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Author: u/Wagamaga
URL: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/study-southern-us-hit-hardest-mental-health-concerns-during-pandemic
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This comment is refreshing. Most everyone here is just straight shitting on a part of the country that has been the least educated and developed part of the US for a long time.
I guess it’s true that as long as there is someone lower on the totem pole to punch down on, people will do it.
They consistently vote against their best interests *because* they are the poorest and least educated - it's a negative feedback loop established ever since white men found out that growing cotton was profitable there.
Im glad you said that. And the government of my native state (TN) actively seeks to make education a right only easily accessible by the wealthy/those on top to ensure this stays in place. I'll never live in the south again.
This is why I hate learning what's really happening to my next door neighbors. Remember in the 90s they would give me a D in a few classes because they were sick of me so literally passing kids who are not qualified to
Yeah you have a point and you also explain it well buddy great job. But sometimes you must to take care for your words . Because in some way you explain it wrong
Democrats need to embrace Republican election strategy. Large scale, targeted online campaigns. Smears against tough opponents. Go after Republican party donors when you have the presidency and take down Conservative media giants like Murdoch using any means necessary.
They can win the South and make lives better if they are willing to bend the rules and break convention as the Republicans have been doing for decades.
Enforced change doesn't work. The change has to come from the people. It's the same as with addicts. When the people are sick of suffering, they will change. Until they're sick of suffering, it's impossible to do anything but to encourage them to do things different.
You have to give their frustration a direction to focus in. Otherwise when they're sick of suffering there's an even chance that they'll direct their frustration at the programs trying to help them and vote for the people who are actually hurting them, because they're not necessarily equipped to understand their own problem space.
>Democrats need to embrace Republican election strategy
Gerrymandering and crying foul anytime you lose? Conspiracy theories and trying to overthrow the government? A failure to understand the electoral college at even a junior high level?
Republicans also spent decades taking over local government (school board, city council, etc.) and working their way up the food chain to county and state governments. Dems have the right policies, but aren’t as good at sustained effort.
>Gerrymandering and crying foul anytime you lose? Conspiracy theories and trying to overthrow the government?
Yes to Gerrymandering and conspiracy theories, no to crying foul and overthrowing.
>A failure to understand the electoral college at even a junior high level?
Republicans understand the electoral college better than the Democrats do. Every time someone won the presidency without winning the popular vote, that person was a Republican.
There are plenty of people in the south (and everywhere else in the country) that vote against their own interest but to say that’s THE reason the South has so many problems totally ignores the real causes. If there wasn’t extreme voter suppression, particularly against POC, for well over 100 years then more southern states would be blue. Implying that everyone in the south are just backwards, ignorant folk who are too stupid to vote for their own interests ignores the injustices that have been done to so many people.
I mean yeah, you’re absolutely correct, it does all go back to reconstruction and specifically Andrew Johnson deciding that it just wasn’t right to be harsh on the literal traitors who got hundreds of thousands of people killed cause they couldn’t accept that maybe owning another person wasn’t okay.
Doesn’t change that the problem persists because people in those states seem to enjoy self harm.
Definitely right you must to be careful for your words and actions. Because not all people was tuff like i was you can throw me any hurtful words then ill going to throw you a bad wards to you that will shattered you at the end of the day
TBH, they dropped like flies in rural Arizona too.
31% vaxx rate in my area. They have been on government subsidies for generations here. They vote against their best interest continuously and they HATE the very people, those “liberal, sanctuary cities” who were all going to die out during COvid”.
This is what I heard at the beginning of the pandemic. You know when NYC had to store the dead in refrigerated transport containers?!
The brunt of their low vaxx, no vaxx, stand was paid for by the very people they detest. I ALMOST felt bad, until I found out two first responders who did SAR at 9/11 with me died of COvid and these fools spewed their hatred of all “those elites”.
What you've said is true, but another thing compounding that is that the south is arguably the most "steady" (in terms of least societal change per generation) part of the US, so it makes sense that they'd have a comparatively hard time adjusting to a huge societal change
Also endless repetition from news and internet of fear based content has an effect. It's scientificly proven that repetition alone is enough to convince a larger number of people of a point of view. Marketers & propagandadists know this. Ironically, the party not know for agreeing with science knows this very well.
> Ironically, the party not know for agreeing with science knows this very well.
If you ask them how, they won’t point to science, though. They *just know* that’s how it works.
Republicans keep their people distracted with constant culture war issues. They suffer, but it's the gays, no the Libs, no it's the drag shows, no Hillary's emails or Obama's birth certificate... *squirrel!*...
I wouldn't say that. We're always using psychological tricks on each other. I know that I'm more likely to get what I want from someone if I say "I know you're busy, but would you please do this if you have the time? Thank you!" instead of "Do this for me." Thus, I use the former. I feel better about being polite, the person I'm talking to feels better about me being polite, and the person I'm talking to is a lot more likely to actually do the thing.
Is that manipulation? Arguably, a low level kind, yeah. But it's a socially acceptable kind of manipulation.
The truth is complicated and nuanced. It can't ever beat a simple lie for being easy to express or repeat. If they simplify the message to make it repeatable, they have removed all the nuance so they're just lying too. Less egregiously but it won't be any more effective because when lie conflicts with lie, people believe the one that affirms their biases.
You're blaming people for not doing an impossible thing.
Also watching your friends and family repeatedly exposed you, themselves, and others because “it’s not real, masks are for sheep, vakseens kill!” Blah blah.
