Free Republic

America’s founders believed direct democracy was a slower, more indirect path to tyranny. To prevent this, they avoided establishing an “elective despotism” and designed a system that filtered democracy through representative legislatures. Popular ballot initiatives didn’t exist until the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. Now, progressives use ballot initiatives to turn red states blue, including a proposal to abolish primaries altogether. What is the Republican Party’s response? As Democrats work toward creating a permanent political majority at the national level, their extremism has intensified popular backlash in nearly half the states, making them even redder. Currently, Republicans hold...

Former White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that because of “political ideology,” there were more COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in red states versus blue states. Co-host Jonathan Lemire said, “We now head into a moment where because of that divisiveness, it’s become a political issue. Vaccinations in particular have become a political issue where you have not just Donald Trump but other Republicans saying, no, no, don’t take the COVID vaccine. We had other prominent figures saying, no, you should not take other vaccines as well, things that are standard that everyone has...

In recent years we have literally seen millions of Americans relocate from blue states to red states. In some cases, there is simply a desire to be around other like-minded people. In other cases, specific political policies that have been enacted in certain states have motivated large numbers of people to relocate. This was particularly true during the pandemic. Of course there are also many that are just trying to escape the crime, drugs, homelessness and violence that are plaguing so many major cities in blue states. For those that are trying to raise a family, finding a safe environment...

Is the blue state exodus from California, New York, and Illinois making red states like Florida, Texas, and South Carolina more liberal? Studies suggest the answer is no. South Carolina is one of the beneficiaries of a blue state exodus. But contrary to popular theory, South Carolina Is Still Ruby Red. Fed up with pandemic restrictions, Sandy Zal uprooted her family from Schenectady, N.Y., three years ago and moved here because of its Republican tilt. She and her husband named their new company Freedom Window Tinting, a nod to South Carolina’s ethos. The Zals are part of a migration wave...

ABC reported that almost all the strong economic growth in the country is happening in the Red states, proving to them that warm weather causes economic growth. At least that is the explanation that they are going with. That, and Democratic mayors in Red states are attracting young liberal workers. So Texas is going gangbusters because people like hot weather and Democrats.No, I am not kidding. They don't even mention that Republicans run the states. They are Red states because Trump won. Republican governors and legislators apparently are irrelevant. Nearly every week, a fresh round of strong economic data elicits...

In a soon-to-be-aired episode of Unmuted with Marsha Blackburn, “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary revealed that he does not invest in Democrat-led states because of their left-wing policies that hurt businesses. “I'm not trying to get involved in the partisanship of this statement. Just a fact, I don't invest in New York, I don't invest in Massachusetts, I don't invest in California. In my mind, those are examples of states that are uninvestable because of bad policy,” O’Leary explained in the episode, which was shared with Townhall. “So, I’m looking for the path of least resistance. If you make it...

Humans tend to be creatures of habit. Even if you think you’re not, you really are. After all, what happens if you go to bed without brushing your teeth? If you brush right before bed every night, you probably feel a little weird skipping it. [snip] When it comes to your guns, you have habits there as well. You lock your guns up every night. You put your holster on every morning. You do things with your guns just like you would with anything else. And according to one study, there’s supposedly a problem. "In terms of firearm use, Mississippi...

The Republicans’ little red book is showing people escaping big crime and tax states like New York and California for lower tax, lower crime states like Florida and Texas. But to Democrats who are really bad at math, 7+7 = 0? Most people are already familiar with the mass migration from the Democratic strongholds of California and New York, known for high crime and tax rates. We have delved into this in our article, “Americans Continue To Flee High-Tax New York And California,” highlighting Texas and Florida as preferred destinations. California and New York have sustained population declines during Covid...

America’s descent to hyper-partisanship has led to blindness, especially about our elections. The Left has become the nothing-to-see-here crowd, where every election is rainbows and butterflies. They tell us that elections are free from any blemish, any ineligible voters, and any flaws at all. But the Left’s willful blindness is sometimes met with fanciful fears. Consider the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Before I first wrote about ERIC a number of years ago, pretty much nobody had ever heard of them. At the time, I pointed out that this interstate compact was formed by a fellow ex-DOJ Voting Section attorney,...

Flyover country now seems to be a special project for left-wing power elites who would like to spread their agendas and homogenize every small corner of the nation.War on normal Americans seems to have found its final frontier in the conservative small towns and rural communities often called red strongholds on the political map. Infiltration of red America by woke activists and their agendas is nearing, or has passed, the inflection point.Thus, migrants who flee from blue to red communities tend to be of two types: refugees or invaders. Refugees tend to assimilate. They respect the traditions of their newfound...

