At least half the time, I think online sites like Politico publish hysterical stories like this just for click-bait purposes.
“How the South Skews America” writes Michael Lind (ahem). “We’d be less violent, more mobile and in general more normal if not for Dixie,” is the byline.
[M]uch of what sets the United States apart from other countries today is actually Southern exceptionalism. The United States would be much less exceptional in general, and in particular more like other English-speaking democracies such as Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were it not for the effects on U.S. politics and culture of the American South.
I don’t mean this in a good way. A lot of the traits that make the United States exceptional these days are undesirable, like higher violence and less social mobility. Many of these differences can be attributed largely to the South.
Well, isn’t that special.
