Comment by jnbiche | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jnbiche | Hacker News Reader

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> but they’ve come to regret the decision because the running isn’t as good and socially right-wing politics still forces itself upon every space.

I'm skeptical of this. I've not lived in Nashville, but I've lived in a whole lot of cities across the South: Charlotte, Atlanta, New Orleans. What almost all Southern cities have in common is that conservatives are a minority within the city limits. And indeed, when I check the 2016 election results for Nashville, I see that Clinton won against Trump 59 to 34% -- almost double! And also not surprisingly, Nashville has a Democratic mayor.

Does that sound like a city with right-wing politics forcing itself on every space?

The fact is, unlike Southern small towns and rural areas, Southern cities are in general fairly moderate to liberal, with a significant conservative minority (say 25-30%). Now, given our current political situation, that minority may be at present more vocal than usual, but that doesn't mean that the city is beset by "right-wing politics" occupying every sphere of life.

Also, I've lived in working class neighborhoods in Southern cities for most of my life and have never heard anyone blasting evangelical sermons, around my house or around friends. That's 20+ years as an adult. So you picked an extraordinarily unlucky Airbnb.

Yes, you run into occasional racists or homophobic assholes, but I occasionally ran into the same kinds of people when I lived in NJ for 2 years. There are assholes everywhere.

But by far most of my co-workers working in universities and small companies have been either moderate or liberal, with an occasional conservative thrown in. Which isn't surprising, since that reflects the city's political breakdown. But (at least until recently) we all tend to get along.

Now wrt to the running, I have no idea, you may be right there (although I know that the Chattanooga area has some great running).

But wrt to politics, I'm fairly convinced that your friend's experience in Nashville is either a misinterpretation or they've met with an outlier company and friends (eg, did they work for a defense-related company? if so, those are conservative everywhere, and has nothing to do with Nashville).

One of the great pleasures for Republican state governments is to hobble liberal city government initiates in any way possible, whether that be withholding funding or outlawing logical courses of action. I do not want to live in a place with regressive red state politics that are always in such conflict with the progressive goals of cities.

> One of the great pleasures for Republican state governments is to hobble liberal city government initiates in any way possible, whether that be withholding funding or outlawing logical courses of action.

I agree (although this happens less often than you'd think, for many reasons).

But in the end, I prefer to live here and fight the good fight, instead of abandoning Southern cities to the whims of their surrounding towns and rural areas.

I dunno if it's necessarily that they're outlier companies. A lot of companies in Nashville/Brentwood employ people who don't live in the city.

When I used to work remotely for a company down that way the IT dudes in the office were "These Colors Don't Run" types, at minimum. The closest any of them lived was like, Franklin.

His and his spouse's fields are Finance and Medicine, respectively. I don't know about his specific workplace, but it can be tough to adjust to a conservative culture in medicine fields if you're not used to it. I am close with someone who has plenty of issues with the medical culture here, with other doctors at the hospital showing treatment bias against uninsured patients and those who are drug or alcohol users. It's like they forget that addiction is a disease. If you use marijuana, you will be treated like an addict regardless of your actual pattern of usage. It will be noted as a problem on your chart and you will be asked to stop using it. This is a recurring pattern with patients in a very legal state. It also takes longer to get social services to help uninsured/poor patients hooked up with the right programs compared to how it was in MA. State politics still has an impact on the city, and in fields like medicine, a lot of your day-to-day processes and rules are forced upon you by state legislatures and boards. The cities are not islands in the middle of the ocean. This is the kind of abrasive right-wing culture that's hard to operate in when you take the Hippocratic Oath seriously.

That experience at the Nashville AirBnB was something that felt straight out of a thriller flick, but I totally do agree that it was a one-off experience slash fun story to tell now. First thing I heard after waking up was this preacher dude talking about people being condemned to eternal fire and whatnot, and it kept going for a while. We had several gay people and almost all atheists in the house so it's a bit scary thinking about what these others would do to you if they found out who you are. It's disturbing that this is what people indoctrinate themselves with. It's a one-off/anecdotal experience though.

>And indeed, when I check the 2016 election results for Nashville, I see that Clinton won against Trump 59 to 34% -- almost double! >Does that sound like a city with right-wing politics forcing itself on every space?

That sounds like a city where about 1/3 of the people you meet will be right-wingers. I'm in the DC area, which is more liberal than Nashville for sure, and half the white women on the dating sites here have pictures of themselves shooting guns and profiles talking about how important Jesus is to them. In Nashville, I'm sure I'd never get a date.

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