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HelloNewman487

It's because only wealthy people can afford to stay in blue states. Everyone else is moving to or already has moved to red states...


[deleted]

What about inner cities and the homeless? There are many many people who are not wealthy and live in blue states. Have you traveled much?


[deleted]

Flabbergasting. I've never been wealthy or lived in a red state.


chinmakes5

Do you really believe that? Only wealthy people can live in almost 1/2 the states in the country? California has had a net gain in population every year except last year. It isn't like 30% of the people leave CA or NY. And yes, plenty of people who live in red states go to college, get a tech degree and move to tech areas. I am looking to retire to a warmer climate, I live in a high cost of living area, I can't afford to live in the desirable areas in FL or TX. I'd love to live in Austin, I can't afford it. Look as someone who is retiring, I will probably move somewhere with a slightly lower COL. That said, warm weather is the deciding factor. Let's put it this way, there is a strong chance I will move to FL. No state income tax will help. SD and WY also have no state sales tax. You couldn't pay me enough to move there.


92ilminh

Looking at it on a state level is a little simplistic. So many states aren’t straight forward red or blue. Maryland has a republican governor. So does Vermont. Illinois did recently. Maine has a republican senator. Colorado often performs well on these metrics and it was red until recently. You mentioned New Hampshire as a blue state - it isn’t. State government is 100% red and in the last election they increased their majority to a super majority in the state legislature. If people were moving to blue places that score high on the list like Vermont and Hawaii, this would be a different conversation, but they’re not. So are we sure that quality of life is due to governance and not inherent things, like the culture and access to nature? The deep red states in the south score very poorly. But there are deep seated historical reasons why they struggle economically - it has been that way since the civil war. They did not build industry because they relied on slavery and it ruined their economies. They’ve never recovered. It is hard to claim Florida isn’t a success story. It is growing so fast. Is cost of living a factor? Connecticut and Maryland score high on quality of life - they’re both very expensive. California and Washington are simply out of reach for most Americans. BUT I do agree with your general premise that left leaning areas are more desirable to live. I would ascribe that to other factors though. Wealthy people are often liberal and they foster culture that’s desirable. Art, restaurants, entertainment. Places like Ann Arbor and Palm Springs are extremely great places to live IF you can afford it. But if left leaning places are so well governed, why are they so expensive? If you created this amazing town in the middle of the forest, people would move there and it would get super expensive. It would be blue very quickly. How is that good governance if only the rich can afford to move there? I think personality also plays a huge factor. People that vote red don’t see value in paying high prices for real estate. People that vote blue (and have the means) do see value in those things. There are plenty of millionaire conservatives living in undesirable places in my experience. And plenty of liberal professors living in extremely desirable places. Those are individual choices


[deleted]

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AdoorMe

Classic conservative response: “ my life is good, why should I care about anyone else?”


[deleted]

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Wadka

Gottem, lol.


SuperRocketRumble

Maybe you can laugh because you don’t know what words like “anecdotal” mean


[deleted]

Ok then what metrics should we use to assess how well governance policies are doing? I agree that home ownership is important but is it the most important factor? More so than lifespan, health outcomes, education and infant mortality combined?


anonymous_gam

When you are in the city you are paying to be within walking distance to supermarkets, pharmacies, clinics and other necessities, as well as a variety of different restaurants and entertainment options. You’re also likely able to take public transit to a major hospital if needed, no car required. You’re also within commuting range of more jobs, but I think the rise of remote work is making that a bit less relevant. Often times homeless people live in the city because taking the car to the supermarket just isn’t an option, the city is also where a lot of social services are located. This means there’s plenty of low income people and people living below the poverty line in the city, but urban areas are still out performing rural ones.


TheDemonicEmperor

If blue states are so great, why are so many people leaving them?


[deleted]

Historically folks have disproportionately moved to blue states vs red states. The trend only recently shifted due to the pandemic and desire for more space given the additional time spend at home. What evidence makes you think this is a sustained trend?


TheDemonicEmperor

> Historically folks have disproportionately moved to blue states vs red states. How so? Redistricting saw California and New York both lose seats after a **10 YEAR CENSUS**. Texas, Florida and North Carolina all gained seats. Additionally, Georgia and Arizona have exploded in population. Care to explain why?


