re: #8 Anymouse 🌹

All I can say is I’m glad we left Oklahoma before wingnuts collapsed the state budget. The Guardian calls Oklahoma a “failed state.”

The state’s teacher of the year in 2016 upped stakes and moved to Texas, because Quik Trip employees make more and the state has completely gutted its education system (they are down to four-day weeks because they can’t afford more).

The state is a Dumpster fire of libertarian conservatism. What a change when it was a powerhouse of the Socialist Party before the First Red Scare.

wonkette.com

Essentially, when wingnuts gained control of the legislature (the time we left), they got a referendum before the populace raising taxes on the oil industry and slashing taxes on property, then imposed a 3/4 majority requirement to pass a tax increase in the legislature.

Then the price of oil collapsed. With people fleeing the state, the entire state economy is collapsing.

Grandma told me how radical Oklahoma was before the Palmer Raids. But toss in 100 years of Right Wing Jesus and Ayn Rand and POOF!

North Dakota actually had a Socialist government in the 1910’s calling itself the Non-Partisan League. Several legacies of the NPL remain in North Dakota such as the state-owned bank, grain elevators and cement companies.