As someone who made a little money in real estate in California, and then moved to Texas in 2017, I have some thoughts on blue-state migration. .
There is a reason why socialist countries had to build walls or make it difficult for their citizens to immigrate and that is the acquisitive system they impose. The blue states are not only over-regulated, they are subject to political hysteria whenever the two-party system asserts itself and Republicans win power. Trump DS, which is now joined with Musk DS, are national mental health crises, but it isn't the first time such a thing has happened. Democrat hysteria also greeted Reagan and GW Bush when they were elected. When I first arrived in San Francisco in 1981, I remember walking up to Haight Street and seeing a sign in a ground floor apartment window. It said, "John Hinckley for President. He took a shot at the man. Let's give him a shot at the job."
Due to gerry-mandering, California was becoming obdurately Democrat in those days but it would still elect a Republican to be governor or serve in the US Senate. By 2017, that was no longer the case; the legislature and state government in Sacramento had become a bad imitation of the Comintern.
I grew up in New Jersey and frequently go back to visit family and friends. Having lived in both California and Texas for the past 44 years, the East Coast now makes me claustrophobic. In the suburbs of central New Jersey, the primal forest has returned and the place seems dark and overgrown. Much of the agricultural land in the Garden State, has disappeared. There are freeways, but state highways seem to have traffic lights every mile or so. I'm glad I went West as a young man.
Why did I leave California? I lived in Oakland for 23 years. I was a general contractor. When the City of Oakland issued me a license to contract in the city, I had to agree to give them a percentage of my gross receipts, which was unprecedented in my experience, even on the East Coast. Then when I sold my house in 2004, they took a percentage of the sale price. It was called a "white flight tax" at the time, but illustrated to me how voracious the socialists had become with their tax policies.
I moved to Texas because my wife became severely disabled and we had to downsize; and because I have family here who made the transition easier. But ideology played a major part in my dissatisfaction with California.
Texas is the new California. There are only two things wrong with it: July and August. But that is why God invented Colorado which, unfortunately according to my brother is also becoming increasingly blue.
You are welcome to visit in July and August but come October, elk season is for locals. No worries about December and later, Texans can't drive on snow.
LOL. My cousin, who grew up in San Antonio, built a house in Colorado in the mountains two years ago In the dead of winter. He did fine in the snow. I drove up to help for a couple of weeks in January and because I'm from New Jersey, I only got stuck once. He had to pull me out. I tried to drive back to Texas after that. The radio said that the road was still open. I left in a blizzard and got an hour out and there it was: a sign saying the road through the pass was closed. Had to drive back and try again the next day. That was a beautiful day. Looked like the Swiss Alps.
One of the reasons my cousin built in Colorado is because he is an elk hunter.
You should see what happens in Portlandia when they get 3" of snow. Having grown up in Wisconsin, I find the sheer panic quite amusing. I only watch it on TV. We live 70 miles away in the rural Columbia River Gorge. No kidding, people actually abandon their cars in 3" of snow. Don't get me started on how badly run Portland has become.
July and August are why Texas population growth is likely to slow and then reverse in the relatively near future: they’re going to start including June and September. It’ll only keep getting hotter and climate-related migration to cooler areas is likely by mid-century if not sooner. Nate underestimates the potential for blue states to get their shit together and it would would sure help if some moderate good-government Republicans would start running for office in those states rather than the culture-warrior/own-the-libs types that show up on the ballot. Keep in mind that Republicans have largely chosen not to be competitive in those states just as Democrats are often willfully uncompetitive in red states.
I disagree that climate will play much of a role in migration in the future, A century ago, it would have had an impact and probably did in the 1930s when temperatures soared. The problem is solved by air conditioning, which because of Texas' ample supply of fossil fuels, will always be available.
Really, if temperatures go up a degree or two, which is not necessarily going to happen, does anyone really notice the difference when it's 100 degrees and not 98? How much impact does it have on daily living?
Of course, I'm one of those who believes that most of the warming we've seen is either because of natural variability or due to changes in the man-made environment that tend to absorb and hold heat and then radiate it after temperatures cool.
But let me add this: if migration slows, which it likely will given its current high rate, it will be due to other reasons, including development in other areas in the West if the federal government starts selling off some of its lands. This is now being contemplated in Washington.
If a hot climate was a problem, Phoenix wouldn't exist. Florida wouldn't have more people than New York. Las Vegas would have shriveled up and died once casinos opened elsewhere.
I doubt what you are saying is true. I live in NJ but spent a lot of time in the deep south. You get used to the heat and even start to enjoy it. It is easier to acclimate to a hot climate than a cold. In deep red states, they do not try to force people to give up AC or try to make the electricity to run it needlessly expensive.
Oregon's progressive mandates have caused electricity rates to rise by 50% in the last five years. Cutoffs for non-payment have skyrocketed, as lower-income people are forced to choose between food, medicine, and power. The Democrats who run Oregon are rich, and they couldn't care less.
It's not a math problem, it's a policy problem. At the moment, national Democrats don't have a policy other than obstructing all things Trump. It is actually worse in the Big Blue States mentioned since they do have a policy of doubling down on the failed policies that have created the problem in the first place. Listen to Ruy and fix the internal dynamics in the Democratic Party.
Never underestimate the ability of the stupid party to screw things up. We really don't want an unreformed Democratic Party back in power which is why Ruy is important.
Watch me be wrong, but I think the Rs understand that they have to stick together. Plenty of time for them to form the circular firing squad, but it doesn't look like it'll happen any time soon.
The above addresses numbers in and numbers out, without considering who is leaving CA, and who is moving into the State. Joel Kotkin is a CA demographer. A professor at Chapman University for decades, Kotkin is a longtime liberal and loather of Trump, but his detailed studies of CA life, are mainly statistical.
Last year, Kotkin noted that the families leaving CA, earned on average, $40K more annually, then the families replacing them. Mr. Kotkin has also calculated that while CA is one of the most expensive places in the nation to live, the State's Blue Collar wages are some of the lowest in the nation, very similar to those in the Deep South. This is very important because the vast majority of new CA jobs generated, are low wage and/or Blue Collar. This has caused a 37% of the state to be Medicaid dependent.
