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.
Texas might be the sole case where that’s actually happening. Most of the wealth is being concentrated in and around Austin, though.
Yes, but they aren't moving for conservative policies or "red state". They're moving to more affordable liberal/socialist friendly enclaves. Like Austin as you pointed out. Conservatives /fascists like to imply otherwise. But they are already panicking as those areas grow in power and influence. Doing everything they can to try to neuter it. Before it changes their state politics to take their power away from them.
Austin hasn’t been affordable since well before the pandemic, and has higher overall taxes for most of the people moving there. Also it’s hot, the electrical grid sucks, and you can’t get an abortion. I just don’t get it.
People think they know what to expect. Then they live it and it's... Exactly what they expected, but more difficult and worse with time.
I spent 30 years in Texas. I miss TexMex, family and a few restaurants, but not much else.
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.
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.
The problem is just because you're smart enough to realize this doesn't mean you have the money to move
You're absolutely right, but I also expect that the spillover effects of this will eventually start to hurt people who voted for this shit, if they haven't already. Of course the people who don't vote this way and can't afford to move don't deserve to live through it, but the ones who did vote for it will be the FIRST to complain that they need help, and they can absolutely go fuck themselves.
I imagine a lot of the stupid people who voted for right wing policies, and are then hurt by them, won't connect those dots
Part of being stupid is the inability to look at facts and draw a reasonable conclusion.
Someone might look at "we cut funding for the town, and now the library sucks" and realize there's a connection. An idiot might instead say "it's the black people's fault"
I really want to drive that home. Some people are stupid. They look at the world and draw bad conclusions. I don't know how to fix that.
It already is. For instance, the majority of rural texas's access to natal care, cardiology, and a few other of the major medical practices is in the same rank as places in central america. It's not just texas either.
It's been hurting them a long long time. But they've got that crab mentality. They believe things can't be better. But as long as they can make someone hurt worse than they believe they are. They're happy.
I need somebody to help me find a blue state where I can afford a 4 bedroom 2400 sf home.
I’m at twice the median income in my city and my house cost 280k built in 2020. Not to mention interest these days really kill the possibility of moving when I got a 2.75% interest rate and no PMI.
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.
"Florida man punches DeSantis in the dong" is a headline that would be funny.
This is one of the least insane things Florida Man would do
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.
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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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's intentional. Easier to commit atrocities when there's nobody intelligent around.
The second I get a stable job, it's off to Colorado. While it's still blue.
It's been going on for a while now ...
This was in fact the goal. Convincing morons to vote against their own best interest is way easier than trying to convince people who are actually capable of reasoning. Gotta pump those GOP voter rolls somehow after all, and gerrymandering and voter suppression only gets you so far.
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