Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

Missouri... why is this state so red?

It has two large metro areas, St. Louis and Kansas City, plus some smaller cities like Springfield. Bill Clinton was able to get it's vote, but Obama wasn't able to. Will it being turning purple anytime soon, or will it be more Nebraska and Kansas than Illinois and Wisconsin...any Show Me Staters here care to elaborate on what's going on...

by Anonymousreply 66October 17, 2020 9:22 PM

Lots and lots of rednecks in Missouri. The metro areas are the exception to the rule. I'm from Kansas City and there are plenty of Republicans there, too, but it's more balanced. The Ozarks is basically Arkansas. The rest of the state is Texas-lite.

by Anonymousreply 1October 16, 2020 9:05 PM

It is a state of white voters without college degrees.

You may close the thread.

by Anonymousreply 2October 16, 2020 9:05 PM

Too many hillbilly muthfathas

by Anonymousreply 3October 16, 2020 9:06 PM

Missouri has always struck me as somehow barbarous, for all that KC and St. Louis have their charms. A friend once said that he had never seen so many billboards for megachurches alternated with porno stores on a major freeway and he did on the one connected KC with St. Louis. I never drove the road, so can't vouchsafe for his recollections of it, but take it for what you will.

Iowa is far more mild-mannered and Arkansas is a bit less hair-trigger tempered.

by Anonymousreply 4October 16, 2020 9:07 PM

MO is scary. Worked an hour west of STL for a year. LOTS of evangelicals and homeschoolers. The basic premise seems to be “Escape from St Louis”. Weird because STL and KC are urban and progressive it seems. But gets real Arkansas real quick.

I guess it’s like Pennsylvania - which is even more surprising since it’s in the East - Philly and Pittsburgh but LOTs if rednecks in between.

by Anonymousreply 5October 16, 2020 9:12 PM

R4 did your friend stop at Porn Emporium in Columbia MO? Eat lunch at Itchy’s?

by Anonymousreply 6October 16, 2020 9:12 PM

I have roadtripped through Missouri and can confirm your friends impression. It was also the first time a stranger tried to 'witness' to me. Standing waiting for my coffee and this lady makes some small talk before trying to convert me. Really bizarre. You don't see the homeless and mentally ill out on the street the way you might in large urban areas but there are some neighborhoods that are third world looking. Falling down homes, rotting wooden houses, rusted cars abandoned, lawns that have never been mowed....Lots of advertising for megachurches. Lots of advertisements for strip clubs and bullet restaurants.

I did Tennessee and Missouri on that trip and Tennessee blew me away in terms of natural beauty. I have to go back some and spend more time in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I def underestimated the State.

by Anonymousreply 7October 16, 2020 9:15 PM

St Louis City is completely Democratic. The suburbs are a mixed bag. The suburban fraus who actually voted for Trump are key to Biden securing a victory for himself and other Democrats. Not sure about KC. Otherwise, the rural counties are Republicans who don't want their taxes to increase and support all those "city folks". SE Missouri is really much closer to Arkansas. But since our recently disgraced Ex-Governer, a world-class POS, was a Republican there is some hope of a move to the left. --Amateur Sociologist

by Anonymousreply 8October 16, 2020 9:16 PM

R7 did you deficate?

by Anonymousreply 9October 16, 2020 9:17 PM

[quote]bullet restaurants.

Why I won't go there...

by Anonymousreply 10October 16, 2020 9:17 PM

The urban cores of both KC and St Louis are solidly Democratic but the outer neighborhoods quickly turn red and the 'burbs tend to be very red. When you add that to all the rural areas being red, it makes it tough for Dems to take over the state.

Nebraska isn't a solid red state...they've had several Dem governors and Senators. Biden may well pick up an Electoral vote there this year.

by Anonymousreply 11October 16, 2020 9:19 PM

Being stuck somewhere in rural Missouri sounds scary as hell. That and Oklahoma seem to me like the most frightening right wing states.

by Anonymousreply 12October 16, 2020 9:20 PM

The difference in road quality when you travel between Iowa and Missouri is...interesting. Most major highways going into Missouri turn into near-dirt roads really really quick. (plus one-lane bridges - fun!)

by Anonymousreply 13October 16, 2020 9:20 PM

NCAAP has a warning out alerting blacks to consider avoiding traveling to Missouri...seriously

by Anonymousreply 14October 16, 2020 9:22 PM

Missouri is an amalgam of the worst elements in the United States: Amy Coney Barrett type Catholics in the suburbs of STL and KSC, large concentrations of the poor in both STL and KSC with the attendant high crime, meth addicted trailer park trash in Southeast Missouri, crazed Evangelicals and more meth addicts in Southwest Missouri, and strong, "independent" farmers in Northern Missouri, as long as the definition of independent doesn't include freedom from USDA farm subsidies (otherwise they're as dependent on government welfare as the urban poor).

