Am I the only person who doesn't understand how when the Socialist Party was semi-relevant in the early 20th century, Oklahoma was one of their best states?
I don't see the contradiction. Oklahoma has always been socially conservative, but when the vast majority/plurality of the population practiced subsistence agriculture and lived through the Dust Bowl, the left was strong there. When the majority of the population now has easy access to $50-150K oil-related jobs and can continue to live the 1950's social conservative lifestyle on those incomes due to the low cost of living, the left basically ceases to exist.
If there ever is a new opening for the left in OK, it would come from a decade long oil crash.
True. It was very much a D state in Presidential elections as late as 1948 (see Utah, if for very different reasons), and it has since voted only once for a Democratic nominee, like Utah. It didn't even vote for Bill Clinton, who should have had some cultural affinity to Oklahoma.
Having driven several times through Oklahoma on US 69 from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and again in 2012, I could see Oklahoma as superficially more attractive than the rural parts of some other states (like Indiana) because it was newer. In 2012 it seemed badly decayed. That's the difference in 20 years when people tend to do things on the cheap.