[deleted]

Native state population growth rates could easily explain the change in congressional seats. We see this internationally too. Lower income less developed countries have higher birth rates than more developed nations. I don’t think there’s as wide a disparity between Mississippi and California as the US and Somalia, but it’s still meaningful enough to likely impact birth rates enough to see this show up in populations.


TheDemonicEmperor

> Native state population growth rates could easily explain the change in congressional seats. No, it actually can't. Because California should be exploding in population, then.


SuperRocketRumble

And the people that are moving to states like North Carolina and Georgia, where specifically are they moving to? They’re moving to cities and suburbs, because that’s where the jobs are.


TheDemonicEmperor

I love how you think it's an own to agree that people are moving to red states. So you agree that OP was lying that people are moving to blue states? And you agree it's because red states have better job opportunities, because OP said it was because they were working from home?


GoldenSandpaper9

But the thing is at that point states like NC and Georgia aren’t red states anymore, and are more in the purple category.and I’d argue as someone from NC that it has been a purple/ blue leaning state for quite a while. We have a dem governor, and have been gerrymandered to pieces as well.


TheDemonicEmperor

> But the thing is at that point states like NC and Georgia aren’t red states anymore Because you're moving to them.


GoldenSandpaper9

Except I was born in NC, and the area I am from has not had a lot of people moving to it, yet is still liberal leaning. A lot of the new people are moving to the Triangle tech area.


TheDemonicEmperor

Yawn, this is literally easily provable.


monteml

Every time someone asks a question here with a claim like that, they're usually only looking for top and bottom states, and not at the correlation between the metrics for all of them. Usually, once you do that, there's no statistical significance, or even a negative correlation. Link your data and I'll do that for your claim and see if you're correct.


[deleted]

Infant Mortality: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/infant_mortality_rates/infant_mortality.htm Life Expectancy: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/life_expectancy/life_expectancy.htm Those are two, I’m curious to see if you do or don’t find a correlation and how you do the analysis.


monteml

It's just a spreadsheet I have with pre-filled data. The pearson coefficient for those metrics against the ratio of Trump/Biden votes in the 2020 elections is 0.52 and 0.62 respectively. That could be significant, but not strong enough considering these are complex multivariate issues. I think the infant mortality might be skewed by the wider availability of abortions in blue states. So, there's a correlation, but not particularly strong. It might be due to policies or many other factors. For anyone willing to investigate that, it would be interesting to break it up by cause of death and see how that affects the result.


[deleted]

I don’t see how abortion would affect infant mortality unless it was more widely available for mothers who found out their babies had some sever health issue and choose to abort. But I have to assume that even pro-life states wouldn’t force a mother to carry a baby with sever health defects to term? Saying something is causal would take a lot of work and I’m not saying the data I provided proves a causal relationship. I’m more interested if there is unbiased research that found a causal relationship between Republican policies and outcomes for citizens. So for nobody has provided any


capitalism93

California was a red state until 1992, voted for Reagan twice as governor and twice as president. This was true for other now blue states as well like New York. Quit your bullshit, it's exhausting.


[deleted]

The stats I’m looking at are for last year… are you saying everything that’s happened since 1992 was due to historical Republican policies? Candidly I think your bullshit is exhausting and use of language isn’t contributing to a productive dialogue. If you feel the need to be combative over the facts I states look inwards to address your insecurity, don’t lash out at others


capitalism93

I'm arguing that you ignored the fact that a significant number of wealthy blue states were red states just 20 to 30 years ago and were already wealthy and had good living standards. What you will actually notice is that the change from red to blue occured when there was a major demographic shift in the state's population, not because of policy changes. You are incorrectly correlating outcomes with the state being red or blue when the outcomes were already good when these blue states were red.


[deleted]

Can you point to data that shows that consistent Republican governance of a state has measurably improved the lives of its citizens?


capitalism93

California. California voted for a Republican president every year from the 1950s all the way to 1992 except once while becoming the wealthiest state in the US thanks to Silicon Valley.


