many people in red states think that talent and wealth are moving to red states to escape liberal politics. they are in a different dimension
So true! I have debated ad nauseum with conservatives on this very topic. Their media machine is feeding this absurdity to them and they believe it. They see it as hard evidence that conservative policies are superior to any other policies.
It’s gotten to the point I don’t even talk to people who bring up the topic. You can quote any number of statistics, but they’ve “dun seen that californian moving in up the road, so there’s the proof right there!” I guess the fact that on a ~21 house road, we’ve got Carolingians, Alabamians, Tex(i)ans, Michiganders, and some Arkansaws folks means that people are fleeing blue states, sure, ayup.
*The post’s language is intentional >.>
Texas might be the sole case where that’s actually happening. Most of the wealth is being concentrated in and around Austin, though.
And Nashville, but both are purple dots and the moment these states take a harder stance on gender policies they will relo.
Nashville moreso because of rent costs.
That’s how a red state becomes a swing state.
Happened in Virginia already.
It’s also weird how Virginia and West Virginia have gone, especially when you learn how the split happened in the first place.
Texas has more oil than Saudi Arabia and is ideal for certain types of chemical engineering.
they think they can create their own “dimension” where everything they want to believe is magically true
A good friend of mine with a masters in Aerospace Engineering had a job offer in Texas from NASA & she turned it down because of their pro-forced birth laws.
My friend is a DevOps engineer, she fled Texas with her wife. They’re both trans
I’ve turned down a couple prospective offers for that too. I am not going to trade my shithole state for a shittier holier state.
Same. They offered to move me to Atlanta when my old employer moved there. No thanks.
This would be bad news for red states except the people left still get 2 senators, a disproportionate number of electoral votes, and the ability to use the internet.
And thus setting in motion the literal plot setup for Idiocracy.
Well, yeah, conservative policies are horrible. I don’t see why smart people would want to live under them.
They’re only horrible when you aren’t rich and/or care about the safety and well-being of others.
They’re also horrible if you care about the long term. A lot of conservative policies are analogous to eating the seed corn. Yeah, you save some money now but in thirty years your infrastructure is collapsing. Or if you’re really unlucky and push your luck, the state fails entirely. Most rich selfish people don’t really want to die when a bridge collapses
Cheaper cost of living, and with remote work, that makes it easier to bear.
Easier to bear, maybe, but not great. You’re likely making some pretty big trade offs. Like, Wisconsin is probably cheaper but it might be way more hostile to you if you’re gay or black or otherwise considered an outgroup by the right.
And even if you’re otherwise an in group, what’re the music, food, and art, scenes like? If all you want to do is work and then sit at home on your couch then I guess one place is as good as another. Though this might be getting into an urban/not-urban divide more than left/right.
And furthermore, even if your “cost of living” is lower in the extreme short term, if you’re in a right wing hellscape then you have to pay one way or another for the state being gutted. There’s a non-fiction book titled “A libertarian walks into a bear” that talks a lot about how there were two neighboring towns, but one had gone hard right with its policies. The other had not. Turns out the libertarian one sucked. Like, they didn’t have a working fire department.
That town was in New Hampshire, tho I can’t recall the name from memory.
They voted out their garbage collection service. Civic overreach or some bullshit. Then the bears came, and got accustomed to being around people. And started breaking into homes. People were attacked. I think there was at least one casualty.
Libertarianism is great for the individual, but anti-thetical to the needs of the group.
I don’t know why it’s so hard for some people to acknowledge that their own personal choices and beliefs might not make the best policy. Government and law, do not need to mirror your internal dialogue. That is some serious center of the universe shit right there. They’d do well to ponder on the notion of sonder.
Was this oart of their Free State Project?
I believe so, yea
Like, Wisconsin is probably cheaper but it might be way more hostile to you if you’re gay or black or otherwise considered an outgroup by the right.
Worth noting that Wisconsin is a blue-voting state, generally, that has a heavily gerrymandered legislature.
Most of Wisconsin is absolutely nothing like the deep south kind of red state.
And even if you’re otherwise an in group, what’re the music, food, and art, scenes like?
This is, as you surmise, almost entirely an urban/rural thing.
Most of Wisconsin is absolutely nothing like the deep south kind of red state.
The parts of deep south red states where people actually live are absolutely nothing like the deep south kind of red state either.
Ditto. Spent the summer in Madison, WI, earlier this year. Anyone who tried to say that it represents the effects of conservatism is a fool.
