I live in a red state. I love my job and there are some lovely people here. But I started looking into FIRE because red state policies are chipping away at my natural optimism and good nature. We are lucky in that we have been able to get out of this state often enough to get a break. My partner and I have done good work here, for anyone willing to do the work I encourage that. But don’t go too long term. My experience is with 2 different red states for almost 2 decades, maybe this is not true in all red states and I hope there are changes in the future. But I only have my experiences, so these are the main things that have chipped away at us:
1. Fear
2. Control
3. Binary thinking
4. Selfishness
Fear: Fear of “the other” (in all its forms
@Sibley has a good list). Personal example, a woman I know asked me “You don’t have a gun? Aren’t you scared?” (for the record no, I’m not scared).
Control: This is the other side of fear.
@Sibley mentioned animal abuse and it’s not often spoken about, but it is true and utterly depressing. Consequently we have spent a good deal of our own money on this issue as well as the environmental one. Control extends to your mind, body, and thoughts. Examples: healthcare (especially women’s), your body (especially women’s), your sexual orientation, your rights to simply talk about your life/family (can’t say gay or discuss US history with regards to slavery), forcing religion in public schools/on the public, monopolies (forcing you to pay one company to get energy, internet, or whatever), privatized profits but public losses (i.e. propping up big business even if it literally kills us).
Binary Thinking: This might come down to critical thinking, but it is really hard to have conversations with people when they are unable to deal with nuance (2 bucket thinking). Examples, you are a christian or a heathen, gay or straight, I root for “fill in the blank” so you are my enemy. This dichotomy is not good for the US as a whole. I don’t want to say I’d rather live in a blue state versus a red one (let’s put aside the fact that I mentioned purple).
Selfishness/Supremacy: This is pretty self-explanatory; the “I’ve got mine” mindset is rampant at every level. Personal example: I was at a Meet Your Legislature event and some guy said he was upset because he did not think it would be fair if a (citizen) vote in California was worth the same as his (our votes are about 30X CA). Mind you, I live in a red, red, this wasn’t going to happen but this guy got so upset about the
idea that someone in CA might be equal to him “some day” in terms of voting. I will not discuss the other part to this as you are all smart enough to know the issue.
I’ve warned people here at MMM to carefully research their LCOL area. Low taxes often means you’re out of luck when something goes wrong. After a storm roads/bridges are not rebuilt/cleaned up for a long time, sometimes they are just closed and that will cost you time and money (maybe even your life). Things like kids just not getting lunch at school is normalized. Thank you
@caracarn for mentioning that issue. Just because it’s not taxed, doesn’t mean the issue goes away. And often someone pays for it (the costs eventually “trickles down” to the citizens of the state in one way or another in the form of high crime rates, rising healthcare costs, home value declining etc [or the citizens of a blue state pays for it]).
@wenchsenior already mentioned the psychological toll of being bombarded with religious propaganda. Living in a blue state I never knew anyone’s religion, nobody ever asked. Why are we forced to encounter billboards that tell us to read the bible, that depict false healthcare propaganda, or ones that tell us we are going to hell? I am just trying to peacefully drive down a public road (see control above).
“They leave you alone in red states,” would be truly laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. Aside from all of the above, if you also like to pay double for energy and subpar services because of the monopolies, the school systems are lacking, some states utility company buy solar excess energy from homeowners then sell is back to the same home for more than double the cost (and this is legal and it's a monopoly...), red state government often “leave citizens alone” when industry is trying to kill them with pollution and other nonsense, if you like your public forests to be sold to corporation and deep drilling with "proprietary ingredients" leading to all sorts of health and environmental problems. And if you like being “left alone” by your state government, you may have enjoyed living in my state during COVID where the numbers were hidden and the information was sparse and unreliable. People would get all up in your face and yell at you if you wore a mask (see control above) I could go on.
I would like to live in a place where people value expertise, education, and accomplishments. A place with a growth mindset where people are kind and have basic manners and respect their neighbors regardless of differences. I want to pay taxes that support after school programs, public school lunches, and the basic needs of people. Body autonomy is considered a human right and whatever happens at home or as part of a membership (religious or secular) is private. Where supporting people over corporations was a point of pride not the genesis of an argument. If there is such a location it is not in the red states I have lived in.
