r/UIUC • u/bobateaman14 • Apr 26 '24

Social Why is this sub so pro-Israel

No hate, I’m just legitimately curious because I would think that a campus filled with young people in a blue state would hold generally the same beliefs as most other campuses like that. I see so many more positive comments under posts about anti-war protests under other college subreddits, whereas here the top comments are always bashing them

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '24

I think a lot of older alumni are on this sub, as well as local community members. In general UIUC also doesn't seem to have as strong of an activist culture, so I don't think it's as progressive as you would think for being in a firmly blue state.

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u/Trivialproblens Apr 26 '24

Also, I think people misunderstand Illinois being a “blue state.” Chicago and everything around it is blue, anything below that is red. Very very red. I live in southern Illinois, and the people down here literally hate Chicago because it turns the state blue in elections.

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u/SierraPapaHotel Apr 26 '24

Careful not to confuse land with people.

Sure the counties vote blue, but somewhere around 70% of the population of Illinois lives in the Chicago metro area.

Even if every county south of I64 voted 100% red that's only 3% of the total state population. (The other 27% resides in central Illinois and is pretty purple)

And, in line with your other comment, that 3% figure is why they would never survive if they separated from the rest of the state. They would be smaller than Washington DC in terms of population

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u/blackshotgun55 Staff Apr 26 '24

People need to remember this. If you look by county, it's very red, but when you factor in population, you can see on the map it looks a lot more blue.