This is the reinforcement for the idea that liberalism/progressivism is a mental disorder. They can’t rationalize the fact that THEIR ideology is the cause of the failures in the states they are leaving. Liberals are political locusts, they descend in a swarm to eat up all the prospering fields, turn the fields fallow, then move on.
I hate to poke a hole in your balloon, but the south was largely Democrat for a long time, roughly 100 years, before voting Republican. Republican control is a recent event. However, I’d dare say that the Democrats of the old south have nothing in common with the Democrats of the north. Now, that doesn’t mean that the northern Democrats don’t have a plan to re-integrate the south into their long term plans to include moving liberals/progressives down here.