With the exception of the poor in KSC and STL, the rest are all rabid Trumpers.

by Anonymousreply 15October 16, 2020 9:24 PM

When I was a child we got the show Evening Shade set in Arkansas and I thought I wanted to live there. I was in a dreary housing estate in Liverpool and it seemed very exotic but also homey and the aunt, aunt Frieda I think, was a hoot. I used to fantasise about living with her in an Auntie Mame type situation. Still haven't been. On my list but I think I'm kinda scared too because everyone brings up Arkansas when they are giving an example of the very worst of America.

by Anonymousreply 16October 16, 2020 9:25 PM

R15 - that description was genius - and dead on. Well done!

by Anonymousreply 17October 16, 2020 9:29 PM

R13 Yeah, you have to be very wary of all the "lettered roads" in Missouri like "C" or "DD" or whatever. It'll be a nice paved little highway then before you know it, it's a gravel road and then it's a dirt road and you find yourself in "Children of the Corn" Country.

by Anonymousreply 18October 16, 2020 9:34 PM

Don't forget that this bunch lived in Raytown! (suburb of KC)

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 19October 16, 2020 9:37 PM

[quote] It has two large metro areas, St. Louis and Kansas City

You'll need to reconsider what you consider as "large".

by Anonymousreply 20October 16, 2020 9:40 PM

The last great thing Missouri gave us was Truman. It's been a while.

by Anonymousreply 21October 16, 2020 9:41 PM

I spent part of my childhood there, graduated from Mizzou for undergrad, and still have some family there. I don’t speak to most of them, as they have retrograde political views and are quite heterosexist for the most part. Missouri is a border state, more like Kentucky than Maryland. It is not very Catholic (especially outside metro Saint Louis) and is heavily Evangelical, especially Pentecostal and Southern Baptist. It is very rural and working class. I would wager that there is quite a brain drain, and it seems like it has lost more population than it has gained since I left in 1985. Their current Governor, Mike Parsons, seems to personify what Missouri has become, a yokel who is a COVID denialist, who recently serconverted. Missouri wasn’t always so red though, as exemplified by many older members of my mother’s family who were New Deal Democrats. Missouri’s devolution into a red state largely followed the pattern of southern states becoming Republicant as the Dems embraced the Civil Rights agenda and Ronald Reagan exploited the subsequent White fears and resentment. While there have been occasional bright spots, race relations are abysmal, as recent events have demonstrated. As others have pointed out, Kansas City and St. Louis are relatively progressive, but the exurbs are definitely quite conservative. Missouri is more like the southern states it borders: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Tennessee than the northern ones: Illinois,Iowa,Nebraska, and Kansas. It is sad to see how far it has fallen. I was there recently (since the ‘Rona started) for family reasons, and left feeling lucky that I had escaped. The Ozarks are beautiful, but the extreme weather is difficult to endure. There are many good people who live there, but I feel very lucky to have escaped.

by Anonymousreply 22October 16, 2020 9:59 PM

[quote] Being stuck somewhere in rural Missouri sounds scary as hell. That and Oklahoma seem to me like the most frightening right wing states.

Always keep a case of Mountain Dew in your trunk. You'll need it as a peace offering If you end up stranded somewhere like the boot heel. I had a sales territory that included MO. It wasn't awful but nothing really memorable.

by Anonymousreply 23October 16, 2020 10:05 PM

Rural Missouri is not scary. My brother bought property in a small town in the middle of nowhere, the property had a six car storage garage. My brother moved a lot of expensive, easily fenced items into the garage. Two months later a storm tore the doors off, 6 months later my brother returned and nothing was stolen. High end bicycles, power tools, mowers etc. People drove by day after day and could easily see the contents, nothing was taken.

