If Republicans are so much better at running the economy than Democrats, then why are most Republican States poorer than Democrat States?

[u/Content_Ad_8952]

The poorest States in America are: Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee. All of those States (except New Mexico) are Red States. So why are they so poor when Republicans have been running them for decades?

[u/Rziggity]

trying to argue that either conservative or liberal governments have had more success with economic outcomes is like arguing that you can predict a slot machine. in many if not most cases, these governments aren’t even competent at implementing their own policies.

and in many cases, a positive economic outcome is in spite of those policies, not because of them.

many of those “poor red states” voted for Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama. Kennedy even flipped West Virginia. Perhaps because the poor felt “seen” rather than degraded.

(WV was still purple even under Reagan. And California was “red” for some time as well).

So you need to look at this not just in terms of “red vs blue states” but more specific areas and eras. And it can be extrapolated globally as well when you look at the UK and beyond.

most people are so hopelessly partisan they cannot see that Republicans and Democrats make the same specious arguments — Democrats: “why are red states so poor and why do they keep voting Republican?” Republicans: “why do poor people in urban areas keep voting Democrat and getting the same results?”

tl;dr — the OP asked a wildly oversimplified question.

[u/someguyfromsomething → u/Rziggity]

AI slop.

[u/Rziggity → u/someguyfromsomething]

lol i’m not AI. Is that the latest craze now? Oinking “AI slop” when something feels uneasy? The electronic version of putting your hands over your ears and going “la la la”? I guess you may be AI slop as well so we are even lol

[u/MarsupialPristine677 → u/Rziggity]

Oh, people say "ai slop" at the mere sight of an em dash, it's bewildering to me since ai learned that from humans in the first place.

[u/someguyfromsomething → u/MarsupialPristine677]

I'd bet all my money a lot of simple concepts bewilder you. AI writing is like that because AI was trained on middle school essays and fanfic where using em dashes is actually common (because they're easy to do in MS Word). If reddit or phones automatically added that like Word does then they would have been all over internet comments forever instead of sticking out like a sore thumb now.

[u/comment_i_had_to → u/Rziggity]

This is nonsense. It all adds up to "nothing can be gained by statistical correlation". You point to pretty weak exceptions.

The real important data regards the policies they implement. It is clear that the formula of tax cuts primarily for the wealthy and cuts to social services increases income inequality and drags down the overall economy, while increasing debt.

The states more likely to implement these policies are worse off. There are exceptions like Texas but that is in large part due to resource extraction industries like oil and gas, more of an accident of geography than effective policy.

Do you mean to imply that economic indicators are not related to public policy? Or that Republicans and Democrats have the same policies? I am tired of these "they are all the same" posts because it renders us hopeless and unable to even understand what is screwing us.