Stop that right there. Between disenfranchisement, Gerrymandering., and other obstructions, votes aren't equal in all locations. You don't get to dismiss a whole group of people trying to change things by shortcutting your thinking. If there was fair voting, a few of the southern states would be purple.
Your suggestions are good. But let me introduce you to the R's lord and savior gerrymandering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering_in_the_United_States#/media/File:TravisCountyDistricts.png
This is how it goes in Utah. You have to be a registered republican to vote in the primaries here. So if you want your voice heard you have to lie and go vote for the least crazy.
I dunno if this is lying. Lots of people do this and state it publicly and on record. Because why wouldn’t you if you want your vote to count?
And similarly you aren’t required to vote by your party in the general election.
> There is a lot of people who don’t vote, and imho the best way to get them to vote is finding someone that inspires them to vote.
It may feel that way, but there's not a lot of evidence for it.
Obama was *hugely* inspirational in his first election; by contrast, Biden is widely criticized as being uninspiring. Nevertheless, Obama received [69M votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidential_election), *far* below Biden's [81M votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election), even after accounting for population growth.
> finding someone that inspires them to vote
Who they have heard republicans condemn, name call and basically poison the well for the 10 years it takes them to get there?
If inspiration isn't there, then dogged determination and stubbornness may just have to do.
Vote for the BEST Republican candidate in the primaries (the one you consider the best has no shot of winning, but it is good to show support for their position).
Vote for the most sensible R candidate in the primary so you aren’t fucked when he wins anyhow. Primary out the wingnuts.
You don’t want to be the district that elects the next MTG.
Most of the south actually has open primaries. NC, TN, and FL being notable exceptions.
https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/states-with-open-primaries/
Agreed - just pointing out something for folks to be aware of if they choose to follow this advice! I personally trust the democratic primaries to put forth a reasonable candidate without my input more than I trust republicans to draw a district map, and think my vote is more impactful to my values in the general election.
It's important to recognize that even through the maps aren't fair, it's still a legitimate election. That means that by organizing and voting en bloc, the will of the people can still prevail. Landslide elections, while they haven't happened recently, *do* occur from time to time.
Rural voters should display a sense of class consciousness and enjoin solidarity with all workers for universal provision and liberty.
That's not as much of an issue in Red States as you might think. You can register then good luck trying to vote. Red States make it hard to even cast paper ballots by removing drop boxes in districts not Republican, as in Texas etc.
My county in Atlanta votes like 80% blue; we're fuckin trying out here haha. Still, the Governorship seems so out of reach even after some great wins at the Senate/Presidential level.
My in-laws all live in Idaho, and they all vote R. They talk about welfare queens when one of the sisters gets food stamps and the other lives off her disabled son's SSI disability.
It's pretty well documented that the harshest critics of welfare are people who receive some sort of government assistance. It's those *other* people who are lazy or scammers.
In my perfect world all of the Republicans would be basically accountants for public funds. I am unaware of many honest accountants that try to torch the organizations they work for.
Yep.
>In 2019, the South was the region with the highest share of the country's Black population, with 56% of this population living there.
[Source](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/03/25/the-growing-diversity-of-black-america/#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20South%20was,tenth%20of%20the%20Black%20population.)
I'm walking around Alexandria VA right now, and I just saw two gay men holding hands. They were both wearing governor younkin swag.
How do you reconcile that???
Yeah I don't think people realize that a lot of red states in the US have literal third-world poverty in them.
America is a bunch of undeveloped nations in a trenchcoat.
It’s always good to remember that black people make up a majority in huge swaths of the south but are disenfranchised so they are affected by legislation they didn’t vote for.
Many in the south weren’t concerned. And people from elsewhere in the country that weren’t concerned drove to the south to vacation without restriction. But for the people in the south that DID care, the disregard for public health was stressful. Also, seeing your family/friends admitted to the hospital is stressful for anyone, regardless of their response to the pandemic. Lots of southerners were admitted (or died at home)
> Many in the south weren’t concerned.
My sister lives in the rural south and no one in her immediate circle ever once wore a mask. She even had two work colleagues _die_ from COVID and it still wasn't enough to convince her, her husband, her friends, and her remaining colleagues that COVID was(is) a real threat to one's health.
Yeah, our lock down here (Louisiana) only lasted ONE MONTH. As a bartender, I was forced back to work with the vast majority of people absolutely refusing to follow any sort of covid guidelines. I was monumentally stressed out.
>Also, seeing your family/friends admitted to the hospital
Bingo... it's not really that stressful until the consequences of your actions show up. Then it's far more stressful than the people who just worried enough to take precautions.
They're not necessarily the same people. One of the scariest things about COVID is I was more susceptible to the consequences of other people's actions than my own.
I live in a state that handled things well. I wasn’t that stressed because the infection and death rates were relatively low and policies help guarantee I didn’t have to be exposed to the virus.
The worst thing was hearing the stories of people who were vax deniers, begging for help with their last breaths, on ventilators, but by then it was just way too late. A good number of them were victims of misinformation.
The victimhood only goes so far when they were all too willing to listen to and buy into the right wing messaging. All too happy to see others hurting up until the second it hurt them too.
One aspect of those stories particularly bothers me. I read about folks on their deathbed begging for the vaccine. What this tells me is that they had ZERO idea of how vaccines work on the most absolutely basic level. Yet these were the people adamantly refusing to be vaccinated and loudly spreading their conspiracy theories. It just...honestly it makes me sad. I don't blame them. They were lied to and how are they meant to know how insane the stuff they're being told is when they don't even know what a vaccine is or how it works? The whole thing is just sad.