Summer is upon us, and America beckons, but not all of it! Let's face it, if the Rose City was on your bucket list, you outlived it.... Perhaps you should have been on Portland's bucket list instead. Forget about Orlando, Disney, San Francisco, Seattle, Honolulu and Denver too; deplorable dollars aren't welcome! But they aren't the only places that label you a fascist; Durango, Tucson, Flagstaff, Gallup, Moab, Wisconsin Dells, Boston, the Hamptons, Telluride, Stowe, and Santa Fe are all woked up as well. Forget about Aspen, Atlantic City, Savannah, Palm Beach, Jackson Hole, Helena, Williamsburg, and even Anaheim...they think...

Conservatives should direct their energy toward state legislatures to stymie Biden’s radical agenda.It’s no secret the vast majority of Republicans want to vote President Joe Biden out of office in the 2024 election. And who could blame them? With skyrocketing inflation, banks collapsing, a wide-open southern border, politically weaponized federal law enforcement agencies, ideological grooming of children, unchecked Chinese surveillance, federal interference in U.S. elections, and more, it’s completely understandable for millions of Americans to be on the lookout for potential candidates who could get the country on the right track. While important, the 2024 GOP presidential primary — which...

All nine states with the lowest annual average unemployment rates for 2022 had Republican governors during that year, while all ten states with the highest annual average unemployment rates had Democratic governors. The Bureau Labor Statistics on Wednesday published the annual average unemployment rates for all fifty states.

A recent New York Post article declared that, in a "staggering exodus," in 2022, more residents of New York moved to Florida "than any other year in history." The article reveals,A staggering 64,577 Empire Staters exchanged their driver's licenses for the Sunshine State version last year, according to figures from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles."They come in every day," a staffer at a Jacksonville DMV office told The Post this week with a weary laugh. "I hear all the complaints. I feel like a therapist sometimes."The transfer of a driver's license from one state to another...

The Census Bureau’s estimates of the population of the 50 states and the District of Columbia as of last July show that blue-state populations are on the move in astonishing numbers. And red-state populations are benefitting hugely from the exodus.“Texas and Florida make up about 15% of the U.S. population but accounted for 70% of its population growth this past year,” reports the Wall Street Journal. And the movement away from progressive-run states continues, even after the lockdowns have ended.The U.S. population grew by about 1.2 million between July 2021 and July 2022, with immigration accounting for a million of...

We are all Americans. That said, there have been efforts for years to divide us for perceived political reasons. Those who live in the bigger cities often tend to look down their noses to those who don't. We have become a Blue America and a Red America. I personally believe that the colors are reversed, but maybe that's just me. A good representation of red vs. blue can be seen on the 2020 election map by counties.It has gotten so bad that there are discussions of secession and even civil war, God forbid. It would be difficult to have states...

The more liberal a state is, the more likely it is to be home to income inequality, according to a Daily Wire analysis of newly-released Census data. New York, Connecticut, and California had the biggest gulf between rich and poor, according to a Census Bureau yardstick called the Gini Index that measures how far an area is from “perfect equality (where everyone receives an equal share).” Utah, Indiana, and South Dakota had the least inequality. The Census Bureau’s detailed annual population study, the American Community Survey, was released September 15, and covered 2021. Although liberals prioritize reducing the “gaps” between...

A senior adviser to the U.S. Census Bureau recalls sounding the alarm about the agency’s population count in 2020. “Me and a couple of other people at the Census Bureau were pounding the table saying there are going to be problems,” Adam Korzeniewski told The Daily Signal. “The sad thing is that no one cared,” Korzeniewski said. Two years later, the Census Bureau has admitted to undercounting six relatively conservative states and overcounting eight liberal states. Critics contend that this inaccurate count now favors blue states over red states in determining Electoral College votes and seats in the House of...

A left-leaning New York think tank sounded a familiar warning about Arizona’s “voter suppression bills” being “dangerously close to becoming law.” The Brennan Center for Justice added in a press release that Arizona was “taking center stage in the relent­less effort to rein in voter parti­cip­a­tion in the name of ‘elec­tion secur­ity.’” Pending bills, the think tank claimed, were “aimed at making voting by mail harder.” That was in April 2021, before Arizona passed several reform measures that state legislators said they crafted to ensure secure and honest elections. Little more than a year later, in August 2022, Arizona notched...

When the citizens of the United States are counted every 10 years, those numbers are used for the next decade to determine each state’s federal monetary allowances, and also the number of electors needed in elections to represent the citizens of those states. If any errors occur, those errors will affect these crucial matters for the next 10 years. Our last national census was conducted in 2020. The current 2020 Federally conducted U.S. census is predicted to have an unexpected impact on the upcoming midterms and next elections, due to errors that have been discovered. Following up on the original...