I don’t know why I picked Wisconsin. Possibly because I vaguely remembered Scott Walker being a huge asshole
I know the red/blue model is useful in some cases but I live in a red state (Louisiana) in one of the most blue cities in America (New Orleans). Biden won like 40% of the statewide vote and we have a two-term Democratic governor (about to leave office but still). And that’s with a state Democratic Party that is a constant mess, never has resources, gets zero national investment or attention, and sometimes doesn’t even field candidates.
National politics isn’t everything. Sure, Biden shouldn’t spend much time or money here but Democrats have no excuse not to have an aggressive 50 state operation. Just having a credible candidate means a scandal can flip a Congressional seat but attorney generals and secretaries of state matter too. There’s even value in losing an election even if your candidate is just on the local news calling out his opponent.
My state (GA) elected two Democratic Senators and folks still label it “red.”
Plenty of talk about Georgia being purple though too.
I’m in Georgia too… it is a very purple state, anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Incidentally, I was in Atlanta a few months ago, and I saw fewer Confederate Battle Flags than I did in Indianapolis. Fuck Indianapolis, Atlanta is cool.
You can blame Marge for that.
Or the extremely narrow margin and Republican control of state government.
I wonder if the whole red state/blue state discourse would disappear if we just got rid of the fucking Electoral College…
Gerrymandering is a much bigger problem
Throw in ranked choice voting while we’re at it
And then you have blue states, like NY where I live. I live in a blue section within the state, but I could travel a half hour away and end up in an area so red that they fly Trump flags, Confederate flags, and vote for Elise Stefanik. (I get TV commercials for her despite not being in her area.) That area might as well be the deep south despite being in Blue NY.
Even states people label consistently “red”, also majority of the time have Democrat governors like Kentucky.
I feel like this is part of a Republican long game - make their states so unpalatable to progressives that they move out, thus ensuring that the US Senate and House are never again under Democratic control. It’s like a for of self-imposed gerrymandering for Democrats, packing themselves into the few states with liberal legislaturea and policies.
Of course, those blue states will continue to subsidize the red states through tax dollars and federal programs, but that’s another issue entirely.
That’s not the end game. Conservatives will never be satisfied with progressives existing in their country, even if in a different state.
No, the goal secession. Or worse.
Yeah I’m not convinced at all that they’re ok with us existing in other states. They want us completely and utterly nullified as having any political say in this country. They want us off school boards, out of Congress, out of the White House, off the city council, not moving to their towns, not vacationing in their regions, not watching their sports teams. They want us silent, imprisoned, deported, or dead.
Nice to see someone who understands who we’re dealing with. Too bad our President has no idea.
I work in government. Biden has an excellent idea of what he’s up against. And he saw how Obama and Clinton talked a good game but got out maneuvered by the right. He’s an incredibly effective president, vastly better than I thought he’d be. He’s managed to get so much done even with the right going full fascist against him, and he’s done it without complaint or drama.
I am honestly baffled when I hear liberals complain about him. He’s gotten more progressive goals across the finish line than any president since FDR, and he’s not even 3 years in. Is he 100% perfect? No. But he’s very very good. I’ll take very very good over outright fascism any day of the week.
And – just to add to your excellent summary here – even though the Trump administration did everything it could think of to hobble him, including refusal of the usual changeover processes, destruction or withholding of materials, refusal of access, etc, because of his decades in government and already knowing where everything is and how to get shit done, Biden was able to hit the ground running on the very first day.
Agree with his decisions and politics or not, he has been a superlative administrator in getting a very broken government to stumble its way back onto a working path, even as he has been deliberately hobbled by an entire party that has zero interest in governing themselves, or seeing anyone else make US government work for anyone but despots and donors. Getting big government to move its fat lazy ass in any direction, much less a productive one, isn’t nothing; in a bureaucracy, that’s everything.
The house part doesn’t work though. Population determines representation, so if lots of people leave, the red states get less votes in the house. Granted, we will have to wait for the next census, which should be really interesting to read about.
I’d say, based on the political atmosphere and outlook of the next 7-8 years, that the next census is too far off to depend on. Imagine if it’s unbearable enough to send a significant portion of people out of any swing states, and that could clinch 2028. I doubt the insanity will have lessened in time for project2029…
I’m a tech worker who’s planning to move from one of those states international oversight groups consider “no longer a democracy” to a blue state.
I remember a bunch of Americans telling me that America isn’t a democracy, and shouldn’t score high on those indexes that rank countries… because the USA is actually a republic.
