Have a retirement property/farm in central TN about and hour north of Huntsville, AL. I love my neighbors, some of the greatest people I’ve ever met in my life. I’ve gotten SO much help working the farm, clearing forest for a cabin, I swear any one of a dozen folks there would give me the shirt off their backs if I’d only ask - or it looked like I needed one.
Hanging out one Saturday night watching the regulars playing Texas hold-em, I joined the conversation by the fire outside for long enough to realize these hard-working, gambling, fishing, gun-owning, salt of the earth patriots were fucking democrats, voted democrats, and nothing I could say about Obama (colloquially referred to only as the N-word President - no one would say his name), ANTIFA, George effing Soros, Pelosi, any of the egregious assaults on our civil rights by the left got a millimeter of traction.
Democrats. Union members, traditional, and ignorant of anything except what local media told them. I’d mentioned One America News and got blank stares. At one guy’s house I mentioned OANN, The Blaze, Mark Levin’s network and Newsmax; couldn’t find ANY of them on TWO satellite systems he was running (no cable or fiber there yet). Sure, they had FOX, but usually watched network news.
I was shocked. Dumbfounded. But in a place where a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest stands atop a twenty foot pillar in the center of town, people have been democrats for over 150 years generation after generation it all came come with this rude lesson. Now I knew how Robert KKK Byrd got reelected so handily for what, 80 years? [joking... I know it was over 100]
Dixiecrats. Confederates.
And to this day, a LOT of them still hold a grudge against the Constitutional Repubic that refused them their natural right to self-rule, self-governance, property ownership, free trade and you know the rest.
For them, the American Civil war was really America’s Revolutionary War part two and the good guys lost.
Oh, they hate communism.
They just don’t get that their party is leading them there, union dues and retirement benefits being the carrot inducement extended them backed by the historically abusive, coercive, enslaving stick of marxist doctrine and practice.
And they remember what Republicans did to their culture.
I’ve already gotten the stink eye and been treated like I’m some northern carpetbagger because I bought property at exorbitant (in their eyes) prices - but almost half of the actual market rate - like some damn yankee from ages past but my military background, disabled veteran status and being a doctor has granted me SOME measure of grace and forbearance.
I’m just real careful not to discuss politics around any of them if I can avoid it.
Unless they have a Trump sticker on their car.
A lot of rural white people are still old-school hippie liberals, but they are conservative on social issues like gay marriage, but they are economic liberals.
Some of them voted for Bernie.
My impression is that southern whites have been traditionally pro-welfare state. This particular view may date from the FDR era. While many have shifted their views, thanks to the massive shift of the manufacturing sector to the south, it remains a significant, though not necessarily majority, influence.
Blue Dog Democrats who don’t realize how much the party and America has changed. Do these folks have any opinion on the Kenyan Usurper?
I’m afraid that your TN neighbours are about 85% right with regards to Republican politicians, at least on the national level, including W. Unfortunately, on the national level they are 99.95% wrong about the Democrats.
I wonder if they voted for Reagan in ‘84.