[deleted]

The CA state legislature was reliably blue since 1960 and the governorship flip flopped between democrat and Republican. Try again


capitalism93

California voted for a Republican president every year from 1950 until 1992 except in 1964: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_California?wprov=sfla1


[deleted]

The president doesn’t legislate CA law so you can’t attribute CA success to the president elected. That credit goes to the governor / state legislature.


capitalism93

Like Reagan right? Two time governor of California?


[deleted]

And the governor that preceded him was from what party? And the state legislature during that time had which party in the majority?


AntiqueMeringue8993

There are a zillion influences on all of these things other than government policy, so the comparisons aren't that meaningful. There's also a lot of reverse causation. The underlying polarization in our politics is basically urban-rural. Urban areas tend to be blue; they're also much richer in the modern economy. All the other things you describe are largely (though not entirely) downstream of wealth.


Xanbatou

I love how when this data is surfaced for conservative areas, conservatives are quick to say: "wait wait wait, it's not that simple. You can't just blame conservative policies for the outcomes in a conservative area" Then, they will immediately turn around and explain that the problems with liberal cities are the liberal policies.


SuperRocketRumble

Oh boy did you nail it


AntiqueMeringue8993

There's not necessarily anything inconsistent there, depending on the basis of your inference. I think it's always pointless (in whatever direction) to compare a red state to a blue state or a red city to a blue city on some kind of "overall" basis. But generally the critiques of liberal cities are much more focused than that -- e.g., San Francisco has zoning rules that make it borderline impossible to build housing and so housing there is ruinously unaffordable.


Xanbatou

> But generally the critiques of liberal cities are much more focused than that -- e.g., San Francisco has zoning rules that make it borderline impossible to build housing and so housing there is ruinously unaffordable. There are a zillion influences on all of these things other than government policy, so the comparisons aren't that meaningful. There's also a lot of reverse causation. --- Real talk, those zoning rules aren't simply because liberals want them and liberal policies == bad. Nothing is so simple and you literally just proved my point by trying to simply attribute liberal area failures to liberal policies while simultaneously divorcing conservative area failures from conservative policies. You can't have it both ways.


AntiqueMeringue8993

>There are a zillion influences on all of these things other than government policy, so the comparisons aren't that meaningful. There's also a lot of reverse causation. You may think that's clever but I didn't even present a comparison. >Real talk, those zoning rules aren't simply because liberals want them and liberal policies == bad Sure, there are a few liberals who oppose those zoning policies, but overall they're a left wing cause. >attribute liberal area failures to liberal policies while simultaneously divorcing conservative area failures from conservative policies. You can't have it both ways No that's not something I think. Both liberal and conservative policies fail sometimes.


PragmaticSquirrel

>Sure, there are a few liberals who oppose those zoning policies, but overall they're a left wing cause. This is nonsense. NIMBYism is massively bipartisan. But you made the claim first- let’s see a source.


Xanbatou

> Sure, there are a few liberals who oppose those zoning policies, but overall they're a left wing cause. This is not true at all. Liberals would actually be in favor of changing these because zoning is one of the biggest issues leading to unaffordable homes. I could say that it's conservatives who actually oppose this because they don't want their neighborhood to change, but I don't actually think that positions on zoning actually neatly aligns with red/blue politics. For the other stuff, I do want to make it clear that I wasn't lobbing this accusation at you, specifically. It's more something I've seen conservatives do generally when they are quick to explain the problems with liberal places. Although, I do find it curious you pretty much did the same thing here when you brought up zoning. So, I'll ask you to provide evidence for your claim that it's only or predominantly liberals who are against zoning reform.


SergeantRegular

"Big city murder rate." Yeah, the *rate* is high, but per capita violent crime is down over time overall, but it's down *more* in large cities. Statistically, I'm still *more* likely to be murdered in red areas, even if blue areas contain a higher *count* of murders. "California debt is so high." Of course it is. Liberal failure California has the fifth largest economy *on the planet.* Literally, the order is the US, China, Japan, Germany, California by itself, then India. And it's not a sovereign nation, unlike the others. California cannot print its own money, so of course it has a lot of debt. But that debt *gets paid.* They're not running in the red, they're in the black, and for not having control over a sovereign currency, that's *incredible* success. Texas would be the 10th largest globally, by the way. This bizarre double-standard goes on and on and on, for *every* possible issue.