So of course, there’s no sense in comparing the US to other countries unless they’re also republics. Or if we’re talking about economies.
it is a Liberal Democratic Republic, next time they ask… say it slowly for them…
Countries and their governments are never cut and dry. If we’re getting technical (which I hope we are) then the United States of America is a presidential, constitutional representative democratic-republic that permanently federates and holds legal supremacy over a collection of similarly stylized democratic-republic states (along with other
colonies, territories, and possessions). All of this is technically correct, but it isvery hard to fit on a bumper sticker unlike the flashyfascistconservative think tank sound bite of “wE’rE a RePuBLiC nOt A dEmOcRaCy.”No, it’s also constitutional and a federation. Actually those two are part of what make it significantly less democratic.
the US is and has been the model for Liberal Democracy around the world since its creation, and anyone who says different is a traitor and/or a liar
Mmm, not really. The structure has a lot of mistakes in it by virtue of being the first modern democracy. For example, the Senate giving every state two representatives regardless of size.
Most other democracies opted for a parliamentary system, where the chief executive is also the head of the legislative branch. This includes democracies where the United States was directly involved in setting up its structure, like Germany, Japan, and Iraq. Our crazy system should be taken more as a warning than an instruction manual.
It is not a democracy, again, because of the federal and constitutional limitations
There are federal elections (of a sort) so the country as a whole can be gauged on that. And on that front… not looking so hot, either, but it’s not as bad as certain individual states.
Sorry, add here and super lazy. I started reading the piece and within a few paragraphs I realized I was just reading a story about some couple I don’t really give two shits about. Then I quickly scrolled up and down in the article and saw how long it was.
So can anyone tell me when it gets to the actual evidence that there is a brain drain? Make no mistake about it, my wife and I (my wife highly trained and me a software engineer) left a red state with our family partially, even only slightly so, because of state policies. So its not surprise it happens.
I’m a software engineer too. I was born in the deep south where even my grandmother disowned me because I told her people were going to die on January 6th because of trump, she said I was a liar and hung up and never answered my calls again. I moved to a purple state to balance out the MAGA extremists. The whole southeast is full of some of the least educated people in America, and the vast majority are red.
They’re filled with uneducated people because they’re red states.
Seems like a bit of a hick-n-egg problem.
It started badly with that couple being the focus in a story-like section. Too long only to shift to discuss different reasons and examples of people leaving other states for various reasons. About 2/3 of the way through they finally get into demographics of college educated people, their economic benefits and new data on rates of leaving red states for blue states.
Eventually it was very good at describing the overall situation happening. But man, they didn’t need to write so much about their personal lives. Especially at the beginning.
It’s the classic “human interest” hook that probably works with most people. I didn’t mind it, but yeah, it was long. The old a-spoonful-of-anecdote-helps-the-statistic-go-down method, but very poorly measured.
It’s the classic “human interest” hook that probably works with most people
But, like reality junk television, I didn’t really care about the people involved. Where these people ultimately work and live don’t affect any part of my life to where I’m actually interested in the details of the process. Any editor should have seen the copy, seen the headline, and then trimmed 2/3 from the front of the copy.
Recipe for raw apples:
When I was a little child, my mother and I used to go to the beach to laugh at the seagulls. We’d pick up random shells and yell “hey stupid, here’s food! Harharhar!” One day I was riding a donkey and fell on my ass, not sure if it was the donkey or my actual ass I don’t remember. There were so many memories of apples and asses in my past that I love to walk down the isles of my local supermarket and dream of the revolution where apples and pineapples will rise together, put their differences apart, and eat the rich.
Recipe: 1 raw apple. Eat.
Yes
The second I get a stable job, it’s off to Colorado. While it’s still blue.
Colorado has moved more blue over the last couple decades. Please ignore Boebert. All of us in the developed parts of the state do.
It’s intentional. Easier to it atrocities when there’s nobody intelligent around.
Oh, no!
Anyway.
This attitude pisses me off for a number of reasons.
Not everyone can afford to move out of these states as they become steadily shittier. Smart people leaving further entrenches the conservative majority in those states, which makes it harder to flip states. It makes it easier for Republicans to control the Senate, and harder for Democrats to accomplish anything (not that they ever fucking want to). And when Republicans put policies in place that fuck over the people who can’t leave, Democrats on the national level consider it to be a Red State Problem that they don’t have to worry about doing anything about, because all the people who can’t leave evidently deserve it for being outnumbered and not having enough money to move.
Thing is, Democrats’ lack of solidarity is gonna come back to bite them in the ass. When their negligence has caused a permanent Republican majority in the Senate, those Red State Problems they didn’t give a shit about are gonna be implemented at the national level. They’re not gonna stay Red State Problems.
Not that it makes it any better, but a lot of those people who can’t afford to move also can’t afford to vote (time off work, travel to a polling station, time to actually look into what’s going on)
I will never ever ever ever accept “had to work” as an excuse to not vote.
Never.
