Fox news tells them the GOP are pro-worker and the Democrats actually hate America and workers.

It's infuriating :/

There's a lot of lead pipes here still. And massive swaths of empty land that votes against anyone that might try to maintain or replace them via the necessary step of raising taxes.

Kansas city and St Louis didn't vote for Republicans. Unfortunately both blue patches aren't quite half the States population. But were close enough that there governor is looking to take away our representation.

I'm a school bus driver and our shop is union (Teamsters). My coworkers rabidly support our union, but are opposed to all other unions (except police unions of course) including even the teachers' union in our district. They're also mostly MAGA. They're just so fucking clueless about their own self-interest, leaving aside their utter selfishness. Our dispatcher is a lesbian who proudly talks about her wife, and she's the most rabid trumper of them all. I had one painful conversation with her where she insisted that it's the GOP that brought about same-sex marriage.

It's absolutely maddening, and it's been happening for at least 30 years

Sounds like a lot of people got exactly what they deserve

So they elected candidates who historically have opposed labor protections and government benefits

In the USA, all candidates oppose labor protections and government benefits; it's not as if the Democrats provide relief.

(min. wage 7.25, no sick leave, no maternity leave, no vacation, fire at will, no union protections, unions down to 10% (from 40% in 70s))

Both parties are not the same, but they are both pro-corporate and anti-labor

They’ve spent decades demonizing the left so thoroughly that any idea that they dislike and can associate with the left hey do so ad nauseam.

So any idea that would help those on the right just has to be called liberal and they’ll vote against it even if it hurts them too. It’s literally an unthinking knee-jerk hatred and reaction at this point. No thinking required.

Racism > not being a dumb ass.

Because the Democrats aren't running on those platforms, because they are also opposed to thise initiatives. The Democrats COULD run on a platform of guaranteed sick leave, mandatory holiday pay, rent control, and other wildly popular pro-worker policies, but they don't ecause they want to "appeal to moderates" or some other dumb bullshit. So you end up with a useless Democratic party in states like Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin who refuse to help people because they don't want Republicans to call them socialists. Then come election time they get caleld socialists anyway who support " illegals stealing jobs and giving abortions" or whatever and and shocked Pikachu when they keep losing elections. Until Democrats start openly campaigning on things that immediately benefit workers, they will continue to lose ground to the Republicans.

Let's all say it again... "Cruelty is the point"

I used to work for someone who prided herself on never missing work. My first day back after catching bronchitis from her, she called me into her office to berate me for taking time off when she was there working with a 104 degree fever all week.

But the teevee said

It's because they do these things strategically. They passed these corporate centric laws that hurt voters in the years when there's no election. Then they spend the rest of the time pumping social issues that their conservative minded voters care about like abortion and immigration totally overshadowing the thing they did to screw over the voters. And the, now conservative controlled, media helps them to cover it all up.

A shithole state is as a shithole state does.

In this instance, they voted for paid sick leave. Yeah, these people should have the day they voted for.

So when Republicans in Missouri repealed a paid sick leave mandate that the state’s voters approved by 58% after an aggressive lobbying campaign by the Missouri chamber of commerce and industry and other business industry groups

In this dude's defense, no where does it mention him being a Republican or supporting Republican politicians. It does say:

Thompson helped gather signatures for the paid-sick-leave and minimum-wage-increase ballot initiative

So I don't think this is a leopards eating face scenario.

Have you not been paying attention for the last 8 years?

It depends on the state. Many states have no means of direct voter legislation. Some do, but the result is a new law, which can be repealed by the legislature as easily as anything else. Some states treat citizen ballot initiatives as more powerful than basic laws (eg, as an amendment to the state constitution) which are generally way harder for politicians to roll back.

Gonna be contentious with this one. Missouri wasn't technically the South. Iowa and Kansas certainly weren't either. Yet the bible belt all the way to Canada is full of states that drink the red kool-aid of the Republicans...

I'm not gonna argue "Fuck the South" but the attitude to that is that the South has infected the rest of the country.

It's because we let the Democrats get away with being awful. Their goal is to be barely less evil than Republicans. If they had to actually fight for votes, we'd start to see results.

Ironically they will still vote Republican. They will somehow blame Hillary for it.

Missouri has voted on numerous laws that have been repealed by state legislators. We voted an anti-gerrymandering law in but it was repealed a year later. We voted for abortion and they tried to take that back, we voted for better pay and sick leave, and they are taking that.

I don’t know how red Missouri actually is or if it’s just getting fucked by some bad representation. (Don’t get me wrong, Missouri voted in Josh Hawley and Roy Blunt, it’s not perfect)