Perhaps they don't live in the south and you can share another point of view. Or asking specifically what makes them think that's so. Instead of assuming the worst and dismissing them.
I mean, look at what's happened with anti-abortion laws post Roe v. Wade, with the "anti-woke" backlash leading to book burnings and closing libraries for hosting wrongthink, the whole moral panic over trans "groomers," schools prevented from teaching about slavery in a way that presents it as evil, because that might "victimize white people," the return of school prayer.
I don't see how someone can not see the trends or the way the winds are blowing. One of two viable Presidental candidates has openly called for the repeal of the Constitution because of the imaginary stolen election that led to Jan. 6, and he has a chance because half the country at least agrees with him in principle. We have Republicans openly praising Hitler, citing white supremacist conspiracy theories and calling for the end of democracy. And it's normal now.
I don't know what else you want.
The overturning of R v W simply kicked the issue back to the states, with each state now having the right to make up their own laws around it. In a way this move was "anti-totalitarian" because now instead of 8 justices making up the rules, each state can do what they want.
> with the "anti-woke" backlash leading to book burnings and closing libraries for hosting wrongthink
Can you point me to a source on these supposed book burnings? If you are talking about book bans then this applies specifically to school libraries, you can still buy every book that is "banned" on Amazon, not much of a ban when you can get is shipped to your house in 2 days or get it instantly as an eBook. And as for the "anti-woke" backlash, this is mostly drummed up by political commentators that are looking for views and attention and are cherry picking various instances to highlight their point.
> the whole moral panic over trans "groomers,"
Again to go back to my point about political commentators drumming stuff up for views. Most of this moral panic I only see on Twitter / X and personally I don't think a Twitter moral panic can be equated to a legit moral panic.
IMHO the notion of "turn off the TV and go outside" is not a bad prescription. If you're on X, listening to Fox News or poltical podcasts all the time you can easily get the impression that there is something seriously wrong because all these disparate events are combined into one news segment. But personally my threshold is "do I see it outside of the news" and so far, the answer has been a definitive "no"
Perhaps next time you should think this more careful assessment through instead of assuming the worst of my rebuttal to dismiss me.