Now, there will be another hill to climb. Federal welfare has ended for undocumented migrants.
CA has long claimed their undocumented population hovered around 2 million residents. That number must be much higher, after the Biden administration. As the federal welfare programs end, the state of CA will replace them, at state taxpayer expense.
CA tax revenue is largely dependent on stock market gains. 1/2 of 1% of Golden Staters pay nearly 50% of all state income taxes. Even a minor market correction, would be a big problem. A 2001 like market crash, would also crash CA tax revenue, just as demand for government support explodes. The perfect storm, caused by changing demographics.
The same thing is happening in Oregon. Not quite as dramatically in terms of population losses, but they are trading taxpayers for dependents on taxes. This is unsustainable, as the city of Portland is learning as we speak.
The smart thing for the Republicans would be to reform the immigration laws in such a way as to make it easier for anyone who arrived illegally before 2020 to gain citizenship, as long as their criminal record is clean. Make that citizenship provisional for five years, revocable for a felony or any other crime punishable by a year or more jail time.
Have Trump and Vance officiate at swearing-in ceremonies, and watch the progressives sweat. You'd see decisive Republican gains in some unexpected places, like WI, CO, NV, MN, PA, GA, VA, and the Carolinas, and of course in CA, NY, AZ, TX, FL, and NM. It's not that I want the Dems to disappear; it's that I want the smugness of their progressives to be removed with a chainsaw, so they can rebuild.
California needs to revise its environmental laws so it becomes easier to build infrastructure and housing. There is still a strong NIMBY attitude in the state. The next California governor needs to make this a top priority.
"California needs to revise its environmental laws so it becomes easier to build infrastructure and housing"
We will find out if they're serious once the rebuilding efforts get underway. After all these people have been through, something tells me they won't take kindly to a sclerotic, opaque, incoherent permitting process.
Further evidence that for all their "progressive" Left self-righteousness, today's Democratic Party has nothing on this nation's Framers when it comes to real vision about freedom and a better future.
But will red states stay red when all the blue state migrants start voting their instincts? The Californication of Texas is already a worry for the GOP. It will take a very long time (approximately forever) for Texas to sink to California’s level in policy terms — but those blue state migrants can help elect a lot of Democrats in the meantime with the electoral votes Texas is gaining.
Texas is more Red today, than it was pre Covid, as is FL. Blue State refugees that settle in Texas are Rep by 2 to 1. Registered Reps now outnumber registered Dems by more than a million voters in FL. If CA Progressives migrate to Texas, they usually do not stay long. Progressives are rarely happy when their neighbors have gun rooms, the size of a CA 3rd bedroom, as is the case, even for many native Texas Dems.
Many Californians also abhor the purposeful lack of Texas public transportation, and the sprawl that is found in even small Texas suburbs. Moreover it is possible to spend a year in CA, and never see a cop on the highway or anywhere else. Every Texas burg with 100 people, has their own police force, and their point, aside from fighting crime, is to be seen.
Dems have also driven Texas Hispanic voters into the arms of Reps, as never before. Districts in Texas that hadn't voted Rep in a century, flipped Red, last November. Dems still do not understand, the 10 million migrants Dems purposefully imported, drove down wages in Hispanic neighborhoods, while driving up the cost of affordable housing, and overwhelming already poor performing schools. Anything is possible, but Texas and FL seem far less likely to ever turn Blue, than preBiden.
My experience with cops in CA and TX is different. I was pulled over perhaps five times in California and always got a ticket with a confiscatory fine imposed for the transgression, That was over the span of 35 years. In Texas, i have been pulled over three times and twice I got mere warnings. (I am driving a faster car in Texas. I used to drive pickup trucks in CA.) The cops, not to mention the people, are generally friendlier in Texas. In California, traffic tickets are looked at a form of revenue and they never let you off, although, come to think of it, I got pulled over for speeding one Easter morning with my mother in the car on the 580 in Oakland and the cop let me go because it was Easter Sunday.
In 2019, I got pulled over on I-80 in Nevada for going too fast through a construction zone in the yonder. It was the fourth zone in a row on the way to Winnemucca. I have since switched from the fast lane to the slow lane, but have a long record of speeding stops, so I knew how to handle it.
I pulled over right away, and when the sheriff's deputy asked why I thought I was stopped I told him that I'd slowed down too late and that he'd gotten me fair and square. Then I handed him the driver's license, the registration, the insurance card ... and my Arizona non-resident concealed carry permit, which is reciprocal with Nevada and about 30 other states. He asked if I was carrying, and I said yes, it's a Sig P365 and it's in the holster on my belt.
He asked me to be sure to keep my hand away from it, and I replied absolutely I would, and that safety is #1 for me, which is true. I got a warning for that stop, and a compliment on being a concealed carrier. I've been stopped in VA, MO, MA, NV, NY, WI, IL, WA, OR, CA, NM, OK, MT, CO, and WY.
The only jerk cops I've run into were in Milwaukee, WA State, and Oklahoma. If border guards count, the Canadians have been officious a-holes most of the time at ordinary crossings where there was no pretext or reason. I laugh, because when I lived in MA, I voted to repeal rent control simply to punish Cambridge, and when Trump announced his tariffs I cheered because I want the Canadian border guards to take it in the shorts.
Traffic-wise, 25 stops in 51 years, and all but 8 were warnings. Most of the actual tickets were very much deserved. The most outrageous breaks were in MA, CO, CA, and NV. I got religion and slowed down a couple years ago. The slow lane is more relaxing, weirdly enough.
Word to the wise: I-90 goes through Adams County, WA. Notorious speed trap. A long time ago, I had the cruise set at 78 in a 70 on flat ground and got stopped. The female deputy wrote it for 83. It was only the second time in my life that I've argued with a cop. I told her that I wouldn't have been mad if she'd written the ticket for the speed I was traveling, but to add 5 mph was a revenue-generating lie.