That’s an extreme position that ignores a lot of realities. For someone living paycheck to paycheck with children to feed, losing a job to go vote is not even a question. They’re under duress.
Pretty much everywhere requires employers to give you some amount of time off to go vote, often paid. Voting by mail and early voting are much more widely available now.
I’m not saying that voter suppression doesn’t happen - it most certainly does - but for the vast majority of people, “had to work” simply isn’t a valid excuse.
Then they will be under more duress. I’ve been there. This is no excuse. Meanwhile, employers should be sued for 95% of their wealth for interfering with the civic duty of their countrymen. And that IS NOT an extreme position.
Control of states like Texas and Florida are permanently lost to conservatives. As long as conservative Governors have complete control over their Secretaries of State, they cannot lose their “elections”. Remember, every conservative accusation is a confession.
I reject the premise that any state can be permanently lost. In 2020 Biden received more votes in Texas than he did in New York, and lost the state by only ~620k votes (under 6%), with 66 % voter turnout. Criminal Ken Paxton was going around saying that if he hadn’t been able to shut down Harris County sending out mail-in ballots to everybody like they had intended, Trump would have lost Texas. If we can get voter turnout up into the 70s in the big 4 metro areas (Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio), we really could see the state go blue for state-wide and Federal offices. Unfortunately our Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General are all elected on mid-term years, and we have even shittier turnout in those years (dropped under 50% in 2022). But if we can get turnout up enough in a Presedential or US Senate year (both in 2024) then we can expect some serious national support in the next midterm to flip our state-wide offices.
You are assuming the Texas Secretary of State, who is under complete control of the Governor’s office, would allow a blue victory in Texas.
The Governor’s appointed Secretary of State operates elections in Texas, including the tally and review of ballots, which is handled electronically by the SoS and their private helpers. There is simply no world where a conservative/fascist should be trusted to operate and tally their own elections. They even audit their own work when accused of inaccuracy or inpropriety. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation. They lack veracity and are absolutely to never be trusted. Never.
I appreciate your optimism and I agree that we need greater voter turnout, but I guarantee you voter turnout will not save us if Texas conservatives are counting the votes. Trusting a conservative to be honest is a deadly mistake.
Oh I don’t trust them at all. But we at least recently switched from the completely black box eSlate voting machines that store your vote on local internal memory, and were notoriously easier to alter the results in, to ones that print out a human-readable ballot that we can verify before scanning it into the ballot box. So that’s a huge step in the right direction. I believe if we can just get turnout high enough, there will be so much national funding for law suits to enforce bipartisan monitoring and media scrutiny and all that that I think it’d be hard for them to wash it all away.
I hope you are right. I was on the purple hope train for years until fascism won in 2016. Watching it grow stronger has really changed my outlook. I know not to trust my neighbors now. I understand what normal people will have to do to our neighbors if we are still living in conservative strongholds when fascism takes power again. I prefer your outcome to the one I see on the horizon.
Yeah 2024 is pretty damn crucial. Have several immigration strategies if it goes poorly.
This problem will broaden to other states if Democrats continue to treat the issue flippantly.
I think most normal people (non-conservatives) see the danger, but truly have no idea what to do other than vote or flee. Resisting with violence may also become an option soon, but most normal people are opposed to violence.
Conservatism has never been defeated by pacifism. We should be training and preparing to resist the genocide of the normal people that conservatives are working toward.
Fleeing within the U.S. will not be enough to escape the conservative plague unless some wealthy blue states are able to balkanize into their own territories.
… Democrats on the national level consider it to be a Red State Problem that they don’t have to worry about doing anything about, because all the people who can’t leave evidently deserve it for being outnumbered and not having enough money to move.
Conservative policies don’t only hurt progressives; they hurt everybody. If state conservatives are doing things which hurt everybody, they’re that much closer to being voted out.
Except for the whole “leaving the state” thing.
Sounds to me like Democrats should start fighting to eliminate gerrymander instead of whining about it.
republican policies create more republicans and now that they’re a majority (per the article) a majority of the next generation will be republican.
Isn’t that why they’re red?
They’re red becuase they’ve been listening to non-stop radical fascist radio for 30+years.
I’ve lived in Florida my whole life and I’m not leaving without a fight. I’ll be damned if I let my home fall to fascism. I got involved in my union. Now I’m vice president and I’m getting involved in the UAW CAP and I’ll be lobbying the government for labor rights. My mission is to punch Desantis in the dong. Momma ain’t raise no quitter.
I just want to say that we need more people like you. I get that being this active is not for everyone, but damn, we need it right now. And I’m including myself in that statement.
“Florida man punches DeSantis in the dong” is a headline that would be funny.
