Quality of life is a major factor in where Americans choose to work, live and make major purchases including homes. These states are the nation's worst.
The main question is imho what's the cause - are they they worst to live in because of their politics? Or do people there vote populists because they are so unhappy with their lives
The American South has been reeling since the years following the Civil War. The economic strength of the Southern States was so tied up in agricultural slavery. When that system was dismantled it left a big hole in the fabric of those states socially, economically, politically. All of that resentment never went away it just changed forms over the years and turned into law and public policy. It's easy to forget that the Civil War was not that long ago, not in terms of human social development in any case.
It doesn't help that we elected qn apologist who decided to welcome them back with open arms not so long after the Civil War. Instead of adapting to the situation they were in, post-war, they ended up sucking on the feds that while they got equal representation as the non-slave states.
That's not what happened. Johnson became president when Lincoln was assassinated and at that time the president and VP didn't run on a single ticket and instead the VP slot went to the presidential runner-up, who, of course, was from the opposition. So we didn't really elect Johnson; we elected Lincoln, but John Wilkes Booth happened and he fucked us for generations.
Well the guy we elected after Johnson was Grant, and while he was an outstanding General, he was nowhere near as capable in the presidency where his authority, while great, was very different in kind from that of a military commander.
There's an argument to the effect that Grant was largely an absentee president who preferred to spend his days drinking as opposed to actually being the chief executive.
I'm not a historian and don't know enough about his presidency to have a strong opinion on it, but there's no question that the policies that Johnson put in place, that allowed reconstruction to go so badly off the rails, weren't competently addressed by the Grant administration, so in that respect your original point is not entirely incorrect.
He also badly botched, mostly through a lack of attention, Indian affairs with regard to the powerful plains tribes. It was probably inevitable that said tribes would eventually be subjugated, but it certainly could and should have been handled more humanely.
They're listed as the worst because this is basically just a political hit piece. They've defined the criteria for "best" to align with policy the democrats push and Republicans don't. It's hardly anything except a list of states that democrats agree with (or in the case of the bottom 10, don't agree with)
The answer is how they came to this conclusion, which basically is “is abortion legal and can kids get puberty blockers and genitals cut off?”. If the answer is no they are added to the list.
In other words, it’s a very misleading and click bait article.
We look at inclusiveness in state laws, including protections against discrimination of all kinds
And with surveys showing a sizeable percentage of women considering reproductive rights in deciding where they are willing to live and work, we factor abortion laws into this category as well.
That category is the 4th highest weighted category in their methodology, 0.4% behind "Economy". So basically if abortion isn't legal or if "gender affirming healthcare" isn't legal, you lose in the 4th largest category and will be down the bottom.
Look at the list and their "weaknesses"
10: Inclusiveness, Reproductive Rights
9: Crime, Inclusiveness, Reproductive Rights, Health Care
8: Inclusiveness, Crime, Voting Rights
7: Childcare, Inclusiveness
6: Voting Rights, Reproductive Rights, Crime
5 & 4: Voting Rights, Worker Protections, Inclusiveness, Health / Health, Worker Protections, Inclusiveness, Crime, Voting Rights
Literally every single one of them is inclusiveness and/or reproductive rights, ie. Gender Affirming Care and Abortion.
They even go so far as to pretty obviously say this is why they are the bottom 10 - on every one of them they list only their Life, Health & Inclusion Score. Nothing about the Economy score, the Infrastructure score, or the Workforce score. Nothing about cost of business score, business friendliness score, or Education score - just "Life, Health, and Inclusion Score" as if that's the only thing that matters.
That category is the 4th highest weighted category in their methodology, 0.4% behind “Economy”. So basically if abortion isn’t legal or if “gender affirming healthcare” isn’t legal, you lose in the 4th largest category and will be down the bottom.
Who cares if there are no jobs, schools, technology or services or infrastructure
Well, as long as the state is bigoted enough, you don't seem to care about education, services, or infrastructure. Republican efforts to undermine education by undermining public schools in favor of vouchers for christian schools that teach creationism, miseducating students about the country's history and banning books under the guise of "stopping woke" put the lie to your bogus handwringing about education. Services? At least one of those states didn't even pass the medicaid expansion because they were happy to watch poor people suffer than accept money from a program championed by a black president. Infrastructure? Texas has a shitty failing power grid because the alternative involves accepting national standards that might have kept the damned grid from freezing over.
Don't pretend to care about any of those things. Your sole criterion for a good state is if the state government makes sure "those people" know their place.
Pre-teens should not be given books talking about anal sex, oral sex, masturbation, and telling them that if they like stereotypical girl things they’re probably a girl trapped in a boys body. I’m sorry but anyone that thinks that’s fine probably belongs on a watch list.
What “place” do you think I want “those people” to know?
Btw I’m not American and I don’t live in America. Don’t ever want to either. I’m just interested in politics all over the world and aren’t afraid of voicing my opinion.
I was actually talking about US history books and how they deal with the civil rights movement, but your unfounded anti-trans moral panic has already been well established.