If anyone’s wondering what the rural side of a purple USA state is looking like right now, here’s a sample:
80% of the roads are almost completely impassible around the entire state. Massive holes destroying cars. Newly paved roads destroyed in 3 months. We barely had money for cheap patches last year, we are likely not going to have any money for roads and bridges at all this year. Both roads that lead to where I live have collapsing culverts under the roads because they installed plastic ones instead of metal, meaning in DAYS myself, 20+ households, and 5+ farms will not be able to get in and out of our homes. And yet, not a single person out here other than me will complain or say anything to get it fixed because they’re full of complex guilt over voting for this to happen to all of us. My emails and calls to the office of two people that manage this area have been ignored. They’re too busy trying to move the gigantic chunks of ice that flooded several roads from the river flooding severely this year. No, climate change didn’t cause this how dare you even bring that up when people are dealing with results of *climate change?!*
We are getting punished, as a state, because our governor chose to follow the rule of state-controlled law about trans people participating in sports and that made somebody angwy. Most people around here have decided any harm caused by this are trans people’s faults and there has been an even sharper rise in aggression at even the hint of gender-nonconformity. Yes, even the dog’s genders are more intensely defined right now.
Everyone is angry. Every single person. People who wanted this are angry, but can’t even begin to face why. A lot of people who didn’t vote for this are too scared to say anything because most of us are in very real danger. We are so fucking angry, though. If you’re a visible minority and/or wear a mask, the MAGA will unleash their displaced rage on you every opportunity they can get. The people who can afford to be vocal about it are also in danger. Power keg doesn’t even begin to describe it.
60% of people visiting this area were Canadians crossing the border to shop and idk hang out I guess? I have not seen a single Canadian license plate in almost a month now. The hotels are all weirdly open for booking all year when they’re usually booked up. People here are upping their advertising for off-roading, fishing, camping, etc. No, they haven’t figured it out yet.
There’s been a sharp rise of domestic violence, violent interactions on the road, and drug use has spiked. Everyone’s very angry at a few drug users who are living in extreme poverty in town when half their household is using alcohol or other drugs to deal with their daily lives as well. Again, a lot of misplaced anger, yelling at the suffering as though they caused it all.
A loooot of local people just got cut off from contact from their not-asshole families for the first time ever, so you hear a lot of ‘we used to be able to stick together as a country’ and ‘we shouldn’t let things divide us’. No, they won’t say what divided them from their families because they’re still pretending they didn’t do anything wrong even when it’s starting to actually affect their daily lives negatively.
Some of the farmers have been pretty quiet about their politics since somebody cut all of their incoming money. I’ve looked into some of the local farm’s records in the past and know for a fact that their more shady-ish practices got them more money from the government than they got from actually selling food. Billions more. Now nothing. So very quiet.
A weird, sharp turn against the cops has happened ever since people finally saw baby’s first corruption. Billions of dollars for cops that was supposed to go towards something, and has just sort of… vanished for four years now. People started admitting they didn’t vote for it to go to them, so how did it get passed? They’re all very close to Getting It but they still thinks the cops will fuck them save them from the Transes so they can’t get over that hump yet.
There are a select few who are the most normal Joes you’ve ever seen going about their lives very happily and averagely because literally none of this has affected them yet and yes, they’re all younger cishet white men. (I guess they don’t eat eggs?)
Eggs. Rages about eggs. Egg orgies at the chicken people’s houses. So much cash in hand for eggs. People who didn’t even like eggs are all about buying the cheapest from the most backyard-est chickens. People buying chickens who couldn’t raise a chia pet. None of them even aknowledge the bird flu, but they sure have a lot to say about not vaccinating their chickens.
Raw milk. Orgies at the dairy. So much cash in hand for raw milk. People who are lactose intolerant buying it by the bucketload because not only is it ‘free of *insert random thing they’re afraid of here*’ but also ‘*more misinformation*’ and ‘lactose intolerant people can drink it because it’s *insert some random Christian phrasing about purity*’
No sharp rise in church going. Churches have actually closed. The religion has twisted itself too far away from even that.
The dollar (1.50) store is packed. Still no acknowledgement of why we’re all so poor that we’re all getting our groceries here together, because that would admit to a systematic problem. The food there is getting shadier and shadier. We’re all just sort of waiting for the day some bacteria or random rat shit dropped in from the factory kills us from our $1.50 mystery meat frozen meal.
Isolation for queer people—especially trans people—has quadrupled. We aren’t even looking at one another in the stores anymore. No silent looks of acknowledgement or knowing smiles. We pretend we didn’t clock each other at all now. Everyone is cishet/binary passing as much as we can. The tension and fear is very high.
No one, apparently, remembers the caterpillars that destroyed all the trees last year, or the fact that we were warned it would happen again this year 10x worse. Or the fact that scientists said the trees can only handle so many years without fucking leaves. They’re going to die in droves if this keeps happening. It’s literally been completely forgotten by everyone. If you bring it up they stare at you blankly.
The local younger generation are more nihilistic and risk taking than ever. They keep dying while driving 108mph, or from overdoses. They’re angry and scared and genuinly suicidal. The kids aren’t, in fact, alright.
80% of the people you meet around town have been day drinking at the local bowling alley. Yes, they’re all drinking and driving. No, the billionaire cops are not even present on the roads.
Ticks. More ticks than ever before. No, do not even mention climate change this just mysteriously happened.
Surprisingly (I joke), there has a rise in even more mediocre white men in jobs they’re not qualified for as a lot of the older generation are retiring after one too many injuries on the job. You cannot, for the life of you, find a plumber within a 200mile distance that will actually show up and do the job correctly, nevermind well. One guy had this area covered for 50 something years before and apparently was the last person to know how to do their job. Now it’s daily posts on facebook of people looking for a plumber, 20 year old dude ‘master plumbers’ saying they’ll fix it, then the OP posting again looking for a plumber and maybe a priest a week later.
Did I mention how incredibly angry everyone is?