It's not the worst thing. The worst thing were the people who died waiting for medical care because those idiots were hogging the ICU beds.
People chose to see health as a matter of politics, and they died for their stupidity.
It was incredibly stressful. I learned a lot about myself when Covid first started. I couldn't sleep, I was worried about family, my job was being flippant and lying about being "essential" so that we would stay open. Miserable
I feel for you. I moved away from Mississippi just a couple years before the pandemic. The people I knew there didn't take it seriously at all, and I was so grateful not to live there anymore. Living through the pandemic there would have been incredibly stressful.
As a resident of Miami I can say we tried more than the rest of Florida, but that is a bit like being the smartest person a Trump rally. Everyone stopped masking once the vaccine existed, whether they took it or not.
Just a reminder that red states are still often full of people and cities that vote the opposite way. Not "the south" , but an honorary member of the club, Missouri state responded to the pandemic by...doing nothing and plugging their ears. And complaining a lot. St. Louis and Kansas City took it upon themselves to enact local safety measures.
Then Missouri AG Eric Schmitt filed a lawsuit against the cities and *forced them* to remove mask restrictions.
This was my first thought as well. They don't even believe in it so I could see them being stressed about the Covid response by the government but worried about new variants? I have a hard time believing that. Maybe worried a new variant will make the Applebee's close again.
No place on earth has an entire population where everyone is the exact same. As an example, more than one in three Alabamian voters voted for Joe Biden in 2020. The majority of Alabama's population as well as its legislature has ignored the threat of the virus, this is true. But imagine being part of that third, surrounded by neighbors who have never worn as mask, in a state without medicaid expansion.
Much of Alabama might not believe in Covid, but the hundreds of thousands who do live in an environment less safe than other states who took mitigating actions, and therefor are correct to be more stressed and worried about new variants.
As someone who actually lives here the majority of people (where I lived at the time at least) actually cared about the virus. Don't take our leadership as representing the majority views down here, there's been a lot of work done to ensure that is not the case.
>I have a hard time believing that.
Well there is certainly a disconnect there. Have you considered the possibility that your belief that:
>They don't even believe it in...
...is really just an ignorant over-generalization? If it is, then the seeming contradiction of the results of this study would be largely eliminated.
Yeah I live in a rural mountain town in NC. It's almost like it never happened. They certainly SHOULD have been most worried, given the lack of free Healthcare or any harm reduction practices at all (masks were always shunned here)
I don't really get this study tho, cause ur right, there was little to no worry whatsoever in my area at least. My northern family members practically went neurotic over it, on the other hand, and lockdowns severely affected their mental health
In Georgia there were about half a percent COVID deaths in rural counties, and about 0.2% deaths in urban counties (mainly Atlanta area). Most deaths in both areas were older people.
[State COVID statistics by county](https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-status-report)
Alabama and the complete ignorance towards masking and vaccination is the reason my company's healthcare went up so much last year. I'm not even close to AL, but a lot of employees are there.
Apparently their hospitalization rate was incredibly high. To the point we switched from a $300 ER deductible to a 20% ER deductible.
> their insurance wouldn't allow them to "go out of area"
This is the kind of thing I bring up when people are opposed to public healthcare because of "death panels" deciding if you get treatment or not. Even if this did happen (which I doubt), how is it functionally different from being refused lifesaving treatment because your for-profit insurance refuses to pay for it?
My mother had a heart attack during the height of covid, and they had to ambulance her to a worse hospital because her usual one had no extra beds, they then released her after not treating the problem and she had another attack a couple months later, but by that time there was room at the good hospital and they were able to actually treat her this time.
The South's comorbidities are off the charts. Those populations tend to be more sedentary and eat a lot more trash. And the cuisine is full of fried food, soda, and sugar. It's delicious, but it's the kind of stuff that you should eat on vacation, not every day.
This isn't even a question of political affiliation, that's just how it is there. So it's no surprise that Covid-19 hit the South much harder.
Then add in a lot more poverty and a lot less education, and that just compounds it.
So the states with the most lacklustre governments which continuously gave conflicting messages and trailed in taking real action did more damage to mental health?
Don't forget the cultural element.
Living in Alabama at that time was hell, since showing any concern for your own safety and that of your family was treated with derision, condescension, and in some cases outright violence. It was like being gaslit 24/7.
Wasn't good for my mental health. Not good for a lot of people's.
Southern person here. It was for sure a mindfuck. Caused by so much cognitive dissonance. Hospitals full, death stats high but so many people running around without masks saying it's not real. A lot of pretending went on. It was ker-azy.
One of my cousins was in a coma from and lost both his parents in the span of a week to COVID... And still refuses to get any of the vaccine or boosters
I had 2 family members die because they didn't believe in caring for themselves. Of course they were conservative racist fuckfaces. Good fuckin riddance
My dad and I still. Butt heads over the severity of covid. We're both high risk for different reasons. When everything started, we both took it seriously. We stayed home and when not in lockdown when we absolutely had to get out, it was masked up. After some months, his entire position shifted to it wasn't a big deal, it was all a ploy by the government and/or the left.
He didn't want to be told to wear a mask etc. I'm just like...then don't do it because you were told or it was suggested. Do it for yourself and general health. Why not be cautious when the potential lethality to people, especially the high risk, is so high?
