'We're making our way': how Virginia became the most progressive of the US's southern states

[marmar]

(Guardian UK) Having lived in Virginia most of his life, Larry Sabato can remember racially segregated schools and systematic efforts to stop Black people voting. Now 68, he observes a state that has diversified, embraced liberal values and shifted from symbol of the old south to symbol of the new.

“I have to admit, as a young man I would never have believed it was possible for Virginia to move in such a strong progressive direction,” said Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “I worked for candidates back then who were progressive. I used to joke, ‘If I work for you, you’re going to lose, you have to understand that’. And they always did.

“Virginia has taught the country and the world that America can change, and sometimes can change rapidly, and in a very progressive direction.”

Two dramatic examples came last month when the state general assembly voted to abolish the death penalty – an extraordinary reversal for a state that has executed more people than any other – and to make Virginia the first southern state to legalise marijuana for adult recreational use.

These followed a flurry of measures that put the commonwealth, as it is known, in the vanguard on racial, social and economic issues in the American south. Last year it passed some of the strictest gun laws, loosest abortion restrictions and strongest protections for LGBTQ+ people in the region, as well as its highest minimum wage. .........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-virginia-progressive-southern-state

[4Q2u2]

1. The Change

was not due to Virginians but the large scale movement to that state.
Major US Military bases. CIA, FBI. The Federal Govt. All these combined to out populate Native Born.
If it were not for this. Virginia would just be another peanut farm state.

[lagomorph777]

2. Maybe that's a clue of how to make it happen in some other places.

[4Q2u2]

4. Texas is about to find out

All that High Tech recruiting is going to change the electorate. Enough remains to be seen.
There are a lot of Rednecks to over come there.

[Elessar Zappa]

3. The reason doesn't matter.

What matters is that it is now a solid progressive state.

[4Q2u2]

5. It does matter

Some of it may have been organic, but most was not. So if you are thinking that other Red states are just going to up and become progressive is wrong. Change will only come with change. It has to be worked at and developed.