I drove across the middle of the South a couple of years ago, from FL to TX, rather than going the usual coastal route.

The middle of AL and Mississippi were beautiful drives with rolling hills and forests and classic Southern small towns with squares and old buildings, and the people were genial in a an Old South sort of way.

Louisiana, otoh, was as flat and boring as I remembered from decades ago, but the people were no longer friendly and exuberant... they were like zombie wage slaves, barely present in their misery and suffering, shuffling about aimlessly, poor whites and blacks crushed under the Authorities that rule them.

It was stunningly awful.

It's what we will all become on the path we are currently traveling.