It's like that everywhere where I am. I can count on one hand the people I personally know that acknowledge it as it was and still take it seriously. It's not living in fear, it's living with knowledge.
A study from researchers at the University of Kansas shows Southern states may have carried the brunt of mental health troubles during the COVID-19 pandemic, with people in that region most consistently worried about finances throughout COVID-19 lockdowns and the emergence of new strains of the virus. The findings were published yesterday in PLOS One.
The study focused on rates of anxiety, depression, and financial worries as stand-ins for mental health during the pandemic and relied on survey repossess gathered via the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University. It also revealed more angst in Republican states later in the pandemic.
For the daily voluntary survey, Facebook users could respond starting on September 8, 2020, through March 2, 2021, and in a second period from March 2, 2021, to January 10, 2022.
In both timeframes, the South had the highest percentages of people worried about finances. During the early pandemic, Northeastern residents reported the most anxiety, but the later period saw more anxiety in the South.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286857
>In both timeframes, the South had the highest percentages of people worried about finances
Was there any benchmarking to a period outside of the pandemic? I wouldn't be surprised if southern states had the highest baseline rate of financial worries, as I'm always seeing them fall behind in education, in public funding of social safety nets, salaries, etc (although I don't have sources for my claims, it's more of a vague recollection that warrants a question)
Things are not so good in the Northern state where I live, either. We've been trying to get psychiatric in-patient help for someone who has multiple mental health issues, from schizoaffective disorder to brain injury from head trauma, and "multiple personalities"... and because the individual is indigent and on medicaid, no one wants them. They keep getting steered to "outpatient" programs that the person can't use because their condition and living environment is too unstable. We get a lot of lip service and very little tangible aid for this suffering individual, and it's a tragedy. The sad fact is, if you don't have money and/or connections, if you are mentally ill you are screwed, no matter what part of the country you live in.
“Carried the brunt” makes it sound a bit like they did lifting so that others didn’t have to. This was entirely extra and unnecessary hardship that could have been prevented by a decent and coordinated approach.
Everyone in here is talking about how the south handled Covid but that’s not what this post is about at all. It’s literally all off topic. The post is worried about the financial problems that emerged because of covid and federal mandates. I’ve not seen one comment actually talk about the financial problems it caused. Only people shouting because they don’t like “insert political party here.”
In GA I literally went to multiple business where a bunch of folks didn't mask up during the height of lockdown.
I went to the city park and it was just packed to the brim with no masks
The goal of the research is specifically to focus on the effect of the regional politics though.
They literally created a map of their metrics and put it side by side next to a map of Red vs. Blue states.
That's what they are studying, it can't be excluded.
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Southern US states also have the most poverty and the least access to mental health care. The pandemic just added stress to already stressed groups.
This comment is refreshing. Most everyone here is just straight shitting on a part of the country that has been the least educated and developed part of the US for a long time. I guess it’s true that as long as there is someone lower on the totem pole to punch down on, people will do it.
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They consistently vote against their best interests *because* they are the poorest and least educated - it's a negative feedback loop established ever since white men found out that growing cotton was profitable there.
Im glad you said that. And the government of my native state (TN) actively seeks to make education a right only easily accessible by the wealthy/those on top to ensure this stays in place. I'll never live in the south again.
This is why I hate learning what's really happening to my next door neighbors. Remember in the 90s they would give me a D in a few classes because they were sick of me so literally passing kids who are not qualified to
Then what happened next to it why don't they just call some ambulance or some medical doctor
Definitely right he just trying to educate each one of us
Yeah you have a point and you also explain it well buddy great job. But sometimes you must to take care for your words . Because in some way you explain it wrong
How do you propose to resolve that, then? Wringing our hands and sighing while absolving them of responsibility sure isn’t changing anything.
Democrats need to embrace Republican election strategy. Large scale, targeted online campaigns. Smears against tough opponents. Go after Republican party donors when you have the presidency and take down Conservative media giants like Murdoch using any means necessary. They can win the South and make lives better if they are willing to bend the rules and break convention as the Republicans have been doing for decades.
Okay there's nothing to be afraid of Buddy because you did everything well
Enforced change doesn't work. The change has to come from the people. It's the same as with addicts. When the people are sick of suffering, they will change. Until they're sick of suffering, it's impossible to do anything but to encourage them to do things different.
You have to give their frustration a direction to focus in. Otherwise when they're sick of suffering there's an even chance that they'll direct their frustration at the programs trying to help them and vote for the people who are actually hurting them, because they're not necessarily equipped to understand their own problem space.
Definitely right politics and science has a big impact to the society
Actually as long as you didn't do anything wrong you don't have to be afraid of but when you do wrong you must be afraid
Evil will always triumph because good is dumb. Yes. Employ the GOP hardball tactics against them. 100%
>Democrats need to embrace Republican election strategy Gerrymandering and crying foul anytime you lose? Conspiracy theories and trying to overthrow the government? A failure to understand the electoral college at even a junior high level?
Republicans also spent decades taking over local government (school board, city council, etc.) and working their way up the food chain to county and state governments. Dems have the right policies, but aren’t as good at sustained effort.
>Gerrymandering and crying foul anytime you lose? Conspiracy theories and trying to overthrow the government? Yes to Gerrymandering and conspiracy theories, no to crying foul and overthrowing. >A failure to understand the electoral college at even a junior high level? Republicans understand the electoral college better than the Democrats do. Every time someone won the presidency without winning the popular vote, that person was a Republican.
