Blue State Leftists Destroying Red States?

Occasionally an analysis so turns your head that you have to do your own investigation to determine whether that analysis makes any sense. When it comes from the New York Times (the daily bible of the Left), one needs to take an extra hard look. Before the mid-term election two Times reporters asserted that blue-state voters are moving to red states and making them purple.

Robert Gebeloff and David Leonhardt of the Times took a look at the people flooding out of blue states and moving to red states. They assert that this population flow has been going on for a few decades. They also write that it has played an important role in electing a Democrat as president in four of the last six elections. They believe this movement has changed the voting in states like Colorado, Florida and Virginia. They also contend it gave Democrats better chances in the past election in states like North Carolina and Georgia. They cite that the red states now have 11.5 million transplants which are 12% of the red state population.

To be accurate the authors did make this statement, “Of course, not all blue-state migrants are liberal. And people’s political views can change over time.” To be fair some of the conclusions in the column are accurate, but for the most part I found the column to be wishful thinking of the kind that often happens with left-wing members of the press. Also, to be accurate none of their conclusions or my conclusions are drawn from scientific surveys of the transplants.

First, you cannot draw any denouement from transplants from the Northeast or Midwest to Florida. That has been happening for at least 50 years as people of retirement age move to Florida for the warmer environment. That does not define all of the transplants, but it does define a large portion and they tend to vote Republican these days. Second, the people moving to the Washington suburbs of Virginia are significantly different than other people relocating. The suburbs of Virginia have been built for and on the massive increase in the federal government. The people living there are either government employees or people drinking from the government trough. The fact that this area has recently offset the more conservative areas of the remainder of the state is no surprise. These people, generally speaking, are of two mind-sets -- 1) I am voting for the hand that feeds me and 2) I am part of the new ruling class in America who knows better how you should live your life and what you need.

My first thought focuses on the big picture which the authors never addressed – why the people are moving in the first place. These people are moving from high-tax states with significant regulations. These states are not producing jobs at the same level as red states because of the burdens placed on them by government. The blue states often have long-term obligations for unionized employees that have gargantuan underfunded liabilities for health care and pensions – promises made by negligent political leaders.

The question then is why for heaven’s sake would they move to a state which does not have these same burdens and vote for similar political leaders who will enact policies that would destroy their new home states? Certainly, these transplants may retain certain lassiez-faire attitudes toward social issues, but they can barely be expected to do such on fiscal issues. They want to get away from expensive government that is invasive in their lives and their bank accounts. When they get a job in a state like Florida and see no state taxes taken out of their paycheck, almost to a person I can guarantee you a broad smile crosses their faces.

The authors did state that people change their attitudes over a period of time. But that does not go far enough. These people are relocating to new environments. They are interacting with a completely new group of people that have certain customs. It is hard to believe that they go to these blue states and change the nature of the states. For the most part the people and the culture change them. Having experienced that myself (I lived in Reno, Nevada, for 39 months in my late twenties), I can tell you my Los Angeles friends often asked why I was talking so slowly. The cultural environment changes you and your attitudes toward life.

In this recent election certainly their hypothesis did not match the results. Georgia -- which has had a high rate of blue-state movement -- went for the Republicans. Florida returned their Republican governor to office over their former Republican governor turned Democrat. North Carolina elected a Republican over an incumbent U.S. Senator. Colorado did the same. And Nevada, which has been inundated with Californians, went totally Republican.

Moreover, what you are seeing is that the Blue States are beginning to see they have to either compete or die. Every Midwest state has a Republican Governor – even the formerly liberal ones. Many have Republican legislatures. People are seeing that other states are operating without massive high-tax regulatory governments and saying we want that too.

There are people who may find fault with my analysis below, but before you condemn me, know two things: I am on your side, and I do live in a liberal state, so I see this thought process all the time. So before you condemn me, see if you can make it to the end.

Whenever I meet someone from Texas, I am inclined to grin, shake their hand and exclaim: “Thank God for The Great State of Texas!” and I mean it it, because I see states like Texas as a bulwark.

However, I find the concept that the increase in liberalism in conservative states is due to liberal immigration (from other states) to be a convenient crutch for a lot of people who can’t or won’t exert the time or energy to keep their views at the forefront and expressed in legislation, and just take to blaming “outsiders”.

