Why is the South so conservative?

[hcallega]

The South has always been resentful of establish Northern power. That goes all the way back to Jefferson vs. Hamilton, farmers vs. industrialists. It continued with Jackson and his fight to kill the national bank. Calhoun took it to a whole different level with his support for nullification, arguably forming the Tea Party of his day. Of course the issue of slavery and the Civil War exasperated this and turned the resent into warfare. Reconstruction, Northern industrialization, the Civil Rights movement, etc. have all played into this. This resent towards the North has evolved into anger towards Northern Culture, which has spread to the west coast. Basically the South has always resented the North, and by proxy, Washington D.C. Other posts about religion, a large number of veterans, and tradition are certainly correct. But IMO what makes the South different is that it has historically always been fighting against Northern influence, which today means social secularism, government intervention in the economy, and a welfare state (or so they believe).

Also, in regards to the claim that the South is somehow economically to the left, that's just not true. They are not progressive in any political areas, though they can be populist. Essentially, they want low taxes, less regulation, but also Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. There are not many union members in the South, and so there isn't a lot of support for organized labor. But if anything, the old-style populism is being pushed aside. The South isn't poor backwoods hollers any more. It is increasingly an exurban society of middle class whites who have gone to college, make a steady income, and are quite religious. Thus, you don't get many Jim Eastland's and Russell Long's any more. Now you get Richard Burr and Lindsey Graham.

[hcallega]

To all those who shout: RACISM! RACISM! RACISM! or Bible Belt Ignorance, that's simply an easy way out of addressing far more deep seeded cultural and historical differences between the North and the South. As I stated earlier, the current opposition to the liberalism and progressivism embodied in the Democratic Party is simply the most recent example. But here's a deeper explanation of the cultural differences:

Southern culture is largely rooted in a common ancestry. The Scotch-Irish tradition goes back hundreds of years, since they first came off the ship and went to work in the fields and hills of the old Confederacy. By and large they were Presbyterian, hard-working, and independent. Over the centuries, they would develop a unique and vibrant culture that resisted authority from a "foreign" power. That's how they saw England, how they saw Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans, and how they saw America's enemies throughout history. In Sen. Jim Webb's "Born Fighting", he goes into more detail on this subject. This fierce independence has transitioned into an opposition to what they see as an oppressive and overbearing government and media, which calls them ignorant, racist, and religious zealots.

In contrast, Northern culture is a real melting pot of various ethnicities and immigrant groups. No one group is dominant, and many (including myself) can trace their heritage to at least several different ethnic groups. This has in turn led to a natural "liberalism"; that is to say that by and large Northerners don't often have one singular culture to cling to, and are generally more willing to adopt unique and different trends than their Southern counterparts. In general, homogenized ethnic groups, North, South, East, and West, tend to be more resistant to changes forced on them from a centralized authority. This explains one aspect of why the South is more conservative.

This is all coming from someone who is a Northerner through and through, though I do have some Southern (Cajun) ancestry.

[hcallega]

Ron Paul was the trendy candidate for libertarians and pot heads in 2008. He's not getting the same degree of media attention/reddit posts anymore.

[hcallega]

I don't think anyone mentioned this yet.  Here's another reason why the Northeast should arguably be more conservative than the South: the North is where the Puritans settled.  The Puritans were a very religious people who wanted to turn the US into a theocratic government and were somewhat successful in doing so, hence why we have so many blue laws as remnants of their attempts.  So, I'm still confused on how states with such strict laws on alcohol became the most liberal.

Yes, I realize this is the exact opposite of my original question.  Still relevant, though.

Well, NE was the most Puritanical (conservative, for the sake of argument) region of the country for many generations. But then the immigrants came. From the North there were the French, from the Atlntic both the Italians and Irish, as well as some Germans. They all brought their interpretations of scripture and their more liberal outlooks. Thus, the New England we have today.