Do a majority of our red avatars hate Southerners?

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Ahem

[DemPGH]

I think it's only that the region is easy to complain about and generalize when you take into consideration what it is associated with (really poor people voting for someone like Romney, social views behind the times, anti-science, etc.) as well as its past. That whole stereotype though has an offshoot of itself represented fairly well in the rural north, although there are subtle differences, I imagine.

In RL, aside from the occasional West Virginia joke someone might tell over a beer or a wine (and that's a regional thing), I really never hear anyone actually hate on southerners. More like, "Oh God, can you guess what happened in Texas now?" and then you kind of brace and say, "Do I really want to know?"

[DINGO Joe]

I just hate the mud eaters, who are disproportionally found in the South and Interior areas.  Birthers, Tea Baggers, Creationists, Nativists, old KKKers, etc...

[DINGO Joe]

I don't have much of an accident, but I do say y'all whenever I can. I have to keep up appearances or I'll be accused of being a carpetbagger, especially by the southern girls.

At least you admit your accent is a (autocorrect) wreck of some type.  I've lived in New Orleans long enough to pick up the y'all part, though I still retain the Fargo jeez (Oh jeez, y'all).  I don't really even understand why y'all exists in New Orleans since the most prominent accent is a weird lost-tribe-of-Brooklyn accent called Yat.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I merely disapprove of Southerners' lifestyle choices and wish it wasn't waved around in my face so much.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I merely disapprove of Southerners' lifestyle choices and wish it wasn't waved around in my face so much.

You mean on TV? 

[The Dowager Mod]

I'm not self loathing, so no.

[All Along The Watchtower]

10 million + Southerners voted for Obama in 2012, FWIW.

I guess they don't exist?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Anyway, methinks some people need to learn the difference between individuals and aggregates. And the Electoral College can go DIAF.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I assume this is because of this:

The average IQ of the United States would increase by several points.

Porous borders for the first few years could solve that problem. Also send the wingnuts from the North down there.

What would be left of America would be an infinitely better place.

I'm not going to defend the Mordecai or IceSpear quotes, but Antonio is right to a certain extent- the remaining US would probably have more protections for workers, a higher HDI, etc. and so could probably be referred to as "better".

Exactly. Anyone with basic knowledge/intellectual honesty knows what I said is plain common sense.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I just hate the mud eaters, who are disproportionally found in the South and Interior areas.  Birthers, Tea Baggers, Creationists, Nativists, old KKKers, etc...

The KKK barely exists nowdays.

[Oakvale]

10 million + Southerners voted for Obama in 2012, FWIW.

I guess they don't exist?

I would imagine people's ire generally isn't directed at the black southerners who made up a likely majority of those ten million.

[traininthedistance]

Ahem

I'm seeing plenty of FF states in the south, as well as some inexcusable anti-Jersey Italophobia.

[Хahar 🤔]

I do not.  In fact, look at the state on my post.

What about it?

[DINGO Joe]

I just hate the mud eaters, who are disproportionally found in the South and Interior areas.  Birthers, Tea Baggers, Creationists, Nativists, old KKKers, etc...

The KKK barely exists nowdays.

. Yes, old was intended as a pejorative suggesting that any remaining Kkkers just aren't keeping up with the mudeating Jonses.

[Horus]

A majority of red avatars hate the stereotypical, lower-class, quasi racist southerner. These folks are most prevalent in the upper south, places like Arkansas, WV, basically any southern/appalachian county that trended AWAY from Obama in 2008 etc. Can't really blame them for that. As for the southerners who inhabit places like the Atlanta suburbs or Charleston SC, I don't think there's any more hate for them among red avis then there is for say Republicans in Orange county or Long Island. This is probably because the aforementioned southerners/applachians are a special kind of ignorant.

[Frodo]

White rural southerners, you mean?  Safe to say that there is a clear (and not entirely undeserved) bias against them. 

[Mechaman]

Ugh.  This thread is a ridiculous cavalcade of overgeneralization, paranoia, projection, and abuse of language and logic.

An overwhelming majority of our red avatars hate anyone that doesn't vote like they do, act like they do, live in the same areas that they live in, etc.

Define "hate".  Difficulty: define it in such a way that the converse isn't just as true, if not moreso.  I dare ya.

This thread needs a healthy helping of Mechaman.

In good time sir.

Once I get off of work I'll rant more about the hideous bigotry of the so-called Northern "liberal" class.