This is different from the border fence argument, that has validity and merit, because if you don’t have secure country borders, you will not be a country.

States don’t need secure borders, they need secure ideas. And ideas don’t travel over a remote two lane highway, a footpath through the scrub, or a five lane blacktop under a border crossing manned by guards.

They need people within them who stand up where it counts (in the legislative process and in daily discourse) to the assault of liberal ideas brought into the state inside the warm bodies and brains of American citizens, the airwaves flowing in, and in the ideas spewed forth every day on the Internet.

Using Texas as an example (a state I have a great deal of admiration for and attraction to), people from California, Massachusetts and Wisconsin are equally able to cross the borders into Texas as people from Wyoming, Idaho, or any other conservative state.

I think articles like this are silly. If you want to do battle, you have to stand up and do it, and the battle is both personal and institutional. Because if you don’t, it is a certainty that liberasls will, and that is what the rest of the population will see. This is something liberals are good at, they print lots of the same sign, make up inane, simplistic chants, break and bend rules to get unions and schools out and on the street holding their signs and chanting their chants in front of a compliant media that is more than willing to amplify, spread, and mainstream their message.

This takes place while conservatives work, study and raise families.

Liberalism never sleeps, and every foot of ground it gains in the minds of people is amplified and rarely regained by conservatives. It is a one-way ratchet that snaps on another tooth every time a conservative takes a minute away from the fight. The best analogy is a body of water (liberalism) held back like a dike (conservatism). The water is just there, existing, exerting pressure, all the time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Conservatives are the dike. They must hold the water back by maintaining the dike. We have to monitor its condition. We have to plug the holes. We cannot sleep. But we are human, so we do, and another tooth of the gear is grabbed by liberals.

This country is tending liberal over time, this cannot be denied. Anyone who thinks it isn’t is simply not being honest with themselves. Even people in Texas, who regard their state as most conservative, cannot deny the existence of the cancer of liberalism there. It is outnumbered, but it is there.

All liberalism needs to spread is a germ or a seed, and apart from the open border to the south which the Federal government has no intention whatsoever of tightening up, and the fire-hose of liberal ideas flowing freely over the Internet and the media, there is no impediment.

To confound it all, liberalism is for the weak minded. Liberalism is a mile wide and a 16th of an inch deep, if that. It is true that education has been destroyed to the point that we cannot reliably expect people to critically analyze an issue on their own. Instead, liberalism appeals to emotions, which we all have in spades. The difference is that conservatives try not to base their ideas on those emotions, while emotion is the main course for liberals, and it appeals even to intelligent people who are a slave to their emotions. For example, here are some common liberal questions that appeal to people who may not be full fledged, glassy-eyed liberals, but aren’t really interested enough to think things through:

“Why can’t we just give money from taxes raised to poor people to make their life better! They can buy goods with that money and help the economy!”

“Why shouldn’t the federal government have a uniform standard of what is taught in schools, and how it is taught?”

“Why don’t we make more “hate crime” laws to discourage them?”

“We don’t we do it for the children?”

Why don’t we mandate that everyone, regardless of your job, gets 40 days off a year?”

“Why don’t we ban ‘assault weapons’...people don’t need those for hunting, right?”

“Why shouldn’t we allow anyone who wants to be an American to come to this country?”

“Why shouldn’t the government control healthcare? Isn’t it a human right?”

“Why don’t we allow the government to set a minimum wage at a level where someone can raise a family on it?”

Why doesn’t the government set prices on food and gasoline so we can better afford them? Why should I be forced to pay higher prices for gas while big oil reaps huge profits?”

“Why shouldn’t the government pay for day care for children?”

And so on. Anyone on this thread who sees those questions will roll their eyes, because he or she will have the underpinnings to understand the flaws in what those questions represent. But those ‘bleeding heart’ unthinking liberals don’t see it that way at all. They are easily swayed by these types of questions. They aren’t necessarily evil or committed liberals, they are just unthinking and driven by emotion.

Their numbers are large.

And their votes count just as much as ours do.

In summary, we can’t restrict their population numbers by complaining about them entering our states or trying to keep them out.

We need to find a way to help them understand the corrosive, destructive consequences of liberal policies.

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