Cut the Failed Red States Loose: Why America Can't Keep Carrying the Dead Weight
Jackson, Mississippi residents spent weeks collecting rainwater in buckets during their third water system collapse since 2021.
cmarmitage.substack.com
Jackson, Mississippi residents spent weeks collecting rainwater in buckets during their third water system collapse since 2021. During those same weeks, the state legislature devoted substantial time to debating mandatory "In God We Trust" classroom posters. This isn't about red versus blue. It's about a simpler question: How does a modern nation function when some of its governmental partners refuse to engage in governance or management rather than imaginary problems.
The pattern repeats across a growing swath of America. The UN Special Rapporteur on poverty visited Alabama in 2017 and found raw sewage pooling in yards due to failed septic systems, conditions he said were "uncommon in the developed world." Alabama now has a hookworm problem affecting 34% of residents in Lowndes County, a disease of extreme poverty eradicated in most developing nations decades ago. The legislative response? Passing abortion bans while allocating nothing to sewage infrastructure.
Louisiana tells the same story through different failures. The state has the highest incarceration rate on Earth at 1,094 per 100,000 people, higher than El Salvador or Rwanda. It ranks 50th in education, 48th in healthcare, and 45th in infrastructure. Ten major insurers fled after hurricane losses, triggering an insurance market collapse. The legislature's 2024 priority? Mandating Ten Commandments displays in classrooms, now tied up in costly legal challenges while basic services crumble.
These are symptoms of states that have essentially given up on good faith management. Between 2000 and 2018, nearly 300,000 children were legally married in the United States, overwhelmingly concentrated in Southern states, with documented cases of children as young as 10. Tennessee legislators in 2018 attempted to eliminate age requirements for marriage entirely before public backlash. These same states depend on massive federal transfers: Mississippi receives $2.73 in federal spending for every dollar it contributes, Kentucky $2.35, Alabama $2.03.
The human costs are staggering. West Virginia leads the nation in overdose deaths while rural hospitals close monthly. The legislature's response? Extensive debates over trans athlete bans affecting roughly a dozen students statewide while rejecting Medicaid expansion that would save hundreds of lives annually.
Mississippi's maternal mortality rate of 40 deaths per 100,000 live births is worse than Lebanon and Iran according to WHO data. Black women in Mississippi die in childbirth at rates comparable to Sub-Saharan Africa. Rather than expand healthcare access, the legislature focuses on prosecuting women and doctors over abortion care. Texas has recorded over 200 deaths from power failures since their deregulation, yet refuses to connect to federal grids that would require winterization. The legislature prioritized abortion bounty systems over grid reliability requirements after failures that killed 246 people in 2021 alone. Of course we all know that Republicans have no concern for human life unless it's an embryo.
The economic exodus accelerates. Major tech companies flee Texas and Florida despite zero income tax advantages, explicitly citing social policies in relocation announcements. Disney halted a billion-dollar Florida expansion. North Carolina lost $3.76 billion over a bathroom bill. Meanwhile, these states' education systems hemorrhage teachers over book bans that have removed everything from math textbooks (for "prohibited topics") to encyclopedias. Oklahoma, ranked 47th in education, lost 3,000 teachers last year while the state superintendent mandated Bible instruction in public schools.
Federal disaster relief has rebuilt some Gulf Coast properties four or more times since Katrina while these states reject climate planning. Kentucky had three "500-year floods" in two years, requiring billions in federal aid while state leadership denies climate change. These states sue to block the same environmental standards that could reduce disaster frequency while depending on federal bailouts for predictable catastrophes.
The federal government spends blue state resources forcing basic compliance in resistant states. Federal courts must repeatedly intervene to ensure hospitals don't turn away dying women, to keep polling places open, to prevent child labor violations that have spiked 283% in Southern states since 2015. When we need infrastructure modernization, partner states can't maintain existing roads. When we needed pandemic response, they banned mask mandates while requesting federal medical teams. When we need economic competitiveness, entire regions operate like corrupt developing nations.
These states demonstrably cannot provide clean water, prevent treatable diseases, or maintain first-world life expectancy. They survive on transfers from the states they call "coastal elites" while their legislatures debate requiring prayer in schools and banning books about seahorses for "promoting gender ideology." The question writes itself: How do you run a 21st-century superpower when your governmental partners can't, or won't, perform basic governmental functions?
You don't. Cut them loose so the rest of us can move into the 21st century, rather than back to the dark ages.
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Now, I am not sure if all these statistics and anecdotal stories are accurate. But, we do know that MANY red states are at the bottom of rankings for things like education, literacy, health, obesity, development, GDP and crime... I saw a stat that showed that counties that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 contributed something like 71% of the US GDP. Sure, there are some outliers like Texas and maybe Florida...And, yes, a lot of reasons for these red states (many are, surprising no one, in the south) comes from slavery and the failures of reconstruction after the civil war.
Obviously, this will never happen. But, it is interesting how the right LOVES to slam blue states, but they're super happy to get the money California, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts provides..