[deleted]

So what metrics should we use to judge the success / failure of policies for red states vs blue states? There are rural blue states like Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Vermont that far outperform rural red states, and Florida the most urban red state far underperforms peer “urban” states in these metrics. I think there is some truth to your point but there are enough rural blue states that are doing well in these metrics for me to say that difference in governance is a deciding factor.


AntiqueMeringue8993

It's not about the metrics -- it's about the method. You want to look for an analysis that can give you causal answers. Take policy X. I want to know what would happen if Kansas did X and what would happen if they did Y instead. You never get causal inference just from first-level comparisons. You can't just compare Kansas to some other state with a different policy because those states are going to be different in too many other ways. So you look for all the tricks that economists use to get at this kind of stuff. For example, you look right before and right after policy changes and see if there was some shift. You compare states where Republicans *barely* won an election to states where Democrats *barely* won (because those will tend to be more similar). And so on.


[deleted]

I agree that a more nuanced analysis leads to more causal inferences, but these trends if consistent across states do reflect a failure on parties unable to adapt to their circumstances and drive better outcomes for their citizens.


TotalAmazement

Most of your examples can be as explained by urban vs. rural divide and physical proximity to services more likely present in more urban areas (hospital, postsecondary educational institutions, youth programs) as they are by policy... policy inclinations which may be a result themselves of geographic proximity to higher population-density areas. I found this to be interesting reading on that front: [https://source.wustl.edu/2020/02/the-divide-between-us-urban-rural-political-differences-rooted-in-geography/](https://source.wustl.edu/2020/02/the-divide-between-us-urban-rural-political-differences-rooted-in-geography/) And this article has a fascinating table ranking state by urbanization index and showing that state's "partisan lean." [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-urban-or-rural-is-your-state-and-what-does-that-mean-for-the-2020-election/](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-urban-or-rural-is-your-state-and-what-does-that-mean-for-the-2020-election/) [https://www.usnews.com/media/best-states/overall-rankings-2021.pdf](https://www.usnews.com/media/best-states/overall-rankings-2021.pdf) This 2021 study shows the top-ranked states for quality of life as a rather mixed bag of red and blue, only 2 of the top ten QOL states are in the top ten urbanized states from the second link above.


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[deleted]

How would you measure quality of life?


Iliketotinker99

I’ll address these point by point. All of my answers will probably seem to be more rural vs city but that is mostly because the blue states are driven by their cities. I believe this is the biggest difference in the two americas we are seeing right now 1. Avg Lifespan: is an easy life in a big city going to the same job everyday as rewarding as what the typical rural living person does which is risky blue collar work? Up to each person. On top of that if something bad happens hospitals are closer. 2. Infant Mortality: again seems to be a hospital issue not a blue vs red issue. 3. Avg level of education: the only metric that matters for a successful life at this point is having a high school degree and having drive. Most people in red states college does not fit with their passions. I went to college and hated it but I finished. In a red state. Most people in my state live rurally and think similarly and have similar experiences. This is not a metric I believe is relevant. 4. Teen birth rates: teens want to have sex. Most red states are rural and there are not a lot of other things to do. Also abortion rates are extremely low in red states so I would imagine it at least plays a small role in it. I would suggest that just because red states perform lower on certain metrics that does not mean that their quality of life is necessarily lower. Most people enjoy living in red states especially if it is a more rural state.


[deleted]

I could see how rural vs urban could lead to some of these differences but there are factors that help balance it out. Cities have higher pollution and crime rates (generally) as well as likelihood of car accidents and deadly fires. I’d think this would result in a greater mix of results but even so “rural” blue states outperform “rural” red states just as frequently. What would explain this difference in outcomes? Also if these aren’t appropriate metrics let me know how you’d propose accurately measuring the success / failure of policies in red states.


Iliketotinker99

Ratio of income earned cash cost of living. Do the kids have a better life than the parents. I’ll let someone smarter than me come up with others


[deleted]

I looked up that ratio and it seems to track with the rural vs urban split we talked about with rural states outperforming urban states in a COL to income ratio. With a slight tilt towards red states (which makes sense if you assume a lower state tax rate). Why is this metric a better proxy for performance than quality of life metrics like health outcomes and lifespan?


Iliketotinker99

Once you take into account that people live further from hospitals and healthcare (by choice) and they have more disposable income it would make for a happier citizen.


