Message to Llewlladdwr & all other Southerners: Perspective on the South bashing.

[Jack Sprat]

7. That's rightly so, johnlucas

As a southerner to the very core, it's self-evident that Kansans, Wyomingians, Nebraskans, Utaherstians, Idaholians, and other red states get their share of porcupine needles too. It's not personal unless you're teasing me about my accent or what I had for breakfast.

Here's the thing. If you look back at the elections of 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944, you can clearly verify that my (sovereign south) was all blue....deep, deep blue...navy blue. The south was FDR social security blue. Even Tennessee and Texas, not to mention Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, and Fla, Ark, Missouri, and points beyond. Even Ruby Red East Tennessee was turning blue thanks to the TVA which the govmint built. Notice Rom's daddy didn't, but the govmint did. The guvmint built East Tennessee's power plants and nuclear research center in Oak Ridge with its' own hands out of the taxes of the whole 48. The guvmint built the entire Tenn Valley Authority which included dams, hydro electrical plants and provides power to not just Tennessee alone, but adjoining states as well. Nowadays, many of those folks have developed substantial savings and a decent way of life with electricity even in their houses thanks to FDR, his New Deal projects including the TVA.

Continuing on, we begin to see a change as soon as Truman and Eisenhower began enforcing desegregation of schools in places like Little Rock. Suddenly, the sky blue south began using non-binding Democratic state electors who could supercede the votes of the people and cast their winning Democratic electoral votes for segregationist candidates like Strom Thurmond instead of the main Democratic candidate. As time evolved and the civil rights legislation forbade voter discrimination, employment discrimination, educational discrimination, suddenly the south went redstate crazy.

Even though our southern parents, grandparents, and great grandparents were unionists and New Dealers on a grand scale, the blue was gone from the election maps of deep south states. Their hearts are blue, but their politics are now blazing red. Do we have anything in common with a Mitt Romney or a Paul Ryan? No, not a thing in common with them So what changed?