The song that was inspired by this article is available here.
My reading this article as an audio podcast is available here.
My newest book, The Hidden History of the American Dream, is now available.
We must not confuse statistical probability with some transcendental and utterly compelling force. — Unspiek, Baron Bodissey
One of the enduring mysteries of America is why the citizens of Red states are generally poorer, less educated, and sicker than the citizens of Blue states. To that question, I step up as your hierophant with an answer to this deep mystery that you may not have previously considered.
First, that generalization is broadly true:
— Blue states account for about 71 percent of America’s GDP, whereas Red states only produce 29 percent of our income and wealth.
— The median family income in Blue states is $74,243. In Red states it’s $63,553. Individual states highlight the disparity: New Jersey’s median income is $89,703, while Mississippi’s is $49,111.
— Counties that voted for Biden in 2020 are more diverse, being 35 percent nonwhite compared to 16 percent nonwhite populations in counties that voted for Trump.
— Counties that voted for Biden in 2020 are better educated, with 36 percent of their population having some college education compared to Trump’s counties at 25 percent.
— Residents of Blue states live 2.2 years longer, on average, than residents of Red states.
And, second, it’s undeniably true (and documented with each hotlink below) that Republican-controlled Red states, almost across the board, have higher rates of:
— Spousal abuse
— Obesity
— Smoking
— Teen pregnancy
— Sexually transmitted diseases
— Abortion (at least before Dobbs; now it would be “forced births”)
— Bankruptcies and poverty
— Homicide and suicide
— Infant mortality
— Maternal mortality
— Forcible rape
— Robbery and aggravated assault
— Dropouts from high school
— Divorce
— Contaminated air and water
— Opiate addiction and deaths
— Unskilled workers
— Parasitic infections
— Income and wealth inequality
— Covid deaths and unvaccinated people
— Federal subsidies to states (“Red State Welfare”)
— People on welfare
— Child poverty
— Homelessness
— Spousal murder
— Unemployment
— Deaths from auto accidents
— People living on disability
— Gun deaths
But are all these things happening because Republicans simply hate their citizens and explicitly want high levels of poverty, ignorance, death, and disease?
Turns out there’s a much simpler answer.
The problem for Red states is that Republicans worship cheap labor, which drives up profits for the fat-cats who own American businesses — and having a steady and reliable supply of cheap labor requires widespread poverty, ignorance, death, and disease.
That poverty, of course, brings along with it the long list of social ills above, but Republicans are more than willing to tolerate massive, desperate levels of human suffering to make sure there’s a steady supply of cheap labor. In fact, they intentionally run their states that way to produce those results.
If you have any doubts about this, if that sounds like hyperbole, simply look at the policies the GOP has promoted for the past century:
— Republicans hate unions, because unions raise wages and benefits for workers, shifting them from poverty into the middle class. Once thus empowered, those uppity middle-class people then start to demand “unreasonable” things like overtime pay (Project 2025 would functionally end it), healthcare, paid vacations, paid sick leave, and paid family leave.
— Republicans hate Social Security and have worked to gut, privatize, or outright end it ever since FDR signed it into law in 1935. They do this because elderly workers in poverty are a great source of compliant, cheap labor. Reagan’s changes in Social Security benefits have led to millions of Boomers having to take gigs as greeters, waiters, etc., for low wages; prior to Reagan’s changes in the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) and his raising the retirement age to 67, you could safely retire on Social Security in most parts of America. Now, Republicans want to raise that age to 69 or 70.
— Republicans hate universal or inexpensive healthcare (and real Medicare for the elderly) because having massive medical debt provides a large pool of desperate workers willing to work crappy jobs for pathetic wages to pay it off. It’s why the ten states that refuse to expand Medicaid for low-income workers are all Republican-controlled. Medical debt is a non-issue in every other developed country in the world, but here in America 79 million people are struggling to pay off doctors’ or hospital bills (7 million of those debtors are elderly, many the victims of the Medicare Advantage scam).
— Republicans hate the minimum wage because it cuts into profits. That’s why the minimum wage in Blue states can be more than twice that of Red states (Washington State is $17/hr versus Texas’ $7.25/hr). When most families are barely earning enough to get by, employers have their pick of distraught, panicked workers willing to work for subsistence wages.
— Republicans hate empowered women because forced pregnancies create more potential workers and unwanted children exacerbate poverty. Thus their 50+ years of opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and their embrace of abortion bans.
— Republicans promote hatred of racial, religious, and gender minorities because when Americans are at each other’s throats they’re not organizing to throw off the GOP/corporate yoke. It’s hard to remember that the billionaires have stolen fully $50 trillion from the middle class over the past 43 years of the Reagan Revolution when you’re constantly distracted with hysteria about Black Haitians, Brown Mexicans, and trans students who just want to use the damn bathroom.
— Republicans hate education because it’s the main tool for people to lift themselves out of poverty and thus demand higher wages and better benefits. Before the Reagan Revolution, every American who wanted to and could pass the entrance exams could go to college; many universities (like the entire University of California system) were free, and you could pay your tuition at most other colleges like I did in the 1960s working weekends as a dishwasher at Bob’s Big Boy in East Lansing, Michigan and pumping gas at the Esso station across the street. This is also why so many Red states are gutting their public education systems with private school vouchers. Less education, more poverty; more poverty, more cheap labor.
— Republicans hate atheism and embrace a neofascist form of Protestant Christianity and a bizarre, rightwing version of Catholicism that goes by a Latin name because both are hierarchical and male-dominated, just like corporate culture. It’s why the Confederacy was explicitly Christian. “Don’t worry about how much you’re paid, boy, or bother organizing into a union; just keep picking that cotton and you’ll get your reward in heaven when you die.” After all, according to the Bible your fate was preordained “before the foundation of the world,” as was that of your boss, who must have been selected for particular grace by God or he wouldn’t be so rich.
— Republicans hate food stamps, housing supports, aid to women and dependent children, and every other form of what they call “welfare” because these programs slightly reduce the desperation of people who might otherwise be easily forced to work for a pittance.
— Republicans hate unemployment insurance because it reduces the privation people can experience when they lose a job. It’s why all the Blue states offer at least 26 weeks of benefits, but Red states often radically reduce that (Florida, North Carolina, Kentucky 12 weeks; Alabama 14 weeks; Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri 16 weeks).
So, the next time somebody asks why people living in Red states have it so rough, just tell them, “It’s all because of the cheap-labor Republicans.”