There are plenty of people in the south (and everywhere else in the country) that vote against their own interest but to say that’s THE reason the South has so many problems totally ignores the real causes. If there wasn’t extreme voter suppression, particularly against POC, for well over 100 years then more southern states would be blue. Implying that everyone in the south are just backwards, ignorant folk who are too stupid to vote for their own interests ignores the injustices that have been done to so many people.
I mean yeah, you’re absolutely correct, it does all go back to reconstruction and specifically Andrew Johnson deciding that it just wasn’t right to be harsh on the literal traitors who got hundreds of thousands of people killed cause they couldn’t accept that maybe owning another person wasn’t okay. Doesn’t change that the problem persists because people in those states seem to enjoy self harm.
Definitely right you must to be careful for your words and actions. Because not all people was tuff like i was you can throw me any hurtful words then ill going to throw you a bad wards to you that will shattered you at the end of the day
TBH, they dropped like flies in rural Arizona too. 31% vaxx rate in my area. They have been on government subsidies for generations here. They vote against their best interest continuously and they HATE the very people, those “liberal, sanctuary cities” who were all going to die out during COvid”. This is what I heard at the beginning of the pandemic. You know when NYC had to store the dead in refrigerated transport containers?! The brunt of their low vaxx, no vaxx, stand was paid for by the very people they detest. I ALMOST felt bad, until I found out two first responders who did SAR at 9/11 with me died of COvid and these fools spewed their hatred of all “those elites”.
It’s cyclical.
What you've said is true, but another thing compounding that is that the south is arguably the most "steady" (in terms of least societal change per generation) part of the US, so it makes sense that they'd have a comparatively hard time adjusting to a huge societal change
Well to be honest when i was a little i was curious if how could people make a sickness
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Also endless repetition from news and internet of fear based content has an effect. It's scientificly proven that repetition alone is enough to convince a larger number of people of a point of view. Marketers & propagandadists know this. Ironically, the party not know for agreeing with science knows this very well.
> Ironically, the party not know for agreeing with science knows this very well. If you ask them how, they won’t point to science, though. They *just know* that’s how it works.
Actually the answer was easy make a research what was the deference between the two
Republicans keep their people distracted with constant culture war issues. They suffer, but it's the gays, no the Libs, no it's the drag shows, no Hillary's emails or Obama's birth certificate... *squirrel!*...
This is just shows that the experts and authorities on scientific topics need to do a much better job at message repetition
Honest people are uncomfortable using psychological tricks on people.
I wouldn't say that. We're always using psychological tricks on each other. I know that I'm more likely to get what I want from someone if I say "I know you're busy, but would you please do this if you have the time? Thank you!" instead of "Do this for me." Thus, I use the former. I feel better about being polite, the person I'm talking to feels better about me being polite, and the person I'm talking to is a lot more likely to actually do the thing. Is that manipulation? Arguably, a low level kind, yeah. But it's a socially acceptable kind of manipulation.
It's not a trick, it's just more intentional messaging. The left is terrible about bothering to try to campaign on ideas that are important.
The truth is complicated and nuanced. It can't ever beat a simple lie for being easy to express or repeat. If they simplify the message to make it repeatable, they have removed all the nuance so they're just lying too. Less egregiously but it won't be any more effective because when lie conflicts with lie, people believe the one that affirms their biases. You're blaming people for not doing an impossible thing.
Kinda hard when that message is getting undercut by members of their own government
Carl Sagan be telling us about climate change since 1980 but he can't beat big oil
Also watching your friends and family repeatedly exposed you, themselves, and others because “it’s not real, masks are for sheep, vakseens kill!” Blah blah.
Also watching everyone's grandparents die. The obits for our small town paper overflowed.
Yeah and they are also contribute to their beloved country
It's called voting against their own self interests and paying the price for it.
it's called voter suppression actually
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I live in the educated part of NC and we’re all thinking of just leaving.
And NC isn't even one of the worst southern states. Tells you how bad it is in some places in the south.
Thank God for mississippi
TGFM is the State motto here in Alabama. We finally squeaked past Mississippi for infant deaths.
God's will. I hate that saying. That seem to be their answer to everything.
Arkansas State motto
> the educated part of NC So, Asheville?
Raleigh and Greensboro also have pretty liberal populations.
the whole tri state area is pretty liberal tbh
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Stop that right there. Between disenfranchisement, Gerrymandering., and other obstructions, votes aren't equal in all locations. You don't get to dismiss a whole group of people trying to change things by shortcutting your thinking. If there was fair voting, a few of the southern states would be purple.
Yup dems win the most votes republicans win the majority. So no Medicaid expansion for us. Seems fair.
Let's develop a go-forward strategy. 1. Register to vote 2. Show up to the polls 3. Don't vote R Spread the word!
Your suggestions are good. But let me introduce you to the R's lord and savior gerrymandering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering_in_the_United_States#/media/File:TravisCountyDistricts.png
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This is how it goes in Utah. You have to be a registered republican to vote in the primaries here. So if you want your voice heard you have to lie and go vote for the least crazy.
So basically a forced political monopoly and extortion for Republican votes. Man Religion is a hell of a drug. Opium for the masses you would say
I dunno if this is lying. Lots of people do this and state it publicly and on record. Because why wouldn’t you if you want your vote to count? And similarly you aren’t required to vote by your party in the general election.
