There was a piece written by Ryan Hankins on Al.com which went to the topic of 'Alabamians, why do you need all this distrust and suspicion about things'? I'd generally recommend a read.
So the pitch to his essay piece....Alabamians are these people who just seem to have an inherent view that things just don't work as advertised. You people (Alabamians) always believe some hidden agenda is at work.
Well.....yeah, that's the plain basic truth.
Hankins does imply at some point that the government of the state is mostly Republican. Most folks around the state will say that it's marginally true that they claim Republican status, but the same people will laugh and say that half of these Republicans are just fake-Republicans and working with some lobbyist group to achieve goals.
It's like bringing up the state-park fiasco of a couple years ago, and how some list got shuffled around that the state was going to part ways or sell a number of state parks. Then strangely enough....casino chatter started back up and various people had this funny feeling that the state parks list had some relationship to the casino people.
It's also like bringing up the state constitution.....which has been around since 1901, and generally regarded as a 'mess'. There's been some many lines added to it....that it's now considered the largest constitution in the US, and one of the largest in the world itself. For every 'freedom' mentioned....there's probably forty limits listed. About every four years, this topic of re-writing the Constitution comes up and members from both parties agree on this....but neither trusts the other party or the fake Republicans enough to get the job done.
The idea suggested by Hankins that we have greater responsibilities....like human trafficking, etc? No.....we basically want the Alabama leadership business to handle and work on local issues (fixing potholes, reducing crime, spend tax revenue in a responsible fashion, provide good decent education, etc).
The hints of Covid throughout the piece? There are a couple of mentions which lead back that way. Presently, using just every country around the globe, there is no indication that heavy regulation really fixes or resolves Covid....other than it has the same effect if you'd spend eight hours a day praying for some Jesus-miracle to occur.
I would go and suggest that five things are at work here, and the working-class guy in Alabama is geared to stand back to assess things:
1. Most folks in the state see the Baptist 'empire' thing to be corrupted. All those years with the 'dry-county' business probably didn't help matters.
2. Most folks see the NCAA 'grip' on football to be corrupted. It shouldn't matter but some people actually lose sleep over the matter.
3. With all the vast amounts of money poured into state education over the past forty years....we ought to have 1,200 Einsteins out there. You don't see that, and you just sit and wonder....how did they spend all that educational funding.
4. Every time you had some mayor or some state legislature guy claiming they want to fix things.....at least fifty percent of the time....they make matters worse.
5. Out of the last ten governors....you can generally say that three were 'legit' and competent, and the rest were either criminal in behavior, lusty old guys, or pretty racist in actions. This Ivey gal (present governor) is about the only one that most would say is of pure ethical behavior.
Look, I'm not defending the state or the landscape, but if you go into most other states (California in particular).....the distrust in government is just as bad.
