Which is the worst state in the United States of America

Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming are all have amazingly beautiful scenery but bad to reprehensible politics but I can't bring myself call any state with legit giant mountains the worst. I've never left the SLC airport so I can't really judge Utah.

For a while Oklahoma was my stand in for worst state but I know someone who grew up there and seeing it through her bizarre and hilarious filter has given me some appreciation for it.

Right now I'm thinking Indiana which I can't think of anything redeeming about and I have to spend an hour driving through to get to Chicago. If you're unfortunate enough to have to stop every gas station seems to have confederate flag shit and warm beer only just to spite you if you want to consume alcohol. Plus the industrial apocalypse and stench and everything. Even the only real lakefront town is named after Michigan.

I'd rather live in Detroit than lots of other places in MI including every single Detroit suburb.

Like anyplace not on a body of water, tbh.

This statement from me and reply from in orbit from 11 years ago is cracking me up now because I now live in Michigan again in a town not on a body of water.

florida can't be the worst, no state on the ocean can be the worst imo

florida is too weird to be the worst

Indiana is definitely mostly shitty, not least as a state that's generally hard to avoid driving through. Florida, for example, there's no way you're going there unless you're going on purpose. Same for dull, dry shitholes like OK. I've actually been to every state, and most have a lot going for them. Scenery, culture, etc. OK is an absolute void on those fronts. So is most of Indiana, imo.

Arkansas and South Carolina are I think the ones I've spent the least time in, but I know there's good stuff in the latter for sure.

I recently visited South Dakota. South Dakota should have won this poll. The only reason I can conceive of that it didn't win is so few ilxors have been to South Dakota, because it sucks.

cant cosign. badlands is my fav national park. also rapid city has a way better record store than you would expect to find in rapid city SD

Not enough imo

Yeah, Badlands, Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore ... some states have *nothing*.

I hate North Dakota more than South Dakota but I've spent way more time driving across the barren nothingness with dystopian fracking byproduct fires burning in the distance and sleeping in motels with parking lots full of sketchy methheads that cost $200 a night because of all the rednecks with giant brand new $60k white pickup trucks who live there cause there's no other housing.

North Dakota was my wife's pick for worst, but something about it I find just so charmingly desolate, if that makes any sense. At least it made an impression on me, as it did you, poor though that impression may have been. I once had some OK Chinese food in Fargo, come to think of it.

I remember going to a pawn shop in Rapid City and finding a dvd of A Separation by Asghar Farhadi and when i was checking out the huge leathered-up Tex Cobb-looking biker guy behind bulletproof glass at the counter furrowed his brow and looked at it a second too long and went, "this from Iran?" I said yeah and braced myself, and he goes "you into Kiarostami too??!" and got really excited and we had a great convo. Later when I checked into a shitty motel w/slot machines in the lobby the elderly lady behind the desk was reading Naked Lunch. A very unusual town ime.

florida can't be the worst, no state on the ocean can be the worst imo

I wonder if Trayvon Martin liked the ocean

I also wonder if Marissa Alexander likes the ocean, now that she is out of prison and can see it again

in summation, fuck Florida

I mean, if that's your standard, then every state is vying for last place.

Weirdly, some of the best times I've had and interesting places I've been have been in shitty states like Alabama or Mississippi, and some of the most "let's get out of here" times/places have been in, like, pretty, crunchy Oregon or Idaho or the generally innocuous Ohio.

I mean, if that's your standard, then every state is vying for last place.

did you spend any time thinking about how this would come across before you hit send

One of the reasons SD sucks is Mt Rushmore tho

Rhoda Island is pretty bad- has some of the worst elements of Massachusetts and Florida densely packed together.

My ex and his wife got effectively run out of a small town in Missouri a few years ago; the school they were teaching at held a mandatory all-staff "gun safety training" that was actually an NRA rally with people running around firing blanks in the air, and I guess they were sitting there with expressions on their faces that were less than enthusiastic, so the next day their supervisors fired them for "protesting" and suggested they leave town.

Yeah, Badlands, Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore ... some states have *nothing*.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 19, 2021 2:13 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol.. mt rushmore.. really? that shit is absolutely appalling.

pretty much every state west of the mississippi has intense natural beauty to recommend but the vibe of colonial settler brutality is omnipresent, in varying shades of intensity. wyoming and idaho are very fucking intense with it, the craziest most racist motherfuckers you can imagine live there. new mexico's settler colonialism dates back to spanish settlements and as such the vibe is very different there, i honestly don't have a lot of insight into that culture but hey it's a blue state at least. colorado's western colonial settler brutality has been updated with sophisticated new york city influenced consumer capitalism which at least has pretenses towards liberalism. nevada i think we can all agree is an existential joke.

Weirdly, some of the best times I've had and interesting places I've been have been in shitty states like Alabama or Mississippi, and some of the most "let's get out of here" times/places have been in, like, pretty, crunchy Oregon or Idaho or the generally innocuous Ohio.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, March 19, 2021 2:39 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

not to read you too much in this thread but, like, this doesn't surprise me

lot of states in the upper Midwest and Mountain Time Zone with which I have either zero or very little experience, so grain of salt. and tbh Politics are weighing heavily on my decision here (Florida was a strong contender), but going w Alabama. it’s got all the shitty things the other states I know intimately and w which I have complicated relationships, but the bad is cranked up a couple of notches and the redeeming features are scant.