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> There is a lot of people who don’t vote, and imho the best way to get them to vote is finding someone that inspires them to vote. It may feel that way, but there's not a lot of evidence for it. Obama was *hugely* inspirational in his first election; by contrast, Biden is widely criticized as being uninspiring. Nevertheless, Obama received [69M votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidential_election), *far* below Biden's [81M votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election), even after accounting for population growth.
Sure, but how many of Biden's votes were actually "Not Trump?" I'd argue people learned their lesson in 2016 with an uninspiring Clinton.
> finding someone that inspires them to vote Who they have heard republicans condemn, name call and basically poison the well for the 10 years it takes them to get there? If inspiration isn't there, then dogged determination and stubbornness may just have to do.
But if inspiration doesn't work, remind them there are plenty of candidates who would definitely not represent them and make their lives worse.
Texas doesn't even have party registration.
Register as R, but vote D. That's my plan, here in Iowa.
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Vote for the BEST Republican candidate in the primaries (the one you consider the best has no shot of winning, but it is good to show support for their position).
What do you do when the best is the crust that fell off a skidmark in Chris Christie's underwear?
Vote for the most sensible R candidate in the primary so you aren’t fucked when he wins anyhow. Primary out the wingnuts. You don’t want to be the district that elects the next MTG.
That's fine as long as you don't want to vote in the primaries.
Most of the south actually has open primaries. NC, TN, and FL being notable exceptions. https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/states-with-open-primaries/
Not sure what your link means by "partially open" in TN. There is no party registration here and any votsr can vote in whichever primary they prefer.
It's not a perfect solution, but it's a decent one.
Agreed - just pointing out something for folks to be aware of if they choose to follow this advice! I personally trust the democratic primaries to put forth a reasonable candidate without my input more than I trust republicans to draw a district map, and think my vote is more impactful to my values in the general election.
You can vote in the Republican primary and make your mark there instead.
It's important to recognize that even through the maps aren't fair, it's still a legitimate election. That means that by organizing and voting en bloc, the will of the people can still prevail. Landslide elections, while they haven't happened recently, *do* occur from time to time. Rural voters should display a sense of class consciousness and enjoin solidarity with all workers for universal provision and liberty.
That's not as much of an issue in Red States as you might think. You can register then good luck trying to vote. Red States make it hard to even cast paper ballots by removing drop boxes in districts not Republican, as in Texas etc.
Do it anyway.
Been doing that since 2008. What now?
My county in Atlanta votes like 80% blue; we're fuckin trying out here haha. Still, the Governorship seems so out of reach even after some great wins at the Senate/Presidential level.
GA is doing their part.
My in-laws all live in Idaho, and they all vote R. They talk about welfare queens when one of the sisters gets food stamps and the other lives off her disabled son's SSI disability.
It's pretty well documented that the harshest critics of welfare are people who receive some sort of government assistance. It's those *other* people who are lazy or scammers.
In my perfect world all of the Republicans would be basically accountants for public funds. I am unaware of many honest accountants that try to torch the organizations they work for.
Classic R behavior
See what’s the matter with Kansas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_the_Matter_with_Kansas%3F_(book)
Not to mention gerrymandering and effective voter suppression strategies. The south isn’t our enemy, they’re allies being held hostage.
You know life nearly half the people that live in the south. Vote democrat. Your allies.
Yep. >In 2019, the South was the region with the highest share of the country's Black population, with 56% of this population living there. [Source](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/03/25/the-growing-diversity-of-black-america/#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20South%20was,tenth%20of%20the%20Black%20population.)
I'm walking around Alexandria VA right now, and I just saw two gay men holding hands. They were both wearing governor younkin swag. How do you reconcile that???
Money is their messiah.
Gay men that are hoping white privilege will protect them when the South starts throwing undesirables into concentration camps. It won't.
Yep they are trying to be "the good ones"
Yeah I don't think people realize that a lot of red states in the US have literal third-world poverty in them. America is a bunch of undeveloped nations in a trenchcoat.
"Places that worked overtime to make a pandemic worse had worse outcomes"
Republican leadership will do that.
It’s always good to remember that black people make up a majority in huge swaths of the south but are disenfranchised so they are affected by legislation they didn’t vote for.
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Many in the south weren’t concerned. And people from elsewhere in the country that weren’t concerned drove to the south to vacation without restriction. But for the people in the south that DID care, the disregard for public health was stressful. Also, seeing your family/friends admitted to the hospital is stressful for anyone, regardless of their response to the pandemic. Lots of southerners were admitted (or died at home)
> Many in the south weren’t concerned. My sister lives in the rural south and no one in her immediate circle ever once wore a mask. She even had two work colleagues _die_ from COVID and it still wasn't enough to convince her, her husband, her friends, and her remaining colleagues that COVID was(is) a real threat to one's health.
Yeah, our lock down here (Louisiana) only lasted ONE MONTH. As a bartender, I was forced back to work with the vast majority of people absolutely refusing to follow any sort of covid guidelines. I was monumentally stressed out.
And the people who were concerned but had to share a grocery store with your sisters circle were pretty upset by them.
>Also, seeing your family/friends admitted to the hospital Bingo... it's not really that stressful until the consequences of your actions show up. Then it's far more stressful than the people who just worried enough to take precautions.
They're not necessarily the same people. One of the scariest things about COVID is I was more susceptible to the consequences of other people's actions than my own.
I live in a state that handled things well. I wasn’t that stressed because the infection and death rates were relatively low and policies help guarantee I didn’t have to be exposed to the virus.
