Yes. Well said, Bill. Irony and paradox.
"It's both un-American and deeply American."
As for people moving to the South from other places--that's the history of the South. Sooner or later, they settle down, come to their senses, and become indistinguishable from the rest of the Southerners. Most of the people of the South are descendants of at least one non-Southern immigrant.
As for the blandification of the South--it can't happen. The South's too wild, too weird, and too geographic.
As for the "Southernization" of rest of the country--it's like the South had the last laugh: "Surprise!"
So, the Noo Yawkaz are moving to areas all over the south? Good. Maybe they'll all stop coming to New Port Richey, FL.
Bingo - I WAS a Yankee for 16 yrs sadly, but after coming off active duty, I chose TEXAS to raise my kids (Note - I was a RED STATER trapped in a BLUE STATE). Oh yea - even attended school in the CITY OF EVIL! :)
Now.... I'm raising 2 conservative young freepers in God's Country!
I think the article doesn't mention that the Blue states are aging and fading and the RED STATES are getting redder and stronger!
GOD BLESS TEXAS (and the South). ;) I'm not from Texas but I got here as fast as I could!
If you are talking about the traditional white Southerner, in whom Scots-Irish and English strains are predominant, your statement is correct insofar as New Englanders and Middle Atlantic residents migrated into the South in late colonial and early republican times because the frontier advance was more active in the South than the North. Southern migration westward had reached as far as the northeast corner of then Spanish-ruled Texas by 1811 even as New Englanders had only penetrated as far west as northeast Ohio, the former Western Reserve of Connecticut, in great numbers. Even parts of New York and Maine remained wilderness as Kentucky, Tennessee, and (mostly Southern settled) Ohio entered the Union. As a result, the opportunities for land ownership were greater in the South. Abraham Lincoln's paternal lineage was English Puritans who settled in Massachusetts around 1640. His grandfather migrated to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia from Massachusetts, and later his father moved to Kentucky.
Additionally, the Upper South and Border States received some migration from the Northern states in the 19th Century. Pockets of Union sympathy in parts of Arkansas and Texas often coincided with settlement from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and other Northern states. After Reconstruction ended, Southern commercial growth attracted businessmen and professionals from the North and Europe.
However, all the early migrations of Northerners were made by people who assimilated into Southern culture. The greatest portion represented small farmers whose agrarian lifestyle differed little from their neighbors. They were largely unaffected by the religious skepticism and disdain for traditional culture that began to adversely impact Northern elites in the 19th Century. Like the minorities of Germans and Irish Catholics in the mostly English and Scots-Irish South, Northern settlers adopted Southern folkways and religion, intermarried, and by the second generation were as Southern as any descendant of the first families of Virginia.
The breed of Northerner that has migrated to the South after World War II is very different from other Northern waves. Especially in the case of those people from New England, New York, and New Jersey, they are very different in culture, lifestyle, religion, and ethnicity from the Southern mainstream. Midwesterners and Middle Atlantic people (PA, DE, MD) have fewer of these differences, yet some have an attitude of superiority to Southerners based on little more than their inflated self-worth. Several Southern cities, such as Dallas and Houston, have large suburban areas where Western, Midwestern, and Middle Atlantic influences have overtaken traditional Southern ones. In other areas, such as the east coast of Florida and several North Carolina cities, there have developed areas dominated by Northeasterners where many of the residents speak like they still lived within 50 miles of Times Square.
The migration of politically and religiously conservative Midwestern, Middle Atlantic, and Western white Americans into the South will ultimately be absorbed into the mainstream of the white South. Continued migration of liberal, culturally alien Northeasterners may ultimately tip the Atlantic seaboard of the South, except for South Carolina, over to the dark side, politically and otherwise. Next to the illegal alien problem, the influx of these liberals is the greatest threat to the survival of the South as a distinct region and culture.