On the positive side, I got nailed for 10 or 15 over the limit on U.S. 2 in western Montana at early twilight. As always, I pulled over right away and admitted that I'd been speeding. The cop told me that MT (at the time) allowed me to pay $20 on the spot and that nothing would go on the record. I fished out a $20, and he handed me a slip of paper.
"The only difference between here and Chicago is that you gave me a receipt," I said. We both laughed, and I went on my way. LOL
By 2030 the Democrat party will be finished. Everything said in the above article is true but the most important thing is that the Democrat party will self-destruct. It is so out of touch with the American people and it will not change. All I can say is good riddance.
I have seen predictions like this for the demise of one party or another many times since I have been following politics. 1964 1972 1980, 1984, and 2008 come to mind. Plus our own Ruy Teixera's book (since recanted) about the emerging permanent majority for Democrats. It never happens.
After Reagan beat Carter and then crushed Mondale, and then Bush Sr. succeeded him, the Democrats got scared and embraced centrism in the form of the Democratic Leadership Council and the Progressive Policy Institute. That yielded Bill Clinton, just in time.
I think it's going to be harder to replicate that going forward, because in the 1980s there were still working class Democrats. These days, the new-style progressives (not the centrists of the Progressive Policy Institute) control the commanding heights.
To me, this was vividly demonstrated when Democrats couldn't applaud a 13-year-old cancer survivor getting an honorary Secret Service badge, or an 18-year-old athlete whose heart was fairly leaping out of his chest when told that he'd been accepted to West Point. And now they are rushing to defend to Tren de Aragua gangsters who were dropped off in El Salvador, and the radical Palestinian who was arrested and it awaiting deportation.
I am harshly critical of some recent Trump administration actions, the indiscriminate terminations of federal employees and Musk's characterization of Social Security as a "ponzi scheme" among them. Still, I look at the Democratic Party and shake my head, wondering if they are really and truly as suicidal as they look. Who are they channeling, Jim Jones? Yikes!
SS is a Ponzi scheme but we are stuck with it until we come up with enough money to hold harmless the millions who were forced into it over the decades.
It really isn't. You could have said that in the beginning, but not now. The reality is that the retirement age will have to rise to 70, and the earnings cap will have to rise in a big way.
Every age cohort born after 1938 will get less out of SS than they put in. The clean fix is to declare SS to be a closed plan. Spend down the reserve and then supplement with general revenue as needed. New entrants to the labor force go into a 401k or a hybrid plan. This will be very expensive but that is the penalty for violating the trust of the people.
If you look a little further back in history, you will see that it certainly does happen. In fact, the Democrat party turned itself from the party of segregation into the party of DEI less than 60 years. The Republican party of Abraham Lincoln is hardly recognizable today. Remember the boom moose party in Theodore Roosevelt, I could be wrong but the Democrat party as it is currently set up with its ultra liberal faction leading everyone else by the nose is finished. The Republican party as it exist today under Trump has about another four years before it needs to change once Trump is gone. It will have that chance. The 2026 election will be a harbinger.
The Democratic Party was split between a Northern faction and a Southern faction dating back to CW1 but in modern times the HHH speech at the 1948 DNC made the break open. The Republican Party was subject to a hostile takeover in 2016. If Vance succeeds that will continue.
I am not Progressive nor a Democrat, so take my opinion with that in mind
I think Democrats should be worried about Blue State governance because of what it says about the Party. Whenever I speak to non-Democrats and Republicans they all mention terrible governance in Blue States (and Blue Cities) as big problems. In other words: mismanagement in deep Blue areas tells voters that Democrats cannot be trusted to run the national government.
Now, personally I think there are PLENTY of examples of Republican mismanagement which do not get the same level of criticism in the media. However, California, Illinois and New York are three of our biggest states; their metropolises are the most iconic places in the US. When Democrats screw up in San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles that's bigger news than when Republicans mess up a small town. For this reason alone: Democrats should try harder to run deep Blue states and cities (besides, you know, basic human decency).
That being said it's way too early to worry about 2032. A lot can change in 8 years. Virginia went from a solid Republican state to a solid Democratic one swiftly. Georgia was unthinkable for Democrats until Biden won it in 2020, and now it's a swing state. I would take Democratic issues on their own terms
I watched "Morning Joe" today (one of their dwindling number) and the point was made that you really cannot point to any blue cities or states as examples of successful governance. To one degree or another, all of them are in decline.
Attracting and retaining citizens is not rocket science. Jobs that pay enough to rent or buy for regular people. What does the largest employer in a town pay. Where do people looking for a job get hired. Can a worker pay for a place to live on a third of their income. Is it safe? Can the kids go to school without getting beat up, can people walk in the street at night.
When adjusted for the cost of living, California has the highest poverty rate in the United States. Think of that a second. California has a higher poverty rate than Mississippi!
Mr. Moore, what are these Democrats to whom you refer? Can you tell me what they believe? What they agree on? What policy goals they want to achieve? Or do they only exist in the negative space of "not Republican"?
Even more puzzling, what would these Democrats do if they won control of Congress and the White House again? Would they again tale up the work to make the Federal government work as poorly as Democrat-led states and cities do?
It seems to me that there are at least three kinds of people that call themselves Democrats today. First, there are the Progressives who want to replace capitalism with a Soviet-style economic system and to replace traditional social values and norms with their version of a Utopian ideal. Second, there are Progressives who believe in the same thing as the first group but think they can win over the American electorate if they keep quiet about their social program and just push the Soviet socialist economics. Third, there are working-class voters who believe in traditional social relationships and values and who aspire to succeed in the capitalist economy but want that economy to give them and their children more opportunities for advancement.
The first group wants to cast the third group out of the party and the second group wants to con the third group into thinking the party still values them. It's going to be really hard to get the Democratic Party to unify around the values of its working-class members when the first and second groups both hold that third group in contempt and view its members as embarrassingly obsolete.
I honestly think that the first two groups aren't smart enough to realize how close their economic ideas are to Cuba, Venezuela, China, etc. Some of them are, but most are not.