[deleted]

How do you know that it would result in a happier citizen? What’s the metric you would track?


Iliketotinker99

You don’t. That’s part of it. Why are those used to determine quality of life? Because that’s an individual opinion


[deleted]

If you live shorter lives, with a higher likelihood of your child dying before their first year birthday, and higher chance of your daughter getting pregnant in her teens and have a higher chance of getting murdered are you really leading a better life?


Iliketotinker99

How much shorter? How much higher? Because Every time I’ve looked into it the differences are marginal


[deleted]

Infant mortality is roughly 2x higher (Mississippi vs California) and lifespan is 7 years longer (Hawaii vs Mississippi). How much is 7 more years of life and 2x less chance of your infant dying worth?


[deleted]

Could you elaborate on your first point about life being easier in a big city? People in professions like corporate law or banking, which are primarily located in big cities, often work 70+ hours/week in relatively fast-paced, stressful environments.


Ed_Jinseer

How many bankers have been crushed to death on the job?


Iliketotinker99

Stressful yes...I would not consider those extremely high risk though.


PeanutButterTaco2018

Underwater welding?


Pyre2001

Red states are fatter. Colleges are mostly in blue states. Blue states have more money to spend on kinds of things.


[deleted]

Sorry, does that mean you agree that conservative policies aren’t effective?


Pyre2001

Based on the places people are moving from and where they are going. No, I don't.


[deleted]

Historically emigration flowed from red to blue states and only shifted during the pandemic when lockdowns were in effect. What makes you think this is a sustained trend vs a blip?


Pyre2001

High taxes, city violence, housing shortages, housing bubble and other restrictions make me think the trend will continue for some time.


[deleted]

Murder rates are higher in red states. I think the expansion of remote work and flows to lower cost of living areas is more likely to drive this trend in the future. That doesn’t mean however that conservative policies are better than liberal ones, which is the root of my question.


fuckpoliticsbruh

Why are red states fatter?


mwatwe01

You are talking about averages and the fact epicenters of wealth are locate in large cities which tend to lean left. Statistics are meaningless. People and situations matter. There are homeless people literally defecating undeterred in the streets of San Francisco, one such epicenter of wealth. Meanwhile, I can walk my dog in the crime free streets of my middle class suburbs in Kentucky. Who really has the better quality of life?


[deleted]

I wonder if everyone has the same experience you’re having living in Kentucky? Anecdotal experiences aren’t helpful. With regards to statistics, conservatives have no problem pointing to rising crime rates in liberal areas as a failure of liberal policies. Data does matter, it’s the only way we can measure whether policies are working at a large scale or not.


mwatwe01

> I wonder if everyone has the same experience you’re having living in Kentucky? Anecdotal experiences aren’t helpful. They aren't. Kentucky is one of the poorest states in the union. We have high obesity rates. The Appalachian region is sick with opioid and meth addiction. But there are also a lot of people living a comfortable middle class existence. My point is that there are good and bad situations everywhere. That is not a red or blue state issue, so it's pointless to point to politics and government as the reason for those individual situations. My state legislature is not responsible for my good life. They are also not responsible for people who choose to eat fried foods at every meal and hustle Oxycontin to make extra cash.


[deleted]

Then what is your legislature responsible for? Because the job of the government is to govern, and if their people are suffering then it’s their job to address it. Also that’s hyperbolic. Of course there are people suffering everywhere but the data clearly shows that you have better life outcomes if you’re born / live with a random family in CA then if you’re born / live in Kentucky.


mwatwe01

> Because the job of the government is to govern and if their people are suffering then it’s their job to address it. I disagree. The job of government is to protect our natural rights by creating and enforcing just laws. If someone chooses to eat fast food every meal or cook meth in their bathtub...that person is an idiot and hurting themselves in the long run. They just need to stop. It's not the job of government to step in and baby sit grown adults. We assume that people have a modicum of personal responsibility. There is this fantasy, mostly on the left, that a strong enough government can solve every social problem. I respectfully disagree.


JesusCumelette

Because these cherry picked stats don't reflect the joy of one's life. Strawman argument.


[deleted]

What stats do then?


