number of Democrats is artificially shrunk by all the barriers to voting. And it should go without saying, but communities of color, especially Black communities, tend to vote blue.

(InB4 all the “DeMoCrAtS wAs SlAvE oWnErZ!” First, “Look at the big brain on Brad!” And second, Republicans used to be horrified by any president even considering allyship with Russia, even after the Soviet Union fell, and yes, Brad, I am old enough to remember that. The times, they do change, and the parties have shifted over that time, as they were wont to do. So shut up, you’re not as smart as you think you are, and I ain’t got time to keep explaining eighth-grade history to you.)

Abortion rights are an excellent example. The whole reason Roe was overturned by the Unsupreme Court is because, if put on the ballot, abortion would have stayed legal in this country, in all fifty states. According to various polls, 90% of Americans support abortion in at least some cases, with around 66% supporting it in all cases. The odds of abortion being banned on a vote were basically nonexistent. The Orange Shitgibbon knew this, which is why he forced through three ultraconservative Disgraces to rule on it. If Ruth Bader Ginsberg were still alive, if Ketanji Brown-Jackson had been on that vote, or if Merrick Garland hadn’t been blocked by McConnell in 2016, Roe probably wouldn’t have been overturned.

And it’s not like people in GOP-controlled states (which is what we should be calling “red” states from now on) are just going to lay down and die. There’s already an Abortion Underground Railroad being set up in Indiana, and I know it’s being set up in other places. Women took to the streets in droves on Friday, in every state capitol, to protest the ruling. They’re stocking up on Plan B, and since there’s no law banning long-term contraceptives yet, I guarantee you that Planned Parenthoods and doctor’s offices are booked with people asking for their tubes to be tied, IUDs to be placed, the Pill, and even a few vasectomies. I guarantee the midterms are going to see a record turnout in these states, and if that’s true, it’s not gonna go well for the GOP.

And hey, if all that fails, I say we take the six Disgraces who voted to overturn Roe and give ‘em the Ceausescu treatment, you know what I’m sayin’?

So yeah, don’t exclude people who grew up in GOP-controlled states from the discussion, just because you think we aren’t “smart enough” to understand. We understand, and more than you do. More importantly, since many of us -myself included- grew up either in these far-right, white evangelical KKKristian churches or know people who did, we speak the language and understand how the people in these cults think. On the one hand, we’re useful as moles; on the other, we can start the conversation that might, eventually, lead to de-radicalizing some of them.

Oh yeah, and don’t underestimate the importance of conversation. Yes, some people are so hateful and so far-gone that even trying to initiate that conversation is a waste of time. But if someone asks you “Why do you support abortion/trans rights/the Green New Deal/[other assorted Dem/leftist talking points]?”, give them the benefit of the doubt. Leftists are often extremely hostile to any questioning, which is one of my biggest criticisms of them (speaking as a leftist), and that opening with hostility is what pushes people into the arms of the diet Nazis. So on first contact, be nice (just nice; you don’t have to love them right away, just talk to them like you would a coworker you don’t know well). Give them the facts. If they ask another question, answer it, still being nice. It doesn’t take long to tell if someone is acting in good faith or not, and if you assume that they’re acting in good faith first, it might actually dispel any bad faith they might have, or at least start them down the path of questioning their own beliefs. Even if they don’t go full leftist pinko, they’re still one less victim of the diet Nazis, and honestly, that itself is worth a lot.

Last updated June 27, 2022