Some of them are fully aware and have that as their goal. Some, like Bernie Sanders, have had that goal since the days of the Comintern promoting global Socialist revolution out of Moscow. What puzzles me is that they think they will inevitably be rewarded with admission to the privilegentsia, when history teaches that the useful idiots who pave the way for revolutions are often among the first lined up against the wall by the new revolutionary government.
I call Sanders, the son of Brooklyn Stalinists, Bernie "Three Dachas" Sanders. His wife was instrumental in driving Burlington College out of business, and then looting what remained. That said, I think most of those first two groups are exactly what you call them, i.e. useful idiots, emphasis on idiots.
See, to me the issue is that most of these people either didn't take Econ 101 to begin with, or did take it and got a gentleman's C in the class. The typical progressive within the government system is a 20- or 30-something PoliSci major from an Eastern or California finishing school. I took some PoliSci classes in college, and they were the easiest ones.
You can't go home again. I had some the best years of my life when we lived in Los Altos Hills, California, from 1967 to 1969. We were well off, but not rich. My parents sold our ranch-style house (nothing fancy) on one acre with a view from the Bay Bridge to San Jose for about $90,000 in 1969. If I wanted to move back to where I had such good times, I would need about $7.5 million to buy the little villa someone built on the lot after they scraped off our old house.
And God help them all if there are laws passed not to count non-citizens in the census or voter ID laws are passed. Harris won states with no voter ID. Hard to believe that's coincidence. Blue states just have such high taxes that punish those who have money and decent pay so there is no incentive to stay.
Ari\zona is not just slipping away, but flying away. Last month the state went from R+5.2 to R+7. Every single county is moving right. Pima was down half a point from NOVEMBER. Rs just surged into the lead in Nevada, and have utterly slashed the NC Democrat advantage, which was 175,000, down to about 30,000. Both NC and PA will be Republican by February at the latest.
It's important to understand that Rs were cheated out of upwards of 15 Electoral Votes in the 2020 census; that some of those may also be "recovered" by accurate counts BEYOND the normal gains, and that Democrats may be looking at losing between 10 and 20 electoral votes.
In my liberal college town full of NIMBY's that block any new peripheral development, I was able to get a lefty city council member to admit that his circle of left jerks block development for the fear that more conservative leaning residents would move her and change the political orientation of the city.
I don't think these left jerks care that people are leaving because the people that are leaving tend to be conservatives.
Where the real problems will occur... when the lefties have created enough of a state dystopia that they flee too... and then like a cancer they start to destroy the places they move to with their idiotic voting tendencies.
I think the lefty craziness escalates as moderates and conservatives move out. I have seen it from afar in NY, IL, and CA, and more closely in Seattle, Portland and at the state level in WA and OR. Progressives actually cheer for this, until they see what it does to the tax base.
The media and politics spheres are very Eastern and Hollywood driven, so no one's paying attention to what's happening in Portland and in Oregon. They aren't crashing, but are deflating like a vehicle with slow leaks in all four tires. Give it a few years, and the Eastern media will parachute some "reporter" here, who will find a way to blame it on racist white supremacists who left Portland for the collar counties, and on wealthy retirees who took themselves and their money to Idaho.
From the essay: "Over the next five years, Democrats across all levels of government must prioritize restoring blue states as attractive and accessible places to live."
A true statement if Democrats want to be as competitive as possible. But Democrats at the state level collectively become ever more left-wing every year. Democratic primaries almost everywhere are controlled by the wokester wing because wokesters are highly motivated primary voters - they show up in very high percentages - far more than more moderate Democratic voters. I live in Minnesota, and there is zero hope - none - that elected Democrats here will become more centrist.
There is still hope for Democrats even if they go further Left - which they will. If Trump's second term is regarded by a majority of voters as unsuccessful, Democrats will win landslides in 2026 and 2028, by 2029 controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency.
The U.S. population has long moved South and West, so the biggest change would seem to be out-migration from California. That one thing amazes me, because my rat brain roughly corresponds to the old Mamas and Papas song, "California Dreaming." No longer. California is such a mess, and if anything it's getting worse.
Beyond that, I have been struck by the erosion of Democratic strength in the upper Midwest and the Great Plains, and the nearly complete lack of attention to that by progressives.
Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Montana were long swing states, sometimes electing real liberals to the Senate. Even in fairly recent times, there were plenty of moderate Dems from those states. Now we see Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Iowa and Montana turning or having turned bright red. Michigan and Pennsylvania are on the bubble. West Virginia is gone. Minnesota is more competitive than it looks.
The Dems seem complacent because of recent strength in Virginia, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, and consolidation in the Pacific NW, but those are tenuous and in any case do not fully compensate for the losses I have mentioned above. The level of denial, even obliviousness, is surprising to put it mildly.
My guess is that they're going to need to get "shallacked" in '26 and '28 to really get the message. As this article points out, the '30s look ominous for the Democratic Party.
Nebraska couldn't even field a Dem for Deb Fischer's Senate seat. (A so-called independent, Dan Osborn ran and the Dems supported him.). And yet last week they welcomed Bernie and this week they welcomed Walz without realizing how toxic they are to Nebraska voters.
The upper Great Plains has a long populist tradition. Not to mention Wisconsin, which along with New York and Oregon were the most forceful Progressive states (as opposed to today's progressives.) Socially conservative but economically not so much. The progressives who now run the Democratic Party do nothing but dump on the middle of the country. By the time they do the arithmetic, it will be too late.
And these are the people who actually think they are smarter than everyone else. Holy smokes! If anyone around here, or maybe the authors of The Liberal Patriot, can tell me just how the leaders of the Democratic Party, which I called home for 40 years, came to hate everything I ever stood for, I am all ears.
As someone who made a little money in real estate in California, and then moved to Texas in 2017, I have some thoughts on blue-state migration. .
