[hueving]

>A deeply red/Republican and relatively low-density state might seem like a strange place to find a functional public transit system.

Only if you buy the strawmen of politics in the US of there being two 'sides' with everyone neatly falling into place on a pathetic line.

The further you get away from the shithole that is the US federal government, the more this becomes apparent. The things each 'side' is supposed to support completely changes at the state levels and varies from state to state.

The best thing you can do is dispose of the notion of a single political spectrum and you will be a lot less shocked when you encounter something contrary to the propaganda designed to divide people.

[dahdum]

Miami has a free trolley service that is being actively expanded, supported by both sides of the aisle. It's paid by a sales tax directed towards transit projects, doesn't run up debt, and is widely popular. The idea being that boosting transit will increase job opportunities and economic activity, which will in turn raise more revenue via the sales tax.

South Florida in general is politically interesting, with a large amount of socially liberal yet fiscally conservative immigrants. Both parties are focused on economic development above all else.

[darksaints]

That's true, and Utah was the only Red state with anything close to a successful protest vote this last presidential election. Then again, the only meaningful difference between that candidate and Trump was that he was less vulgar and Mormon.

[dgzl]

I'm under the impression that the federal government knows this and actively tries to keep the population ignorant if their individual personalities. In America's violent culture, people see a massive red vs. blue battle and can't help but take a side.

[swebs]

I'd say it's more due to human nature to break complicated issues down to one dimension. Cameras have megapixels, computers have Flops, countries have some sort of "index" depending on what facet you're looking at, and politics has a single left/right value. Of course it's not very accurate, but that's the idea that's easiest to consume, and thus the one that propagates the most.

The 2-dimensional Political Compass is a huge improvement, but still isn't perfect. Reality is more complex and would require an N-dimensional political matrix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass

[justdeleteKanab]

http://birdsbeforethestorm.net/2016/10/lower-leftism-expandi...

^-- the most intriguing take on the political compass I've ever seen, albeit one with its own biases and issues (I'd replace feudalism with 'early human or tribal societies'). The main point was that it expanded beyond a strictly US view and I found the additional concept lines useful (Democracy line, inequality line, market line). It still runs into the same trouble trying to compress everything down into two dimensions does. Ideologies can end up next to each other that aren't very similar, which the end of the blog post acknowledged.

[blitmap]

Silver lining: We're united against those other people, lol. By politicians encouraging a divided, polarized atmosphere they've created a largely 2-party system (instead of a many-party system).