How ancient sea levels impact elections

It’s easy to think that we control all of our own decisions, and to a large extent we do, but it can also be crazy to see how things like sea levels 100 million years ago have a direct impact on elections today.

Take the 2020 election results in Alabama, that looked something like this:

Perhaps not surprisingly, the black population of Alabama closely resembles those voting results.

Going back further, the black population is largely in that belt because of slavery 150 years earlier.

So why was slavery so common in that belt? It held the largest farms in the state.

So why did the largest farms happen to be in that area? Well, that was some of the best soil.