There is a reason why socialist countries had to build walls or make it difficult for their citizens to immigrate and that is the acquisitive system they impose. The blue states are not only over-regulated, they are subject to political hysteria whenever the two-party system asserts itself and Republicans win power. Trump DS, which is now joined with Musk DS, are national mental health crises, but it isn't the first time such a thing has happened. Democrat hysteria also greeted Reagan and GW Bush when they were elected. When I first arrived in San Francisco in 1981, I remember walking up to Haight Street and seeing a sign in a ground floor apartment window. It said, "John Hinckley for President. He took a shot at the man. Let's give him a shot at the job."
Due to gerry-mandering, California was becoming obdurately Democrat in those days but it would still elect a Republican to be governor or serve in the US Senate. By 2017, that was no longer the case; the legislature and state government in Sacramento had become a bad imitation of the Comintern.
I grew up in New Jersey and frequently go back to visit family and friends. Having lived in both California and Texas for the past 44 years, the East Coast now makes me claustrophobic. In the suburbs of central New Jersey, the primal forest has returned and the place seems dark and overgrown. Much of the agricultural land in the Garden State, has disappeared. There are freeways, but state highways seem to have traffic lights every mile or so. I'm glad I went West as a young man.
Why did I leave California? I lived in Oakland for 23 years. I was a general contractor. When the City of Oakland issued me a license to contract in the city, I had to agree to give them a percentage of my gross receipts, which was unprecedented in my experience, even on the East Coast. Then when I sold my house in 2004, they took a percentage of the sale price. It was called a "white flight tax" at the time, but illustrated to me how voracious the socialists had become with their tax policies.
I moved to Texas because my wife became severely disabled and we had to downsize; and because I have family here who made the transition easier. But ideology played a major part in my dissatisfaction with California.
Texas is the new California. There are only two things wrong with it: July and August. But that is why God invented Colorado which, unfortunately according to my brother is also becoming increasingly blue.
You are welcome to visit in July and August but come October, elk season is for locals. No worries about December and later, Texans can't drive on snow.
LOL. My cousin, who grew up in San Antonio, built a house in Colorado in the mountains two years ago In the dead of winter. He did fine in the snow. I drove up to help for a couple of weeks in January and because I'm from New Jersey, I only got stuck once. He had to pull me out. I tried to drive back to Texas after that. The radio said that the road was still open. I left in a blizzard and got an hour out and there it was: a sign saying the road through the pass was closed. Had to drive back and try again the next day. That was a beautiful day. Looked like the Swiss Alps.
One of the reasons my cousin built in Colorado is because he is an elk hunter.
You should see what happens in Portlandia when they get 3" of snow. Having grown up in Wisconsin, I find the sheer panic quite amusing. I only watch it on TV. We live 70 miles away in the rural Columbia River Gorge. No kidding, people actually abandon their cars in 3" of snow. Don't get me started on how badly run Portland has become.
July and August are why Texas population growth is likely to slow and then reverse in the relatively near future: they’re going to start including June and September. It’ll only keep getting hotter and climate-related migration to cooler areas is likely by mid-century if not sooner. Nate underestimates the potential for blue states to get their shit together and it would would sure help if some moderate good-government Republicans would start running for office in those states rather than the culture-warrior/own-the-libs types that show up on the ballot. Keep in mind that Republicans have largely chosen not to be competitive in those states just as Democrats are often willfully uncompetitive in red states.
I disagree that climate will play much of a role in migration in the future, A century ago, it would have had an impact and probably did in the 1930s when temperatures soared. The problem is solved by air conditioning, which because of Texas' ample supply of fossil fuels, will always be available.
Really, if temperatures go up a degree or two, which is not necessarily going to happen, does anyone really notice the difference when it's 100 degrees and not 98? How much impact does it have on daily living?
Of course, I'm one of those who believes that most of the warming we've seen is either because of natural variability or due to changes in the man-made environment that tend to absorb and hold heat and then radiate it after temperatures cool.
But let me add this: if migration slows, which it likely will given its current high rate, it will be due to other reasons, including development in other areas in the West if the federal government starts selling off some of its lands. This is now being contemplated in Washington.
If a hot climate was a problem, Phoenix wouldn't exist. Florida wouldn't have more people than New York. Las Vegas would have shriveled up and died once casinos opened elsewhere.
I doubt what you are saying is true. I live in NJ but spent a lot of time in the deep south. You get used to the heat and even start to enjoy it. It is easier to acclimate to a hot climate than a cold. In deep red states, they do not try to force people to give up AC or try to make the electricity to run it needlessly expensive.
Oregon's progressive mandates have caused electricity rates to rise by 50% in the last five years. Cutoffs for non-payment have skyrocketed, as lower-income people are forced to choose between food, medicine, and power. The Democrats who run Oregon are rich, and they couldn't care less.
It's not a math problem, it's a policy problem. At the moment, national Democrats don't have a policy other than obstructing all things Trump. It is actually worse in the Big Blue States mentioned since they do have a policy of doubling down on the failed policies that have created the problem in the first place. Listen to Ruy and fix the internal dynamics in the Democratic Party.
How about this: Policy has made it an arithmetic problem, with a time lag. The '30s are going to be cruel for progressives.
Never underestimate the ability of the stupid party to screw things up. We really don't want an unreformed Democratic Party back in power which is why Ruy is important.
Watch me be wrong, but I think the Rs understand that they have to stick together. Plenty of time for them to form the circular firing squad, but it doesn't look like it'll happen any time soon.
The above addresses numbers in and numbers out, without considering who is leaving CA, and who is moving into the State. Joel Kotkin is a CA demographer. A professor at Chapman University for decades, Kotkin is a longtime liberal and loather of Trump, but his detailed studies of CA life, are mainly statistical.
Last year, Kotkin noted that the families leaving CA, earned on average, $40K more annually, then the families replacing them. Mr. Kotkin has also calculated that while CA is one of the most expensive places in the nation to live, the State's Blue Collar wages are some of the lowest in the nation, very similar to those in the Deep South. This is very important because the vast majority of new CA jobs generated, are low wage and/or Blue Collar. This has caused a 37% of the state to be Medicaid dependent.
Now, there will be another hill to climb. Federal welfare has ended for undocumented migrants.