The idea that you can claim the "Northern 'liberal' class" to be some monolithic thing, with uniformly those sorts of qualities, is itself a piece of hideous bigotry.  

(Obviously there are plenty of bigots in the North.  And some of them are liberals.  I've always openly admitted as such, and am embarrassed about it whenever it crops up.  But the rather stronger claims being made here are utterly insane and unsupportable and, I would argue, speak to, well, what strikes me as nothing less than anti-Northern bias.)

First, I have to address the preceding post.

I meant no universal assertion here.  In fact, I believe that a lot of liberals in the northern states would be shocked and outraged by the amount of negativity that some of you convey.  However, like you yourself have said, there are a lot of Northerners who are bigots and are self professed liberals.  I didn't mean to assume that all northern liberals were bigots (in fact, I would claim a small minority of those are), just a select class who assumes themselves to be liberals (thus the quotation marks) while exhibiting qualities that are anything but.
That you jumped to such a conclusion suggests that you feel you yourself have some insecurities about the topic at hand.  I however, will take you at your word that you are embarrassed by some of the more negative things said and assumed by others.

Just want to clarify, since the wording of my post doesn't seem to have much allowance made for actual liberals in the North.

[Mechaman]

Anyway, this was originally going to be kind of a rant, but I'm thinking I'll go in a different direction with societal bias:

In the South, this manifests itself with the majority response to the maligned groups of African Americans, Hispanics, and other non-white/non-hetero groups who pose a threat to the "conservative" and "well mannered" heavily protestant whites who inhabit a lot of the region.  The South has a bit of a problem, being a region that is largely homogenuous in white culture and background.  In fact, that there is, compared to other regions (especially the Northeast) a largely identifiable "white culture" as opposed to various nationalities shows that the societal and cultural elites in the region like to keep up their affluence by enforcing a society of acceptable norms and quick and ready and strong judgment of transgressions on that. "Unwhite" culture is inherently unpatriotic and unAmerican.  Big industries like oil manufacturing, coal mining, and other resource extraction industries that pose great environmental and health threats are fed with a healthy helping of tax breaks and subsidies as well as scare mongering about "socialism" and other general threats to economic well being.  That a lot of the middle class is only about a couple of generations removed from the widespread poverty only encourages many of the convert class to keep quiet, or possibly lose their jobs.
For the record, I am not saying that white southern culture is by any means universally racist or bigoted, just that there is an interest in the elites (emphasis) to encourage the strife that continues to pervade much of it.

Wow, that is sounding less like a rant than I thought it would be.

In the North the situation is different.  There are still wide gaps between rich and poor and the elites and the non-elites.  Institutions like banking, stock trading, and technological firms are seen as the big guns.  Obviously, such institutions, loaded with money, have a vested interest in keeping up interest in both major parties to support their interest.  There is and always has been a traditional monied class, combined with newer money that sees interest in advancing specific issues.  With the Supreme Court Ruling of Citizens United, it's more likely than ever that we will see the full result of this influence carried out, as the interests of the few rule over the needs of the many.
For certain, there are billionaires out there like George Soros or Warren Buffet who feel as if they have a great deal to gain from endorsing Democratic candidates.  Whipping up the population in a frenzy, including perpetuating a historic tale of regional animosities (that happen to correlate with where the parties are now located) does a great deal in advancing the causes of these billionaires and other big interests that are part of the Democratic fundraiser base.  As a result, we've seen the rise of a large Democratic professional class that includes people who tend to have a very dismissive view of working people or people with not that much formal education.  This is probably why many nowdays perceive the system as having failed or that working class interests don't have any voice, because politics feels like it's bought and paid for by the loudest mouths with the biggest bucks.
Again, like the South, I believe the big problem here is elite interests encouraging division and nastiness to advance their interests.
Ftr, not saying any of this is rare or doesn't happen among many Southerners.

In both parties there are rich and poor, and elite and non-elite.  I would even go so far as to suggest that in both there are the educated and the non-educated.  Politics is, and always has been, a nasty bit of business.  A lot of it involves a grand deal of emotional stringpulling in order to ramp up vehement opposition to whatever the opposite view is on an issue.  Each side only needs 270 Electoral Votes to win and only 218 House Seats and/or 50 Senate seats to win supremacy on any one issue.  The best way to secure that is by strengthening the devoutness of your most devoted donors/followers by way of giving them a figure of five minutes of hate.  And what better way of doing that than by putting up a political strawman of what everyone who lives in x believes.

