Diversity of opinion across the US is wider than you think

It’s easy to think that all of America is the same, but in every red state there are blue dots, and in every blue there are red, writes Holly Baxter

Protesters join the March for Our Lives rally for tighter firearm laws in LA, June (AFP/Getty)

Whenever a big tragedy befalls the US, people on the outside – usually people I know in Britain – are quick to announce that they brought it on themselves. They got attached to the Second Amendment, they voted in people who believe in QAnon, they blindly followed Donald Trump. Hundreds of years ago, they left Europe in search of a more puritanical future, and now they have it. What did they expect except this, a nation of death by gun and no abortions?

The idea that Americans don’t have the right to expect basic safety from mass shooters or honest representatives is one that drives me a little mad. Yes, there are southern towns full of people who fly Confederate flags and affix bumper stickers declaring themselves “AGAINST THE DEEP STATE” on their pick-up trucks. Yes, there are people who willingly sign up to the NRA and teach their 10-year-olds how to shoot rifles in the backyard before launching into a rendition of country star Toby Keith’s most controversial, pro-war anthem “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”. Yes, there are divisive Americans and naive Americans and evangelical Americans and Americans who vote against their best interests despite being female or black or gay or Latino or disabled or all of the above. And yes, there’s a little bit of schadenfreude in it for Europeans, who grew up watching American politicians declare themselves “the policemen of the world” and hearing about how the US thinks it’s “the best nation on the planet”, and are now watching the empire crumble spectacularly. It’s no secret the US will soon be less financially and militarily powerful than China. Their glory days are over, their birth rate is low, and if they keep trying to lock potential immigrants out at the border, they’ll have a jobs crisis on their hands within a couple of decades.

All of this is true, yet it forgets the nuance. On the ground in the US, I’ve been struck by how many people I’ve met who are stuck in a political reality they didn’t choose because of gerrymandering and disenfranchisement. There was the elderly woman who sat outside an abortion clinic in Alabama in the boiling hot sun every day, holding a sign that said she supported women’s rights, and compassionately helping out any young person who came along. There was the middle-aged libertarian in Dallas who told me he didn’t agree with much of what Trump stands for – and certainly not with any of the religious stuff – but he has to hitch his wagon to the Republicans because otherwise there’s no party for him. There were the thousands of Pride and BLM flag-flying residents of Austin who love their city but have no representation in Congress. And there were the 19-year-olds from Oklahoma and Missouri who I met outside the Supreme Court in Washington DC last weekend, both states with trigger law bills that have effectively outlawed abortion, who don’t know what to do next. They don’t want to be forced out of their home states and away from their families, but their rights have just been signed away.