We need solidarity, not scapegoating

I'm tired of people endlessly casting aside “red states”

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, and that’s because I’ve been knee-deep in editing over 1,500 Appalachian accent submissions that are set to be published next week — so please forgive me! I’ve included a pic of Big Dog below as penance.

But I wanted to drop in here to share some thoughts, especially since we have a lot of new subscribers to this here substack.

Veteran Appodlachians will know that I’m no fan of the “red state” “blue state” labels — states are more complicated than a binary categorical definition, and they’re often used to cast aside millions of people simply for how a majority of voters vote.

After every election where an awful person like Donald Trump is elected, there is an inevitable onslaught of “fuck these dumb hillbilly backwoods uneducated two-toothed fucks” (or some variation of that) from typically center-left liberals in states that tend to vote for Democrats.¹ ²

This narrow-mindedness is frustrating, of course. And it is derived from this simplistic way of viewing states — as the binary red/blue.

Friends, we have to get way the hell beyond that way of thinking if we’re ever going to get out of this mess. The idea that there are not progressive, leftist, socialist, whatever-ist, <insert your left ideology here> person in a place like Alabama or West Virginia or Tennessee or Kentucky is just factually inaccurate. They exist. Maybe not in the levels that they do in a Berkeley, California, but they exist, and they deserve to be acknowledged.

Picture of Big Dog to lighten the mood

We need less of this scapegoating behavior of blaming all that is bad in the country on said dumb hillbillies in red states, and start showing some damn solidarity with the people who are in those places that are like-minded. And even the ones who aren’t!

The vast majority of people are not wealthy. They are financially struggling or feeling financial hardship coming around the corner.

The divide in this country is greatest not between the right and the left — it’s between the rich and everyone else. Class struggles are something that can be found in any community in this country. If the people who are whining and complaining about “red states” really do portend to care about the working class and the downtrodden in this country, they are doing a poor job of showing it.

1. There is an irony to one of their criticisms being “uneducated” when one of the stupidest things you could do is cast broad, sweeping, blanket assumptions about an entire population of people based on how less than the majority of the population voted…..but I digress.

2. Inserting a footnote for clarity. I should point out that I’m not trying to suggest that all center-left liberals from “blue states” feel this way — not by any means. Part of the criticism is couched in terms of a perceived superiority of living in a “blue state.” Thanks to Emily J in the comments for asking a very valid question about this — I don’t want this to be interpreted as taking the same problem I’m complaining about and reversing it.