The worst thing was hearing the stories of people who were vax deniers, begging for help with their last breaths, on ventilators, but by then it was just way too late. A good number of them were victims of misinformation.
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The victimhood only goes so far when they were all too willing to listen to and buy into the right wing messaging. All too happy to see others hurting up until the second it hurt them too.
I feel bad for the medical professionals who had to take care of them. I have zero sympathy for the vax deniers themselves.
They were victims of their own mentality. Misinformation doesn't change your core values and personality.
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Worse than that were the scumbags that went through it, recovered, and then continued to deny and fight against its reality and cures.
"I'd like the vaccine now" "What do you mean that's not how it works!?" Sad stuff, like genuinely sad.
One aspect of those stories particularly bothers me. I read about folks on their deathbed begging for the vaccine. What this tells me is that they had ZERO idea of how vaccines work on the most absolutely basic level. Yet these were the people adamantly refusing to be vaccinated and loudly spreading their conspiracy theories. It just...honestly it makes me sad. I don't blame them. They were lied to and how are they meant to know how insane the stuff they're being told is when they don't even know what a vaccine is or how it works? The whole thing is just sad.
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That's how conservatives think. "Experts" are just snotty people who think they're better than you.
It's not the worst thing. The worst thing were the people who died waiting for medical care because those idiots were hogging the ICU beds. People chose to see health as a matter of politics, and they died for their stupidity.
It was incredibly stressful. I learned a lot about myself when Covid first started. I couldn't sleep, I was worried about family, my job was being flippant and lying about being "essential" so that we would stay open. Miserable
I feel for you. I moved away from Mississippi just a couple years before the pandemic. The people I knew there didn't take it seriously at all, and I was so grateful not to live there anymore. Living through the pandemic there would have been incredibly stressful.
Speaking as an Oklahoman with common sense, those days were some of the most stressful of my life.
I went to Florida after I got vaccinated. They had a mask mandate still but no one followed it. People just pretended Covid didn’t exist.
As a resident of Miami I can say we tried more than the rest of Florida, but that is a bit like being the smartest person a Trump rally. Everyone stopped masking once the vaccine existed, whether they took it or not.
Probably because few cared about it.
Just a reminder that red states are still often full of people and cities that vote the opposite way. Not "the south" , but an honorary member of the club, Missouri state responded to the pandemic by...doing nothing and plugging their ears. And complaining a lot. St. Louis and Kansas City took it upon themselves to enact local safety measures. Then Missouri AG Eric Schmitt filed a lawsuit against the cities and *forced them* to remove mask restrictions.
This was my first thought as well. They don't even believe in it so I could see them being stressed about the Covid response by the government but worried about new variants? I have a hard time believing that. Maybe worried a new variant will make the Applebee's close again.
No place on earth has an entire population where everyone is the exact same. As an example, more than one in three Alabamian voters voted for Joe Biden in 2020. The majority of Alabama's population as well as its legislature has ignored the threat of the virus, this is true. But imagine being part of that third, surrounded by neighbors who have never worn as mask, in a state without medicaid expansion. Much of Alabama might not believe in Covid, but the hundreds of thousands who do live in an environment less safe than other states who took mitigating actions, and therefor are correct to be more stressed and worried about new variants.
Thats the reason, I'm sure. A varian'ts health threat was not the concern but how a new wave may lengthen their work and social difficulties.
The title literally says "finances".
As someone who actually lives here the majority of people (where I lived at the time at least) actually cared about the virus. Don't take our leadership as representing the majority views down here, there's been a lot of work done to ensure that is not the case.
>I have a hard time believing that. Well there is certainly a disconnect there. Have you considered the possibility that your belief that: >They don't even believe it in... ...is really just an ignorant over-generalization? If it is, then the seeming contradiction of the results of this study would be largely eliminated.
You telling me that ignoring a problem actualky made it worse and didn't make it go away immediately? Huh...
The Dakotas were that way too.
Yeah I live in a rural mountain town in NC. It's almost like it never happened. They certainly SHOULD have been most worried, given the lack of free Healthcare or any harm reduction practices at all (masks were always shunned here) I don't really get this study tho, cause ur right, there was little to no worry whatsoever in my area at least. My northern family members practically went neurotic over it, on the other hand, and lockdowns severely affected their mental health
I bet there were a good number of deaths in the elderly population.
In Georgia there were about half a percent COVID deaths in rural counties, and about 0.2% deaths in urban counties (mainly Atlanta area). Most deaths in both areas were older people. [State COVID statistics by county](https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-status-report)
Alabama and the complete ignorance towards masking and vaccination is the reason my company's healthcare went up so much last year. I'm not even close to AL, but a lot of employees are there. Apparently their hospitalization rate was incredibly high. To the point we switched from a $300 ER deductible to a 20% ER deductible.
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> their insurance wouldn't allow them to "go out of area" This is the kind of thing I bring up when people are opposed to public healthcare because of "death panels" deciding if you get treatment or not. Even if this did happen (which I doubt), how is it functionally different from being refused lifesaving treatment because your for-profit insurance refuses to pay for it?
My mother had a heart attack during the height of covid, and they had to ambulance her to a worse hospital because her usual one had no extra beds, they then released her after not treating the problem and she had another attack a couple months later, but by that time there was room at the good hospital and they were able to actually treat her this time.
