What is worse: Being liberal in a red state or conservative in a blue state?
I’m a Ted Kennedy level liberal. I’d explain that, but that’s not the point of this answer. The point is. . .In 1992 I moved from Ohio into a lovely suburb of Detroit, MI. The community into which I moved was built around small lakes in the early ‘70s. The conditions for purchasing a house (which I wasn’t even told existed, nor was my wife, who is a real estate agent) included, amongst other unenforceable provisions, a prohibition against selling a house to a black, Jewish or non-Christian buyer. At my first Homeowners’ Association meeting two things happened: a) I was elected Association President (why is irrelevant) and 2) the man I replaced said to me that my name didn’t “sound all that kikey,” and that I should watch out because they were moving into the surrounding subdivisions.I told him I didn’t appreciate his assumption that I would agree with or even accept his prejudices, and that I, in fact, did not. His response was to announce loudly that he hoped they were happy because they’d elected a damned lib’rul. Nearly every homeowner in the room was a union member or married to one. There was an unofficial debate among several folks as to whether I should be voted out of office, but in the end, despite my best efforts to get myself out of the job, I remained Association President for about five years.Twenty-some years later, after Michigan had elected yet another Republican governor in the face of Republicans having roadblocked all efforts at highway, bridge and infrastructure funding, I asked why they would vote so clearly against their own interests, at a neighborhood corn roast. I was told, “Because you guys put a n****r in the White House.” That was obviously nonsense, since they had elected Republican lawmakers to redistrict the state. I told them so, and then I went home.I have no idea what it’s like to be Conservative and live in a blue community, but I can tell you it’s pretty tough to be a liberal and live in a red one.