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I grew up in Virginia Beach/Hampton roads, and moved to Tennessee in 09 at 18. I've never really wanted to admit that outloud, to be honest, but I feel like the only normal person in this state sometimes. I've been here for over 15 years and I have met a grand total of 7 people I could have a decent conversation with, one of which is an Episcopal priest from another state, and 2 I met specifically through left wing organizing, so a group with membership that's already higher than likely to be biased to education and intelligence. I knew people back home that were smart. I don't mean educated, or some High Potential/Sheldon Cooper shit, I mean they were rational, intelligent human beings capable of common sense and able to hold a conversation. And remember, I was a teenager when I left. At 17 my peers in Hampton Roads were more capable at humaning than are my peers here at 33.
That makes me deeply sad, and I feel like such an elitist shit saying it out loud.
The first time I traveled to America, my first thought after a day meeting southerners was "man, these people are dumb as rocks". It was a major tourist destination so I met many Americans of normal intelligence from elsewhere, and the southerners were friendly, but man... the things they chose to talk about, and questions they chose to ask, really solidified how dangerous promoting religion over education is. A democracy can only survive when the average is informed, and conservatisms overall anti-intellectualism — its multi-decade attacks on education — is the #2 predictive variable destroying western democracies (the #1 being religion itself).
Let's just say I've been expecting fascist dictatorship for America for over 2 decades, so Trump/MAGA was expected... Though, even with that expectation, I didn't expect it to be this fucking stupid.