I have lived in 4 of the top 8 worstest.

Alabama is definitely worse than Utah, Indiana, and Texas.

Florida really is the worst though.

Nevada shouldn’t exist. Man was not meant to live there.

My ex and his wife got effectively run out of a small town in Missouri a few years ago; the school they were teaching at held a mandatory all-staff "gun safety training" that was actually an NRA rally with people running around firing blanks in the air, and I guess they were sitting there with expressions on their faces that were less than enthusiastic, so the next day their supervisors fired them for "protesting" and suggested they leave town.

― Lily Dale, Friday, March 19, 2021 8:12 AM (fifty-three minutes ago)

my ancestors got effectively run out of a small town in Missouri back in 1860 for being anti-slavery so ... wonder, if it was the same town lol ...

wow i can believe josh admits to having found something interesting in alabama, brave of you to call him out on that map

Idaho and Oregon are the only places I have actually seen gun-toting, uniform-wearing right wing militia dudes (I know they're all over the place, that's just the only place I've seen them). Mississippi, I thought Oxford was a lovely town, and Birmingham, Alabama's Civil Rights Museum was one of the most powerful places I've ever visited (same for a few spots in Montgomery).

lol at some of the obviously mediocre/shitty states getting 0 votes whereas awesome states like New York, California, and Washington got votes.

Granted, just about anything good I saw in Alabama was related to its history of being terrible, so ...

wait a sec ... you would argue that Oregon is worse than ..... Mississippi ... extremely racist Mississippi?

No.

Idaho is shit ... people who think the Mormon church is too progressive live in Idaho.

Indiana is better than Idaho though ... but that's like ranking Alabama vs. Mississippi

Nevada shouldn’t exist. Man was not meant to live there.

― Bruno Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Boring, Maryland), Friday, March 19, 2021 4:03 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

qft. at least in its current number. that ecosystem should not be supporting 3 million people. they're already draining the colorado.

wait a sec ... you would argue that Oregon is worse than ..... Mississippi ... extremely racist Mississippi?

― sarahell, Friday, March 19, 2021 4:13 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

to be fair oregon is arguably just as racist as mississippi! it has major whites-only bona fides.

I'm thinking Nebraska is getting off easy here because most people forget it exists. I often forget about it myself. There's just no point in it existing. So many things road trips from Illinois to Out West and after hour and hours of driving thru the featureless prairie, you think you've made some progress and then wham there's like 5 hours worth of Nebraska in front of you. Just soul crushing. Oklahoma is just as bad wrt, if you're taking the slightly more southern route.

I lived in Florida for many years and thought it was lovely. From its natural wonders to it's vibe - especially the maritime vibe of the coasts - it's a unique and interesting place. It's their politicians that suck, and of course some of their infamous laws.

Mississippi is probably the most scientifically correct answer to this question. (Tbh I've never been to Montana or states in that region).

to be fair oregon is arguably just as racist as mississippi! it has major whites-only bona fides.

― map ca. 1890 (map), Friday, March 19, 2021 9:27 AM (three minutes ago)

it would be _interesting_ to argue whether Oregon is just as racist as Mississippi but ...

Can’t we just agree that all the states are bad because they all have Americans in them

seriously

I've visited Florida but it's highest hill is 700 feet above sea level and I'm not sure I could live anywhere with such puny hills.

i feel like texas might be the right answer for this, in that, they are so big that they should be great. but instead they have doubled down on their identity as conquerors of black people, indigenous people, and mexican people. just a wonderful trifecta of brutality. also their toxic masc culture is off the charts and unique in how sanctioned / officially revered it is.

The Texas lege meets for four and a half months, every two years. Texas is ranked last in US healthcare access, last in percentage of 25 year olds who are high school graduates, last in affordability of residential electric bills - the list goes on. This is their focus: https://t.co/vWKbQboxSX

— Blue Heron Farm (@BlueHeronFarmTX) March 19, 2021

man, I do hate Texas lol

bottom 5, easy (again, of ones I know).

sorry djp i was just trying to say the ocean is beautiful i did not intend to minimize anything or excuse anything wrt the murder of trayvon martin

will bow out now

ftr Mississippi’s and Tennessee’s massive cultural exports doing A LOT of heavy lifting here.

both are extremely shitty states

The ocean is beautiful.

The Gulf is beautiful.

I am beautiful.

Florida is a racist hell.

Was this poll about the citizenry or the state electeds?

m@tt you don't need to bow out, I was mostly just reasserting why Florida sucks

it's also pretty easy to say Oregon is just as racist as Mississippi considering it (Oregon) was founded as a whites-only state and the language around that in the state Constitution wasn't removed until 2002

I've only recently began to embrace Orlando as a city I like rather than a city I just "live in" (which technically...I don't, anymore!) when Orlando City got promoted to Major League Soccer, which really created a bigger sports atmosphere that's been here since Shaq was on the Magic (no, not even the 2009 NBA Finals)....and the fact that it's getting more and more bohemian/woke.

Downtown is garbage though, and I avoid like the plague. the more boheme areas are in other pockets.