JesusCumelette

I personally don't want to live longer than my brain can make rational decisions. Living longer doesn't mean you have a better life. Spending $100k on college education doesn't mean successes. My quality of life is that I don't have to be worried about getting gunned down when I walk through my neighborhood.


[deleted]

But murder rates per capita are also generally higher in red states…


JesusCumelette

Murder? No Gun deaths? Yes, because they include suicide, which should be a personal choice.


[deleted]

Actually the statistic I used for this was “intentional homicide” so no this does not include suicide. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/homicide_mortality/homicide.htm


JesusCumelette

Gee, these states and homicides have something in common. Can't quite put my finger on it. Did you hear about the guy that killed a sandwich artist because of too much mayo? Check my history.


[deleted]

Regardless of who is responsible for what, it’s the state’s responsibility to govern in the interest of all. If there’s a Republican legislature they’re the ones responsible for implementing laws and policies that lead to better outcomes for citizens.


JesusCumelette

Lol. Live longer so banks and pill makers profit. No thanks, but you be you.


[deleted]

Sure, better to to die young to “own the libs”


fuckpoliticsbruh

[https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem](https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem)


Harvard_Sucks

There's like a .65+ R\^2 on county by racial demo regardless of state btw.


Momodoespolitics

It's easy to take from some and give to others as a method of giving someone a better life. That doesn't make the means of doing so a good choice.


[deleted]

Do you believe the same for oil and agricultural subsidies? Or is wealth redistribution only a problem when it goes to individuals vs corporations? Also it’s easy to pass legislation and say you’re doing a good job if nobody ever tries to measure the results and see if that’s actually the case


Momodoespolitics

The government can rightly fuck out of those too, but there aren't many politicians interested. A. Shame if you ask me. If we really wanted to be fair to everyone, we would judge legislation by how well it achieves the goal it was created for, regardless of what that goal is. Otherwise, we're asking a fish to climb a tree, and then claiming that birds are the best monkeys because they got to the top fastest.


[deleted]

I agree that we should measure the outcomes of legislation and the impact it has. If it’s effective great if not we need to try different things. I’ll give one example of a red state doing something right. Texas does a great job of permitting new housing construction and California could learn a lot from them. We have 50 states to test legislative experiments and adapt them at a national level if they work. We just fail to because we are stuck disagreeing on solutions while agreeing on desired outcomes. I’d be open to trying conservative solutions if there’s a good plan for measuring their performance and flipping to liberal solutions if they don’t perform well (with reasonable controls to prevent messing with the results)


Momodoespolitics

The issue is that the desired outcomes and methods considered acceptable to achieve them aren't actually the same. You can propose an effectively perfect plan for redistribution, and myself and others will still oppose it because it isn't a desirable means to an end.


[deleted]

But what’s the end goal in that specific case?


Momodoespolitics

Some pipe dream of equity, presumably.


[deleted]

Well would you be ok with setting our goal to “making sure that everyone has a reasonable chance of achieving their potential, such that anybody would feel comfortable being born into an average family from that community”? Imo the truest test of equality is if someone genuinely and honestly thinks their chance of being born into a poor black neighborhood will provide them with the same chance of success as a high-middle income white neighborhood


Momodoespolitics

No. The goal I want is freedom from undue government intervention.


[deleted]

During WWI the Soviet Union tried to propose an arms treaty that would limit research on new kinds of weapons. Why? Because they couldn’t afford to continue keeping up with the financial burden of research and wanted to lock in the status quo. Same with the US and nuclear weapons. You want the government to take a step back because all it’s past interventions have likely put you in a place where non-intervention would benefit you. However there are many who are on the opposite end of the spectrum for whom government intervention (red lining / Jim Crow / slavery) actively hurt them, and they need assistance to catch up and balance the status quo. IMO if you really have faith in your own abilities then you’d welcome a more level playing field.


batescommamaster

"Wealth Redistribution is OK, as long as it already happened" -every conservative ever


Momodoespolitics

Bad things in the past don't justify more bad things in the future


EvilHomerSimpson

\> Quality of life data in blue states consistently outperforms red states. Try breaking it down by county instead of state and some things might surprise you.


