I see it as 2 problems:

1. Fear and ignorance goes hand-in-hand with low population density (in any part of the world). Nixon decided to make the GOP the official party of that fear and ignorance, and it has stayed that way since. This will go away as the population increases.

2. Slavery created a culture of evil that has been passed down in the former slave states since the antebellum days. It’s like a disease that gets passed from each generation to the next. It can be either eradicated through education or incubated through the teaching of lies. This is where the real fight is. Progress versus the last vestiges of the Civil War.