CA has long claimed their undocumented population hovered around 2 million residents. That number must be much higher, after the Biden administration. As the federal welfare programs end, the state of CA will replace them, at state taxpayer expense.
CA tax revenue is largely dependent on stock market gains. 1/2 of 1% of Golden Staters pay nearly 50% of all state income taxes. Even a minor market correction, would be a big problem. A 2001 like market crash, would also crash CA tax revenue, just as demand for government support explodes. The perfect storm, caused by changing demographics.
The same thing is happening in Oregon. Not quite as dramatically in terms of population losses, but they are trading taxpayers for dependents on taxes. This is unsustainable, as the city of Portland is learning as we speak.
I think that once the federal welfare for the undocumented dries up, many will self deport.
The smart thing for the Republicans would be to reform the immigration laws in such a way as to make it easier for anyone who arrived illegally before 2020 to gain citizenship, as long as their criminal record is clean. Make that citizenship provisional for five years, revocable for a felony or any other crime punishable by a year or more jail time.
Have Trump and Vance officiate at swearing-in ceremonies, and watch the progressives sweat. You'd see decisive Republican gains in some unexpected places, like WI, CO, NV, MN, PA, GA, VA, and the Carolinas, and of course in CA, NY, AZ, TX, FL, and NM. It's not that I want the Dems to disappear; it's that I want the smugness of their progressives to be removed with a chainsaw, so they can rebuild.
California needs to revise its environmental laws so it becomes easier to build infrastructure and housing. There is still a strong NIMBY attitude in the state. The next California governor needs to make this a top priority.
"California needs to revise its environmental laws so it becomes easier to build infrastructure and housing"
We will find out if they're serious once the rebuilding efforts get underway. After all these people have been through, something tells me they won't take kindly to a sclerotic, opaque, incoherent permitting process.
Further evidence that for all their "progressive" Left self-righteousness, today's Democratic Party has nothing on this nation's Framers when it comes to real vision about freedom and a better future.
But will red states stay red when all the blue state migrants start voting their instincts? The Californication of Texas is already a worry for the GOP. It will take a very long time (approximately forever) for Texas to sink to California’s level in policy terms — but those blue state migrants can help elect a lot of Democrats in the meantime with the electoral votes Texas is gaining.
Texas is more Red today, than it was pre Covid, as is FL. Blue State refugees that settle in Texas are Rep by 2 to 1. Registered Reps now outnumber registered Dems by more than a million voters in FL. If CA Progressives migrate to Texas, they usually do not stay long. Progressives are rarely happy when their neighbors have gun rooms, the size of a CA 3rd bedroom, as is the case, even for many native Texas Dems.
Many Californians also abhor the purposeful lack of Texas public transportation, and the sprawl that is found in even small Texas suburbs. Moreover it is possible to spend a year in CA, and never see a cop on the highway or anywhere else. Every Texas burg with 100 people, has their own police force, and their point, aside from fighting crime, is to be seen.
Dems have also driven Texas Hispanic voters into the arms of Reps, as never before. Districts in Texas that hadn't voted Rep in a century, flipped Red, last November. Dems still do not understand, the 10 million migrants Dems purposefully imported, drove down wages in Hispanic neighborhoods, while driving up the cost of affordable housing, and overwhelming already poor performing schools. Anything is possible, but Texas and FL seem far less likely to ever turn Blue, than preBiden.
My experience with cops in CA and TX is different. I was pulled over perhaps five times in California and always got a ticket with a confiscatory fine imposed for the transgression, That was over the span of 35 years. In Texas, i have been pulled over three times and twice I got mere warnings. (I am driving a faster car in Texas. I used to drive pickup trucks in CA.) The cops, not to mention the people, are generally friendlier in Texas. In California, traffic tickets are looked at a form of revenue and they never let you off, although, come to think of it, I got pulled over for speeding one Easter morning with my mother in the car on the 580 in Oakland and the cop let me go because it was Easter Sunday.
In 2019, I got pulled over on I-80 in Nevada for going too fast through a construction zone in the yonder. It was the fourth zone in a row on the way to Winnemucca. I have since switched from the fast lane to the slow lane, but have a long record of speeding stops, so I knew how to handle it.
I pulled over right away, and when the sheriff's deputy asked why I thought I was stopped I told him that I'd slowed down too late and that he'd gotten me fair and square. Then I handed him the driver's license, the registration, the insurance card ... and my Arizona non-resident concealed carry permit, which is reciprocal with Nevada and about 30 other states. He asked if I was carrying, and I said yes, it's a Sig P365 and it's in the holster on my belt.
He asked me to be sure to keep my hand away from it, and I replied absolutely I would, and that safety is #1 for me, which is true. I got a warning for that stop, and a compliment on being a concealed carrier. I've been stopped in VA, MO, MA, NV, NY, WI, IL, WA, OR, CA, NM, OK, MT, CO, and WY.
The only jerk cops I've run into were in Milwaukee, WA State, and Oklahoma. If border guards count, the Canadians have been officious a-holes most of the time at ordinary crossings where there was no pretext or reason. I laugh, because when I lived in MA, I voted to repeal rent control simply to punish Cambridge, and when Trump announced his tariffs I cheered because I want the Canadian border guards to take it in the shorts.
Traffic-wise, 25 stops in 51 years, and all but 8 were warnings. Most of the actual tickets were very much deserved. The most outrageous breaks were in MA, CO, CA, and NV. I got religion and slowed down a couple years ago. The slow lane is more relaxing, weirdly enough.
Word to the wise: I-90 goes through Adams County, WA. Notorious speed trap. A long time ago, I had the cruise set at 78 in a 70 on flat ground and got stopped. The female deputy wrote it for 83. It was only the second time in my life that I've argued with a cop. I told her that I wouldn't have been mad if she'd written the ticket for the speed I was traveling, but to add 5 mph was a revenue-generating lie.
On the positive side, I got nailed for 10 or 15 over the limit on U.S. 2 in western Montana at early twilight. As always, I pulled over right away and admitted that I'd been speeding. The cop told me that MT (at the time) allowed me to pay $20 on the spot and that nothing would go on the record. I fished out a $20, and he handed me a slip of paper.
