[walrus01]

but depending on your political views, you also have to tolerate living in florida, which can be a distasteful experience to people whose cultural, religious and political values more closely align with the residents of portland, OR.

[adl]

For someone who lives outside the US, but has visited Florida (Miami and Orlando), what do yo mean by tolerate? I understand that they may be more... conservative?. As a tourist, Miami seemed multicultural and fairly liberal, are state politics different?

[ryandrake]

Speaking as a former Floridian who lived both in south Florida and the panhandle: South Florida is a tiny blue outlier in an otherwise deep red southern state. State laws and politics are dominated by Tallahassee which is physically and culturally closer to Alabama. It would be a shock to someone moving from the Bay Area or Seattle.

That said, zero income taxes, low sales taxes, warm weather year round, and great beaches are all very compelling.

[kozak]

Could you please explain to a non-American what do you mean here? Sounds like something that is interesting to know :)

[walrus01]

in brief, and this is a highly anecdotal biased view, florida (in aggregate, not the more liberal cities) is a deep red state that generally agrees with Trump.

https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president...

as a random white person, caucasian floridians I have met are racist as hell. You would not believe the things that come out of their mouths when there are no ethnic/religious minorities within earshot and they believe you to be a person that might agree with their worldview.

it's a state that believes in cutting taxes to the level that they have the absolute bare minimum of social services, government services and other things that people in a western european nation (or canada, au, nz) take for granted.

florida is a state that regularly elects, at the state and county level, christian-religious politicians who will attempt to do things like make abortion illegal, introduce religious into public schools, and other policies generally supported by the evangelical religious right wing.

[goshx]

> as a random white person, caucasian floridians I have met are racist as hell. You would not believe the things that come out of their mouths when there are no ethnic/religious minorities within earshot and they believe you to be a person that might agree with their worldview.

Where did you come to in Florida? I haven't met people like what you are describing. Or perhaps you brought up the subject with them? When you say "as a random caucasian" that gives me the impression that there is a little racism in the air.

[walrus01]

Merritt Island / Cape Canaveral area.

In a work environment, I in no way brought up the subject of anything controversial race/religious/ethnic related.

At the time I worked for a market sector that does a lot of telecom-related work overseas and in developing nation environments. Probably with a higher than usual percentage of ex military people.

What i meant by "As a random white person", by virtue of me being pale skinned and from a northern country, other people took it as tacit acceptance that they could raise their bigoted views towards me... Basically the sort of folks who go on endlessly about how Sharia Law is coming to the united states, and barack obama is a secret muslim kenyan communist manchurian candidate.

What I have found in the US is that racism is alive and well everywhere. In the US southeast it's more overt.

[goshx]

Well, you are not getting the picture of an entire state by that experience alone.

I live in South Florida and the mix of culture here perhaps helps to alleviate racism. But yes, I agree with you that racism is alive an well in the US. That was very noticeable when I moved here from Brazil.

[matte_black]

Don’t listen to him, he’s never lived in Florida. It’s fine.

Half the people in Florida are liberals, it is in fact a swing state that can go either red or blue in any election. If you blanche at the thought of living anywhere that isn’t a liberal stronghold or you shiver at the idea of interacting with a conservative you won’t like it; if you’re a normal person you’ll be just fine.

[goshx]

I've been living in Florida for 6 years now. The only thing that bothers me here is the hurricane season.

[mlevental]

south florida isn't so bad. miami especially is very liberal (except for the cuban exiles)