Gerrymandering is the reason I get upset when people assume all texans/southerners are hateful hicks. Lived there for years and the right/left split is pretty balanced, even leaning left on most big issues, in most of the area I’ve frequented. It’s just that poorer areas are rigged to fail and the powers that be have been running dirty campaigns for longer than many of us have been alive.

Just this last cycle, an old friend in the area received two different mail ads for Ted “Zodiac” Cruz. One of them was in english and the other spanish. The english one was, for the most part, “honest” (as much as these types can be called honest, I mean) about his platform, while the spanish one explicitly lied in a way that made him seem like he was trying to benefit the immigrant community. Extremely fucked up and not too uncommon, according to a few inter-generational sources. That plus how jurisdictions are divided has made it extremely difficult for the left to get any major wins for the last handful of decades+. The south is even less ruled by the people than the rest of the US and the many decent people just trying their best to survive out there get shit on for what their oppressors choose all the time.

Sorry for the rant and tbc, there are also tons of shitheads out there too. Its just not like what many outsiders assume it is, and everything about the situation pisses me off something rancid.