There are, from what I can tell, plenty of people who would think themselves "liberal" who fall for this kind of ploy.  I won't stand and hee and haw all day about how hypocritical this is, but just to say that this is on the par for American politics.  In general, people come up with their views about the world based on their own experiences and what they've been told all their lives.  I believe a more fair thing to say is not that a majority of our red avatars on here hate Southerners (hell, a good deal of them are from the South), but that a number of them at least hold an air of suspect about Southerners in the same way that a lot of us listen to Jehovah Witnesses with such an air.  Being a Democrat doesn't require one necessarily be consistent in their beliefs or be beyond flaw, and should be a testament to the kind of challenges that society at large faces with stereotyping.  Certainly, I think a lot of us could do with a lesson in empathy, or at least trying to understand people of other backgrounds.

I'm not excluding myself from anything that was said here.  Certainly, I'll admit that I have a lot of resentment towards affluent people that was encouraged by my high school years and dealing with what you would call prepsters.  However, I'll try to understand why your daddy needs a tax cut for his golfing business if you give us ten minutes of your time.

-Mechaman

[politicallefty]

I don't hate Southerners as a whole. I'm not going to paint the region with one brush. My particular dislike is with the concentration of religious fundamentalism and voting against one's own economic interest. That is not unique to the South, even if it happens to be more common there.

[Mechaman]

I don't hate Southerners as a whole. I'm not going to paint the region with one brush. My particular dislike is with the concentration of religious fundamentalism and voting against one's own economic interest. That is not unique to the South, even if it happens to be more common there.

So true.

Posters like myself are by no means going to paint a revisionist picture of the South here.  There is pretty bad racism, there is pretty extreme religiosity, and there is a lot of self-destructive behavior.  I sure as hell won't paint the picture of the South, whether historically or currently, as some proto-socialist paradise where everybody had rights.  In fact, I believe that the South has had a bad history on many things, especially in regard to freedom and liberty (this should be obvious to anyone who has heard of Jim Crow).  The point is that people (shocker) don't like being looked down upon, whether North or South.  Elites, however, by their very nature are all about looking down on people.  When one can determine whether you will get enough to survive and feed your family, their voice carries weight.  Their large presence in the faith movements is also notable, as it allows a good degree of pull and guilt factoring over people on the belief that they are damned if the do or think otherwise.
In our system, it can only work effectively if the elites in either party look down upon only half the disadvantaged instead of all of them.  In this way they have succeeded in creating enemies of their enemies.  Let us remember that the American Revolution for intents and purposes, was headed by men who were by no means "common".  Remarkable, is it not?

And for the record, I voted "no" on this poll.

[traininthedistance]

First, I have to address the preceding post.

I meant no universal assertion here.  In fact, I believe that a lot of liberals in the northern states would be shocked and outraged by the amount of negativity that some of you convey.  However, like you yourself have said, there are a lot of Northerners who are bigots and are self professed liberals.  I didn't mean to assume that all northern liberals were bigots (in fact, I would claim a small minority of those are), just a select class who assumes themselves to be liberals (thus the quotation marks) while exhibiting qualities that are anything but.
That you jumped to such a conclusion suggests that you feel you yourself have some insecurities about the topic at hand.  I however, will take you at your word that you are embarrassed by some of the more negative things said and assumed by others.

Just want to clarify, since the wording of my post doesn't seem to have much allowance made for actual liberals in the North.

I'll admit it's a touchy subject for me, not so much because I'm personally insecure, I'm not (though perhaps I might be on behalf of friends and neighbors that haven't given the subject a whole lot of conscious thought).  It's more that such a charge often enables a basket of pretty bad positions and attitudes (foremost among them my particular bane, anti-intellectualism), and I feel the need to fight against it on those grounds.  I'll try to explain more when I have time/a more functional computer.

(Excellent posts after this, BTW. I think I do agree with the strong majority of what you're saying here, though of course my particular emphases would be different.)

[MATTROSE94]

I don't (Not a bigot)

[Peter the Lefty]

Obviously.

No, and there is no reason to believe we do.  We hate the politically and socially backwards character of the region, but none of us believe that being a southerner makes one inherently bad.  The South is consistently the largest source of conservatism and bigotry in the country.  Not the only one, but the largest.  It is undeniable that leftists outside of the South have good reason to have difficulty with many aspects of it.  You simply say that the majority of our red avatars "obviously" hate the South and then don't explain why.  Please clarify.  Not wanting to visit the region is not equivalent to hating its people.

(Not a red avatar, but I imagine this also applies to me as well). 

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I am absurdly pro-Southern.