The Friday after the 2024 presidential election, I met a friend for coffee and commiserating at a local bakery in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Kentucky is a reliably red state, being within the first few – or even the first – states to be called for Trump in the last three elections. But Kentucky, like the rest of the South, is varied, complex, and misunderstood. Louisville, in particular, is an outlier. Louisville is the most diverse city in a state severely lacking diversity and ranks high on lists of LGBTQ-friendly cities. 57.4% of Louisvillians voted for Kamala Harris. People all around us were as quiet and gray as the city had been since Wednesday morning.