What's wrong with Oklahoma?

(I was asked on Facebook why Oklahoma is so backward, basically. This was my answer.)

We have a comparatively less diverse population and a backwater political system premised on how many times you can say "Jesus" in a speech, apparently. I have been as checked out from state (not local, though) politics as I have been dialed into national politics. I just have no hope. The climate is toxic. It is the center of the right low-pressure alternate reality weather system. I don't have any other way to describe it to those who aren't steeped in it. 

My aunt is the chair of the local Climate Change Lobby, and was AMAZED when I told her that a majority of people in America believe in climate change. It's like that with every issue. People are mystified why a socialist business-hating tax raiser would get reelected. The bubble has not been pierced. That these labels are not true is irrelevant or next to irrelevant. There is an alternative reality culture that is fundamentally at odds with how things actually are. 

The sports teams are great, though! And I like an awful lot of people (and am related to a lot of them) here! And frankly, most of the people *I* know are as liberal as I am. We just smile and nod and say nothing at our workplaces when those political questions come up.