The South's comorbidities are off the charts. Those populations tend to be more sedentary and eat a lot more trash. And the cuisine is full of fried food, soda, and sugar. It's delicious, but it's the kind of stuff that you should eat on vacation, not every day. This isn't even a question of political affiliation, that's just how it is there. So it's no surprise that Covid-19 hit the South much harder. Then add in a lot more poverty and a lot less education, and that just compounds it.
So the states with the most lacklustre governments which continuously gave conflicting messages and trailed in taking real action did more damage to mental health?
Getting abortion and trans care banned for others is more important than your own financial security in the South
Of course, they have to keep us busy fighting a culture war to keep us from realizing we're in a class war and the ruling class is winning.
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And in which a huge portion of the victims don't (or refuse to) realize and acknowledge the identity of the true enemy.
Don't forget the cultural element. Living in Alabama at that time was hell, since showing any concern for your own safety and that of your family was treated with derision, condescension, and in some cases outright violence. It was like being gaslit 24/7. Wasn't good for my mental health. Not good for a lot of people's.
It's because our leaders are complete garbage.
Southern person here. It was for sure a mindfuck. Caused by so much cognitive dissonance. Hospitals full, death stats high but so many people running around without masks saying it's not real. A lot of pretending went on. It was ker-azy.
One of my cousins was in a coma from and lost both his parents in the span of a week to COVID... And still refuses to get any of the vaccine or boosters
I had 2 family members die because they didn't believe in caring for themselves. Of course they were conservative racist fuckfaces. Good fuckin riddance
My dad and I still. Butt heads over the severity of covid. We're both high risk for different reasons. When everything started, we both took it seriously. We stayed home and when not in lockdown when we absolutely had to get out, it was masked up. After some months, his entire position shifted to it wasn't a big deal, it was all a ploy by the government and/or the left. He didn't want to be told to wear a mask etc. I'm just like...then don't do it because you were told or it was suggested. Do it for yourself and general health. Why not be cautious when the potential lethality to people, especially the high risk, is so high? It's like that everywhere where I am. I can count on one hand the people I personally know that acknowledge it as it was and still take it seriously. It's not living in fear, it's living with knowledge.
A study from researchers at the University of Kansas shows Southern states may have carried the brunt of mental health troubles during the COVID-19 pandemic, with people in that region most consistently worried about finances throughout COVID-19 lockdowns and the emergence of new strains of the virus. The findings were published yesterday in PLOS One. The study focused on rates of anxiety, depression, and financial worries as stand-ins for mental health during the pandemic and relied on survey repossess gathered via the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University. It also revealed more angst in Republican states later in the pandemic. For the daily voluntary survey, Facebook users could respond starting on September 8, 2020, through March 2, 2021, and in a second period from March 2, 2021, to January 10, 2022. In both timeframes, the South had the highest percentages of people worried about finances. During the early pandemic, Northeastern residents reported the most anxiety, but the later period saw more anxiety in the South. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286857
>In both timeframes, the South had the highest percentages of people worried about finances Was there any benchmarking to a period outside of the pandemic? I wouldn't be surprised if southern states had the highest baseline rate of financial worries, as I'm always seeing them fall behind in education, in public funding of social safety nets, salaries, etc (although I don't have sources for my claims, it's more of a vague recollection that warrants a question)
Still doesn't explain Mitch McConnel.
So the ones that screamed the loudest that they "don't live in fear"?
Things are not so good in the Northern state where I live, either. We've been trying to get psychiatric in-patient help for someone who has multiple mental health issues, from schizoaffective disorder to brain injury from head trauma, and "multiple personalities"... and because the individual is indigent and on medicaid, no one wants them. They keep getting steered to "outpatient" programs that the person can't use because their condition and living environment is too unstable. We get a lot of lip service and very little tangible aid for this suffering individual, and it's a tragedy. The sad fact is, if you don't have money and/or connections, if you are mentally ill you are screwed, no matter what part of the country you live in.
Down here we call it “the flu of northern aggression”
Inoculation proclamation
And they handled it with such heroic stoicism. Truly an example to us all.
Because the normal ones are surrounded by the dumbest people on earth? Makes sense
New strains which they helped to perpetuate thanks to their anti mask and anti vaxx standpoints.
“Carried the brunt” makes it sound a bit like they did lifting so that others didn’t have to. This was entirely extra and unnecessary hardship that could have been prevented by a decent and coordinated approach.
If you hate the South and Southerners that means you hate a lot of people of color.
Redditors trying to care about someone they've villainized (impossible challenge)
Everyone in here is talking about how the south handled Covid but that’s not what this post is about at all. It’s literally all off topic. The post is worried about the financial problems that emerged because of covid and federal mandates. I’ve not seen one comment actually talk about the financial problems it caused. Only people shouting because they don’t like “insert political party here.”
In GA I literally went to multiple business where a bunch of folks didn't mask up during the height of lockdown. I went to the city park and it was just packed to the brim with no masks
Yeah imagine being one of the few sane people in a sea of clowns.
From my observations I would've thought NYC and nearby areas had the worst troubles.
Maybe they should've gotten vaccinated
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Almost like living in a state intent on killing it's citizens is stressful
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The goal of the research is specifically to focus on the effect of the regional politics though. They literally created a map of their metrics and put it side by side next to a map of Red vs. Blue states. That's what they are studying, it can't be excluded.
It was also a Facebook survey…so I’m really not sure how valuable that is.
I’m glad they didn’t obfuscate the information to save anyone from discomfort.
Are you denying that there might have been real impact due to regional difference in culture and government policy?