Interstate 35 from Iowa to Missouri does not turn into dirt roads. What a bunch of MARY bullshit.

by Anonymousreply 24October 16, 2020 10:19 PM

Huge rural, older population without college degrees

by Anonymousreply 25October 16, 2020 10:21 PM

They should change their name to the Show Me the Pussy state

by Anonymousreply 26October 16, 2020 10:23 PM

The culture wars turned Missouri from a purple state to a red state, like it did to Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

by Anonymousreply 27October 16, 2020 10:24 PM

So many vote to oppose abortion and “godless liberals” in Missouri.

by Anonymousreply 28October 16, 2020 10:24 PM

[quote] Rural Missouri is not scary. My brother bought property in a small town in the middle of nowhere, the property had a six car storage garage. My brother moved a lot of expensive, easily fenced items into the garage. Two months later a storm tore the doors off, 6 months later my brother returned and nothing was stolen. High end bicycles, power tools, mowers etc. People drove by day after day and could easily see the contents, nothing was taken.

Why would your brother move expensive items like high end bicycles, power tools, mowers etc. to a space where they would not be checked for six months?

by Anonymousreply 29October 16, 2020 10:38 PM

[quote]Interstate 35 from Iowa to Missouri does not turn into dirt roads. What a bunch of MARY bullshit.

The federal and state highways do. Nicely kept roads straight into crumbling asphalt.

by Anonymousreply 30October 16, 2020 10:39 PM

Hillbillies in the Ozarks.

by Anonymousreply 31October 16, 2020 10:44 PM

I’ve never been as creeped out by a state as when we drove through southern Missouri last year. I had bad vibes

by Anonymousreply 32October 16, 2020 10:46 PM

A great place to get your shit freaked.

by Anonymousreply 33October 16, 2020 10:47 PM

There was a graphic after the 2008 election that told me a lot. It showed the party shift from the 2004 election. The entire country shifted blue except McCain’s home state of Arizona and two geographic areas which shifted red: Appalachia and the Ozarks.

by Anonymousreply 34October 16, 2020 10:49 PM

I don’t think WV shifted blue. Or KY

by Anonymousreply 35October 16, 2020 10:51 PM

^Appalachia.

by Anonymousreply 36October 16, 2020 10:52 PM

For r35

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 37October 16, 2020 10:54 PM

In any case, the graphic was by county, not by state.

by Anonymousreply 38October 16, 2020 10:55 PM

Springfield, Missouri was the only place I've ever seen a billboard like this, advertising paternity tests (but I'm sure they're also in Arkansas and Oklahoma)

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 39October 16, 2020 10:55 PM

STL is #1 in the country for STDs.

by Anonymousreply 40October 16, 2020 10:56 PM

Missouri was a slaveholding state/territory pre-Civil War, and there were extremely violent border wars between Missouri and Kansas (a free state and home to many impassioned abolitionists) over Kansas's admission to the Union as a non-slave state.

Look at the history of Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas in 1863 (the long shadow of this shocking episode in U.S. history was hauntingly revisited in "True Grit" by Charles Portis: a classic, if you haven't read it). After the war, Missouri remained home to many Confederate sympathizers from all over the South. If you read archived newspapers from parts of Missouri, well into the 20th century, prominent members of many communities who were also KKK were openly identified as such, without any sense of shame.

Some of the conservatism also stems from its religious communities. Jackson County, Missouri is a place of significance to Mormons (they think it was the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden) and the Community of Christ, which used to be called the Reformed Latter Day Saints (a Mormon splinter) has its world headquarters in Independence, MO (today they are an extremely wealthy religious denomination).

Missouri fought school desegregation for decades after the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling, too.

by Anonymousreply 41October 16, 2020 11:04 PM

And R41 now officially kicks off the true intentions of his thread: racism.

It must have been difficult for him to wait 41 responses. The rest of this thread will sound like a KKK Friday night book club gathering. Oh, and there will be links to The Bulwark and other fun right wing propaganda.

by Anonymousreply 42October 16, 2020 11:23 PM

Is it me or is the billboard at R39 suggesting that the soldier needs a paternity test as the mail man may have screwed the wife when he was on duty? Looks like it to me. The red states and military culture are so far removed from my life it’s like reading about Ukraine or Mali rather than the US.

by Anonymousreply 43October 16, 2020 11:25 PM

That's exactly the read I got, R43

by Anonymousreply 44October 16, 2020 11:52 PM

The Maine-Material compromises, was to make two states with different opinions on slavery allowed to enter the union at the same time, so as to hoped slavery, would disappointed to offset each other.

