More evidence of red state mortality risk
Maybe instead of having fits about the so-called Great Replacement Theory and worrying about taco trucks on every corner, they ought to do something about killing their own voters:
Americans die younger in conservative states than in those governed by liberals, a new study has found.
The authors wrote: “Simulations indicate that changing all policy domains in all states to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019, while changing them to a fully conservative orientation might have cost 217,635 lives.”
The study was published on Plos One, “an inclusive journal community working together to advance science for the benefit of society, now and in the future”.
The authors are from Syracuse University in New York, Harvard in Massachusetts, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Washington, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Western Ontario, in Canada.
They wrote: “Results show that the policy domains were associated with working-age mortality.”
Bucking the trend, the study found that “more conservative marijuana policies” were associated with lower mortality rates.
But it also found that “more liberal policies on the environment, gun safety, labour, economic taxes and tobacco taxes in a state were associated with lower mortality in that state”.
They added: “Especially strong associations were observed between certain domains and specific causes of death: between the gun safety domain and suicide mortality among men, between the labour domain and alcohol-induced mortality, and between both the economic tax and tobacco tax domains and CVD [cardiovascular] mortality.”
According to the National Council of State Legislatures, as of June this year Republicans controlled 61% of state legislatures and Democrats 35%. In terms of whole state governments, Republicans controlled 46% and Democrats 12%, with 12 states divided.
The study authors also noted that American life expectancy as a whole is lower than in most high-income countries, “fall[ing] between … Cuba and Albania”.
If the show was on the other foot, right wingers would be screeching, “they’re bringing down our numbers!”
I guess we’re not allowed to say anything about this (even as they are out there proclaiming blue cities to be depraved hellscapes) because it would be insensitive. But let’s face it — plenty of our fellow Americans who are living in these places aren’t political. And may others are our allies who just happen to be in the minority — Black people in the south being at the top of the list. And children. Policies in those states are killing them and it isn’t their choice. It’s a travesty.