We Americans don't either.

In general, the cities in red states are very progressive. New Orleans and Miami are two of the least small-c conservative cities you’ll find in the U.S., more akin to San Francisco than a place like Boston. (Boston has amazing universities and is progressive in policy but it was founded by puritans and isn’t exactly known for it’s late night parties and festivals.)

By contrast, more Californians voted for Trump than Texans. It’s mostly an urban/rural divide at this point and whether your state government is a horror show or not depends on whether your cities are large enough to create a majority after districts are drawn.

Also, there’s a lot of outrageous bills introduced by one state rep that will never get a vote. But they know they’ll result in clickbait articles and help them gain notoriety.

That's an astute observation.

TN is home not only to a motivated republican political class bent on ensuring their continued role overseeing the state's people and determining what access to medical care should be available, but also to the Country Music Hall of Fame and to Jack Daniels Distillery. The latter is interesting and getting there takes you through beautiful country, but you should know it's located in a "dry county" before you go and their products can't be sold there.

TN is also the last state I'm aware of where fire departments were in recent years permitted to respond only to protect neighboring property rather than to protect the property which was actually on fire; but had not paid its subscription service

Well, that last doesn't exactly cast it in a positive light, either. But that's life in a red state for ya, there's a whole lot of gorgeous country that is (politically) painted bright red, unfortunately. While I've little need to travel presently, there aren't many southern states I'd go out of my way to spend money in, if I could help it.

It's a real shame, because there is so much non-shit in these places too. As someone from one of these states (Ohio), it makes me sad to see my home turned into a punchline and a cautionary tale because of what the extremists have done. Sometimes it feels like we've been abandoned :(

The people are friendly during the day, the food tastes good, the natural beauty is something else, and if your car breaks down chances are someone young will fix it for free someone old will give you a ride into town plus most of them have a 3rd worlder work ethic that allows them to build in temperatures that should kill you.

At the same time southern rage is a real plus scary thing and none of them are that far from lynching.