In my East Coast, ancestral town, people heard about the Oregon trail, but left their coyotes before they could prepare for such a trip to survive pl.

by Anonymousreply 45October 17, 2020 12:06 AM

our beloved Andy Cohen is participating in a Flip MIssouri Blue event this Monday in his home state.

by Anonymousreply 46October 17, 2020 1:24 PM

r19 It was never specified which state the Harper clan lived in.

by Anonymousreply 47October 17, 2020 2:32 PM

Everything up to date in Kansas City!

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 48October 17, 2020 2:33 PM

The current season of "Fargo" is set in KCMO in 1950. Gives a little bit of background into the history of the place.

by Anonymousreply 49October 17, 2020 2:34 PM

Kansas City was the original sin city back in its heyday. The Las Vegas of its time. Not built on puritanical mores.

by Anonymousreply 50October 17, 2020 2:38 PM

Interesting about the porn billboards.

From what I understand, MO has the highest sex trafficking index in the United States. Something to do with a major highway and tons of drive through traffic from interstate truckers.

by Anonymousreply 51October 17, 2020 3:15 PM

Corbin Fisher used to recruit a lot of guys from Missouri. So I assume it's filled with hot guys willing to experiment a little.

by Anonymousreply 52October 17, 2020 4:59 PM

I first became aware of Republican duplicity and cultural warriorism growing up in Missouri. I remember seeing bumper stickers everywhere for "Right to Work" laws and thought it sounded good. When I found out what it meant (anti-union), it took my little-kid brain a while to fully understand that these grown-ups were deliberately misleading people by turning something good (an organization for workers' protection) into something evil (powerful unions telling workers what they can and can't do, goddammit I'm an American and no one's gonna tell ME I have to be a Communist looking for a handout!!).

Don't get me started on the "Right to Life" billboards and bumper stickers everywhere.

by Anonymousreply 53October 17, 2020 5:10 PM

My ex had relatives there and he referred to it as “Misery”. He absolutely loathed it. St. Louis routinely tops the lists of the worst cities in the US.

by Anonymousreply 54October 17, 2020 5:11 PM

Are any of those porn billboards outside of Ebbing?

by Anonymousreply 55October 17, 2020 5:16 PM

Does anyone else find that billboard in R39 funny? I mean, is the kid black or not? Why on earth would you need a billboard to advertise for a paternity test?

by Anonymousreply 56October 17, 2020 5:17 PM

R54, sure. Everything is local, though, and if your expert evidence (relatives of an ex) lived in Carthage or Hayti, MO, no doubt they did hate it.

St. Louis is "worst" because African Americans kill African Americans and white trash is white trash and suburbs are suburbs and racists are racist.

Much of the city is a dream. But it's not a place to pretend the USA is okay.

by Anonymousreply 57October 17, 2020 5:19 PM

R56 All I noticed was that none of the potential fathers were white, but it's Missouri, so I'm not too surprised by the sly racism.

by Anonymousreply 58October 17, 2020 7:27 PM

It's pronounced Misery

by Anonymousreply 59October 17, 2020 7:59 PM

Missouri is red largely because it is not as diverse as most blue states, and the white people there are disproportionately blue-collar, lack college degrees, rural, religiously conservative, and older. Missouri doesNot have a large number of well educated urban or suburban white people

by Anonymousreply 60October 17, 2020 8:05 PM

There's always Kansas City ...

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 61October 17, 2020 8:13 PM

R61 No comment

by Anonymousreply 62October 17, 2020 8:15 PM

I have a sister and brother-in-law in Missouri, and I visit on occasion . When we have to go shopping (always the Walmart) the locals are astonishing. Half look they're related to Mike Pence, and the other half look like troglodytes out of a Lovecraft novel. I remember having a discussion with them in a restaurant about why I'm not Christian, and there was a guy at the next table listening in, glaring at me menacingly.

I'm pretty certain my sister and brother-in-law are in the KKK...LOTS of KKK in Missouri.

by Anonymousreply 63October 17, 2020 8:30 PM

I had a (white) friend who was originally from suburban St Louis County, which he described as probably one of the most racist places in the United States.

by Anonymousreply 64October 17, 2020 8:32 PM

Just the mention of "Springfield, MO" gives me the creeps.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 65October 17, 2020 8:51 PM

I will say Kansas--at least the central and western portion--has better scenery than Missouri (minus the Ozarks).

by Anonymousreply 66October 17, 2020 9:22 PM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!