"The only difference between here and Chicago is that you gave me a receipt," I said. We both laughed, and I went on my way. LOL
By 2030 the Democrat party will be finished. Everything said in the above article is true but the most important thing is that the Democrat party will self-destruct. It is so out of touch with the American people and it will not change. All I can say is good riddance.
I have seen predictions like this for the demise of one party or another many times since I have been following politics. 1964 1972 1980, 1984, and 2008 come to mind. Plus our own Ruy Teixera's book (since recanted) about the emerging permanent majority for Democrats. It never happens.
After Reagan beat Carter and then crushed Mondale, and then Bush Sr. succeeded him, the Democrats got scared and embraced centrism in the form of the Democratic Leadership Council and the Progressive Policy Institute. That yielded Bill Clinton, just in time.
I think it's going to be harder to replicate that going forward, because in the 1980s there were still working class Democrats. These days, the new-style progressives (not the centrists of the Progressive Policy Institute) control the commanding heights.
To me, this was vividly demonstrated when Democrats couldn't applaud a 13-year-old cancer survivor getting an honorary Secret Service badge, or an 18-year-old athlete whose heart was fairly leaping out of his chest when told that he'd been accepted to West Point. And now they are rushing to defend to Tren de Aragua gangsters who were dropped off in El Salvador, and the radical Palestinian who was arrested and it awaiting deportation.
I am harshly critical of some recent Trump administration actions, the indiscriminate terminations of federal employees and Musk's characterization of Social Security as a "ponzi scheme" among them. Still, I look at the Democratic Party and shake my head, wondering if they are really and truly as suicidal as they look. Who are they channeling, Jim Jones? Yikes!
SS is a Ponzi scheme but we are stuck with it until we come up with enough money to hold harmless the millions who were forced into it over the decades.
It really isn't. You could have said that in the beginning, but not now. The reality is that the retirement age will have to rise to 70, and the earnings cap will have to rise in a big way.
Every age cohort born after 1938 will get less out of SS than they put in. The clean fix is to declare SS to be a closed plan. Spend down the reserve and then supplement with general revenue as needed. New entrants to the labor force go into a 401k or a hybrid plan. This will be very expensive but that is the penalty for violating the trust of the people.
I’d have to see the details on that. Unfortunately, most political debates are short on details.
If you look a little further back in history, you will see that it certainly does happen. In fact, the Democrat party turned itself from the party of segregation into the party of DEI less than 60 years. The Republican party of Abraham Lincoln is hardly recognizable today. Remember the boom moose party in Theodore Roosevelt, I could be wrong but the Democrat party as it is currently set up with its ultra liberal faction leading everyone else by the nose is finished. The Republican party as it exist today under Trump has about another four years before it needs to change once Trump is gone. It will have that chance. The 2026 election will be a harbinger.
The Democratic Party was split between a Northern faction and a Southern faction dating back to CW1 but in modern times the HHH speech at the 1948 DNC made the break open. The Republican Party was subject to a hostile takeover in 2016. If Vance succeeds that will continue.
I am not Progressive nor a Democrat, so take my opinion with that in mind
I think Democrats should be worried about Blue State governance because of what it says about the Party. Whenever I speak to non-Democrats and Republicans they all mention terrible governance in Blue States (and Blue Cities) as big problems. In other words: mismanagement in deep Blue areas tells voters that Democrats cannot be trusted to run the national government.
Now, personally I think there are PLENTY of examples of Republican mismanagement which do not get the same level of criticism in the media. However, California, Illinois and New York are three of our biggest states; their metropolises are the most iconic places in the US. When Democrats screw up in San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles that's bigger news than when Republicans mess up a small town. For this reason alone: Democrats should try harder to run deep Blue states and cities (besides, you know, basic human decency).
That being said it's way too early to worry about 2032. A lot can change in 8 years. Virginia went from a solid Republican state to a solid Democratic one swiftly. Georgia was unthinkable for Democrats until Biden won it in 2020, and now it's a swing state. I would take Democratic issues on their own terms
I watched "Morning Joe" today (one of their dwindling number) and the point was made that you really cannot point to any blue cities or states as examples of successful governance. To one degree or another, all of them are in decline.
Colorado seems decently well run
Not according to my brother who has lived in the vicinity of Aspen for forty years. He says the wokesters have taken over.
Better then than the evangelicals
I have some good friends who are evangelicals. Much more reasonable than what the progressive Democratic Party has become.
As a gay man I can assure you i vastly prefer the wokesters to the evangelicals
Really? Have you been to downtown Denver lately?
Yes seemed nice if cold
Attracting and retaining citizens is not rocket science. Jobs that pay enough to rent or buy for regular people. What does the largest employer in a town pay. Where do people looking for a job get hired. Can a worker pay for a place to live on a third of their income. Is it safe? Can the kids go to school without getting beat up, can people walk in the street at night.
When adjusted for the cost of living, California has the highest poverty rate in the United States. Think of that a second. California has a higher poverty rate than Mississippi!
Mr. Moore, what are these Democrats to whom you refer? Can you tell me what they believe? What they agree on? What policy goals they want to achieve? Or do they only exist in the negative space of "not Republican"?
Even more puzzling, what would these Democrats do if they won control of Congress and the White House again? Would they again tale up the work to make the Federal government work as poorly as Democrat-led states and cities do?
It seems to me that there are at least three kinds of people that call themselves Democrats today. First, there are the Progressives who want to replace capitalism with a Soviet-style economic system and to replace traditional social values and norms with their version of a Utopian ideal. Second, there are Progressives who believe in the same thing as the first group but think they can win over the American electorate if they keep quiet about their social program and just push the Soviet socialist economics. Third, there are working-class voters who believe in traditional social relationships and values and who aspire to succeed in the capitalist economy but want that economy to give them and their children more opportunities for advancement.
