For years California was a donor state where it's residents payed more federal taxes than the state received in Federal assistance. Covid changed that but it could be short term. Blue states tend to be where the high earners live. Meaning there were more non donor states that are red before Covid.

I'm sure that these simple statistic don't tell the whole story but it's close enough to dispel the notion that under the current economic conditions Red states are thriving and blue states floundering. A more complex analysis would look at the long term cost of gutting the rust belt in order to profit on trade with China. How investment bankers profit from breaking up businesses while putting workers out of jobs and weakening our industries. You would also have to look at how corporatism has favored tech industries and pharmaceutical giants at the expense of civil liberties and ethics. The current economic system is almost designed to encourage moral decay. The long term costs impossible to calculate.

Where I used to live we keep voting in a crook because he was the best option. In a democracy it's very hard to get people who have principles to run for office that are also competent. Democracy requires compromise. Worse still a democracy is a tyranny of the majority.

Term limits may solve some of the problems with democracy but they never seemed logical to me. Why not just elect the best person? The problem is of course the accumulation of power over time and the corruption that is associated with it as you pointed out. People keep voting the same people in because they see an advantage in having the most experienced and by extension most powerful representative possible. Do people get the government they deserve?

@wolfhnd That tyranny of the mob is why Democrats are always whinging on about popular vote on Pres -- we are a REpublic and popular vote is irrelevant for that office.

I've always had an objection to term limits as it is simply just another hobble on competency. If a guy/gal can keep going back to the voters and, presumably, does a good job by them why take him/her out? Makes no sense and is very anti-capitalist.

How about once you are in office your %age of favorable vote goes up with each term? E.g., you get in with 55%. Next term you must score 60%, and so on. Reset the bar every time.

@bobbo666 That could work, I think. I like to think of people as being generally good and their undivulged sins weigh heavily upon them. It is very difficult to go through life without sin. They may be inadvertent sins that one never intended to cause or they may just despise competitors. Usually, politicians are dead before they can be called to account. I don't believe in socialized medicine, for example, because eventually it goes into cost overruns, line-ups and selective services. Let alone, arguments about abortion, gender affirming care and now in Canada we have, euthanasia (Medical assistance in death or MAID). you can guess the progression form there - soon some people are deemed useless eaters. The politician who legislates socialized education, healthcare or anything regarding a central authority that engineers the whole structure of society or a segment of it is usually lauded as a savior and protector of the poor until it turns to tyranny and he is generally dead before it all turns to crap and his statues are toppled.. That politician never looked past his nose as to how governments become tyrannical.
Anyway, there are only two ways to unburden one's self from the weight of these sins with any hope of continuing on. 1. Deny they are sins and convince yourself you have been right in every action. 2. Confess your sins, as the adherents to the Catholic Church do. The first choice actually digs you deeper and deeper into the morass. I think most people hope no one finds out about their sins and try not to commit more - a difficult task. Term limits would really be just an act of kindness releasing them from the personal obligation of hiding the pens and rulers they purloined from the office.

@bobbo666 That would seem logical in theory, but in reality what happens is that the clueless voters keep voting for the tenured leftist, and any good possibilities never get elected.

Was that INTENDED as sarcasm? Hmph.