But the most stiking illustration I have ever seen occurs when we look at CoVid vaccination rates by state. The top 21 states in vaccination rates are all blue (voted Democratic in the last Presidential election), and the bottom 16 are all red (voted GOP in last election). The top "red" state is Iowa at #22, and Iowa is really more purple than red. The lowest "blue" state is Nevada at #35, and, like Iowa, Nevada is really more purple than blue.
Of the fifteen lowest states, nine are from the old confederacy. The only exceptions among the eleven confederate states are Florida, which has turned purple due to the influx of retired northerners, and Virginia, which has turned blue in recent elections.
Of the seven lowest states not from the old confederacy, two are western mountain states (Idaho and Wyoming), and two are prairie states (Kansas and North Dakota). Then there is Missouri, which is southern in spirit but never actually seceded, and Oklahoma, which surely would have seceded had it then been a state. The oddest outlier is West Virginia, which had its origins in its desire to remain in the union (and how odd it is that the union thought it perfectly OK for West Virginia to secede from Virginia, but wrong for the southern states to secede from the U.S.), but in recent years has turned red, for reasons which are not clear to me.
If we look at states which have the death penalty, we see another strong red/blue correlation, though not quite as stiking as the vaccination correlation. Of the 24 states which voted for Biden, only three have the death penalty: Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia. And of the 26 Trump states, only four don't have the death penalty: North Dakota, West Virginia, Iowa, and Alaska.
Had Lincoln done the right thing and allowed the seven confederate states who originally seceded to "go in peace", we woud have a much more unified country. Lincoln's war-mongering has led to the mess we're in today.
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