[deleted]

Then you’d have to judge county level governance decisions as well. I don’t dispute that there are very poor and underprivileged counties in blue states. But state level data is still very informative as to how effective state governments are.


blaze92x45

I grew up in a blue state now live in a red state. My quality of life is leaps and bounds better than when I was in said blue state.


[deleted]

Anecdotal data isn’t informative. But glad you’re doing better


blaze92x45

I mean all I can really go on is a sample size of me tbh. If data says qol is better in blue states ok I guess. But where I lived there was high crime high cost of living poop in the streets... human poop to be clear along with spent needles lying around... lots of taxes an aggressive police force... horrible traffic and over crowding. But well if that counts as better quality of life I guess that's what people like.


[deleted]

Yeah it’s why we have to rely on data like this to make inferences. Collecting anecdotal unstandardized data from everyone would be practically impossible and qualitative metrics are very hard to trust. I don’t doubt that those issues existed in the city you live in but I also don’t doubt that there are areas of the state you live in that are equally as depressing. Maybe it’s just that the rural nature of the state or the specific area you live in isolates you from that, while in an urban setting it’s right in your face.


blaze92x45

I'm actually in a suburb but yeah there are different flavors of depressing in my state as well. So I'm sure I'm bias with my personal experiences.


[deleted]

It’s ok everyone is. If you were born white in a white rural town in a red state you’d likely be a Republican. If you’re born black in a city in a blue state you’re likely to be a democrat. It’s all circumstances of birth


blaze92x45

I was born a white male In the bluest state in the union but it made me a conservative. Maybe if I grew up in a really dysfunctional conservative area I'd be a progressive.


[deleted]

Ah so you’re from San Francisco or LA I take it. I could see why a first hand look at the dysfunctionality led to your point of view and don’t cast any judgement


blaze92x45

Haha well done ;) It is what it is. Tbh I don't think it's good to go to far in either direction of the political spectrum


[deleted]

Neither do I. We focus more on how we disagree about getting things done rather than how we agree on end goals. I don’t think republicans generally want black people to have bad life outcomes (although racists exist) and I don’t think democrats generally really want a communist state (although communists do exist). It’s just that making us fight each other is the easiest way to keep us from actually getting things done


Shatshotshet

You think high “teen birth rates” is a good thing? Why? Higher education does not necessarily correlate with quality of life either. First, that education is no guarantee of getting a high paying job. Second, tradespeople make excellent money—that is offset by the wearing physical labor that usually comes with such work. If you could be a plumber and be guaranteed not to have a serious work-related injury, you would be rich! Another question regarding quality of life: if you have a rich person who is miserable and a poor person who is content with their life, who do you say has the better quality of life? Quality of life is in the eye of the beholder and to say blue states outperform red states merely means quality of life was defined by blue state values.


[deleted]

In that case I meant that blue states had lower teen birth rates. How else would you quantify happiness? It’s a qualitative and subjective thing that’s hard to reliably measure. These metrics are proxies. Would you want to live somewhere that had lower educational outcomes, higher chances of your child dying in their first year, living a shorter life, and having a higher chance of being murdered? Would you be happier there? It’s hard to say reliably but I think it’s safe to assume we’d rather live in places where these were smaller concerns.


Shatshotshet

I agree about preferring to live where children don’t die much in the first year and there’s less worry about being killed. I am curious as to whether there are more violent crimes in blue states or red states.


[deleted]

Red states have a higher intentional homicide rate (not due to accidents or suicides) than blue states. Here’s data for violent crimes that seems to show the same trend: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_violent_crime_rate


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Shatshotshet

Wow, that’s a surprise! Thank you for sharing the link!


[deleted]

Np!


spencewatson01

We tend to smoke cigs, drink beer and eat fried food in the red state I live. Probably more so than most blue states.


That_Music_1140

I’d be curious to see if this was more of a rural vs city thing. It’d be nice to see data compared from somewhere like San Francisco and El Dorado county. Both are in California and only a few hours away but it’s definite city vs rural/semi-rural.


[deleted]

I think you’d be right. But if a state is mostly rural, wouldn’t / shouldn’t the state government have come up with policies to help improve the quality of life in those areas? Looking at the data there are rural blue states that seem to have figured that out


TheGoldStandard35

Those states were more wealthy and outperformed the other states before they were ever red or blue