The first group wants to cast the third group out of the party and the second group wants to con the third group into thinking the party still values them. It's going to be really hard to get the Democratic Party to unify around the values of its working-class members when the first and second groups both hold that third group in contempt and view its members as embarrassingly obsolete.
I honestly think that the first two groups aren't smart enough to realize how close their economic ideas are to Cuba, Venezuela, China, etc. Some of them are, but most are not.
Some of them are fully aware and have that as their goal. Some, like Bernie Sanders, have had that goal since the days of the Comintern promoting global Socialist revolution out of Moscow. What puzzles me is that they think they will inevitably be rewarded with admission to the privilegentsia, when history teaches that the useful idiots who pave the way for revolutions are often among the first lined up against the wall by the new revolutionary government.
I call Sanders, the son of Brooklyn Stalinists, Bernie "Three Dachas" Sanders. His wife was instrumental in driving Burlington College out of business, and then looting what remained. That said, I think most of those first two groups are exactly what you call them, i.e. useful idiots, emphasis on idiots.
See, to me the issue is that most of these people either didn't take Econ 101 to begin with, or did take it and got a gentleman's C in the class. The typical progressive within the government system is a 20- or 30-something PoliSci major from an Eastern or California finishing school. I took some PoliSci classes in college, and they were the easiest ones.
You can't go home again. I had some the best years of my life when we lived in Los Altos Hills, California, from 1967 to 1969. We were well off, but not rich. My parents sold our ranch-style house (nothing fancy) on one acre with a view from the Bay Bridge to San Jose for about $90,000 in 1969. If I wanted to move back to where I had such good times, I would need about $7.5 million to buy the little villa someone built on the lot after they scraped off our old house.
And God help them all if there are laws passed not to count non-citizens in the census or voter ID laws are passed. Harris won states with no voter ID. Hard to believe that's coincidence. Blue states just have such high taxes that punish those who have money and decent pay so there is no incentive to stay.
Ari\zona is not just slipping away, but flying away. Last month the state went from R+5.2 to R+7. Every single county is moving right. Pima was down half a point from NOVEMBER. Rs just surged into the lead in Nevada, and have utterly slashed the NC Democrat advantage, which was 175,000, down to about 30,000. Both NC and PA will be Republican by February at the latest.
It's important to understand that Rs were cheated out of upwards of 15 Electoral Votes in the 2020 census; that some of those may also be "recovered" by accurate counts BEYOND the normal gains, and that Democrats may be looking at losing between 10 and 20 electoral votes.
In my liberal college town full of NIMBY's that block any new peripheral development, I was able to get a lefty city council member to admit that his circle of left jerks block development for the fear that more conservative leaning residents would move her and change the political orientation of the city.
I don't think these left jerks care that people are leaving because the people that are leaving tend to be conservatives.
Where the real problems will occur... when the lefties have created enough of a state dystopia that they flee too... and then like a cancer they start to destroy the places they move to with their idiotic voting tendencies.
I think the lefty craziness escalates as moderates and conservatives move out. I have seen it from afar in NY, IL, and CA, and more closely in Seattle, Portland and at the state level in WA and OR. Progressives actually cheer for this, until they see what it does to the tax base.
The media and politics spheres are very Eastern and Hollywood driven, so no one's paying attention to what's happening in Portland and in Oregon. They aren't crashing, but are deflating like a vehicle with slow leaks in all four tires. Give it a few years, and the Eastern media will parachute some "reporter" here, who will find a way to blame it on racist white supremacists who left Portland for the collar counties, and on wealthy retirees who took themselves and their money to Idaho.
From the essay: "Over the next five years, Democrats across all levels of government must prioritize restoring blue states as attractive and accessible places to live."
A true statement if Democrats want to be as competitive as possible. But Democrats at the state level collectively become ever more left-wing every year. Democratic primaries almost everywhere are controlled by the wokester wing because wokesters are highly motivated primary voters - they show up in very high percentages - far more than more moderate Democratic voters. I live in Minnesota, and there is zero hope - none - that elected Democrats here will become more centrist.
There is still hope for Democrats even if they go further Left - which they will. If Trump's second term is regarded by a majority of voters as unsuccessful, Democrats will win landslides in 2026 and 2028, by 2029 controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency.
The U.S. population has long moved South and West, so the biggest change would seem to be out-migration from California. That one thing amazes me, because my rat brain roughly corresponds to the old Mamas and Papas song, "California Dreaming." No longer. California is such a mess, and if anything it's getting worse.
Beyond that, I have been struck by the erosion of Democratic strength in the upper Midwest and the Great Plains, and the nearly complete lack of attention to that by progressives.
Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Montana were long swing states, sometimes electing real liberals to the Senate. Even in fairly recent times, there were plenty of moderate Dems from those states. Now we see Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Iowa and Montana turning or having turned bright red. Michigan and Pennsylvania are on the bubble. West Virginia is gone. Minnesota is more competitive than it looks.
The Dems seem complacent because of recent strength in Virginia, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, and consolidation in the Pacific NW, but those are tenuous and in any case do not fully compensate for the losses I have mentioned above. The level of denial, even obliviousness, is surprising to put it mildly.
My guess is that they're going to need to get "shallacked" in '26 and '28 to really get the message. As this article points out, the '30s look ominous for the Democratic Party.
Nebraska couldn't even field a Dem for Deb Fischer's Senate seat. (A so-called independent, Dan Osborn ran and the Dems supported him.). And yet last week they welcomed Bernie and this week they welcomed Walz without realizing how toxic they are to Nebraska voters.
The upper Great Plains has a long populist tradition. Not to mention Wisconsin, which along with New York and Oregon were the most forceful Progressive states (as opposed to today's progressives.) Socially conservative but economically not so much. The progressives who now run the Democratic Party do nothing but dump on the middle of the country. By the time they do the arithmetic, it will be too late.
And these are the people who actually think they are smarter than everyone else. Holy smokes! If anyone around here, or maybe the authors of The Liberal Patriot, can tell me just how the leaders of the Democratic Party, which I called home for 40 years, came to hate everything I ever stood for, I am all ears.