Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Old Habits Die Hard
Listening to Mark Levin on the radio yesterday I heard his analysis of the results of the election: immigration. Now, this has multiple dimensions. The most obvious one involves external immigration that no longer promotes assimilation, thus appeals to tribalism and government entitlements attracts votes of this late-20th to 21st-century phenomena. More and more new voters in this country simply do not share values that drove our politics before 1970.
The less obvious, but potent, is internal immigration: People leaving failed progressive strongholds but voting in the new place just like they voted in the old place. The change of address is not accompanied by a change in attitude for the internal immigrant any more than it is for the external immigrant.
The truth of this observation can be illustrated by the story of how Phoenix became the allergy capital of America: People moved to the desert to escape allergies that affected them in the Midwest. But they missed their trees “back home” and planted them in Phoenix — everywhere. They met and married similarly afflicted persons and had children who got their allergy sensitivities from both parents and grew up amongst the trees that cause their parents to flee the Midwest.
And in such manner will progressive politics inevitably swamp conservative values. Demography is destiny.
Published in General
This is one of my pet peeves. They left one area because they like the new area better, but then they want to make the new area like the area they left.
Well that sure was cheery.
We are doomed!
I’m try to do a reverse migration, from a borderline red state (Ohio) to a quite Blue state (Minnesota). I’m confident that I will personally tip the scales there.
Progressivism is often called a religion. It’s more like a disease: a ready cure has not been found and we are all subject to its symptoms, if not the full scale outbreak. Drat.
I heard the same thing about allergies when I was on a tour of the Hoover Dam on a Vegas trip. We are living the same thing in Central North Carolina. Our wonderful republican sheriff was just voted out and replaced by a dem who has already vowed not not work with ICE. Yeah us! The outgoing sheriff said it was becoming increasingly difficult for a republican to get elected in this county and he’s afraid that trend will continue. We had some good news on that front today when Amazon decided not to bring its second headquarters here.
I am significantly doubtful of this. I have a more controlled experiment that suggests otherwise (more about that later, but anyone here who knows me also knows what that experiment is).
Arizona poses two significant considerations.
First is the balance of internal and external migration (including the population growth that results from both having kids). Without knowing more of that balance, for all we know 90% of internal migrants may be to the right of Ted Cruz but are just swamped by the external.
Second, is that the internal migrants include a mix of retirees and economic migrants. Here, the economic migrants may be hard right while the retirees are leftist. After all, who can better afford the retirement lifestyle than government and other union employees?
My controlled experiment is called New Hampshire. Very little external migration. Very little retirement migration. Lots of economic migration. The MA border bedroom communities filled with MA refugees have, for more than a decade, been what keeps New Hampshire from becoming a socialist hell-hole literally and figuratively between VT and ME.
Meanwhile, much of the rural areas have gone Dem. and the three big college areas around Dartmouth, UNH, and Keene State are hard leftist. In fact the only three counties to go Dem. for governor were the three where those schools are.
We moved from Maryland to NW Virginia 10 years ago…to be honest, to get out of Maryland. Things have been pretty good here (low taxes, etc.) but the last couple of years more and more suburban DC Virginians are moving out here. We just lost our Republican Congress critter and the local city council just went Democratic. I see higher taxes and government intrusiveness coming fast. One of our neighbors even said “our taxes are too low.” Makes me want to throw something.
Now imagine living in Southside/Southwest Virgina like my folks have their whole lives and having the rest of the state turn blue on you. The people you mention don’t even know (care) that part of the state exists.
The Research Triangle has been a hotbed of liberalism for quite some time.
And yet they never think to just add more money to their tax check. (The government gladly accepts such self-assessments.) Funny, that.
Whenever I hear that (or “I like paying taxes”) I forget to ask if they minimize their tax bill. Probably the response would be, “My accountant handles that.”
We here in Wake County were proud to have eluded the liberalism of our brethren to the west. It was only a matter of time.
If they say that then just say: “Make sure you share with your accountant what you just shared with me — that you wish you paid more to the government.”
Rodin: Old Habits Die Hard
“And in such manner will progressive politics inevitably swamp conservative values.”
One example is seen in architecture. In Pheonix, roofs are typically made of tile, which is very dull as befits a sunny clime. People who have moved in from gloomy, liberal East Coast towns like Severn, MD have brought their preference for shiny surfaces, especially on the roofs of the new churches they construct.
I will be talking about these old habits in my upcoming book.
Note:
I have to come up with a title this morning. I will update you right away so you can place your order.
My agent says that first books by unknown authors sometimes do better if the title of the book is easily confused with that of a previous blockbuster, especially a self-help book. She has a title in mind but won’t tell me what it is, says I need to work it out myself.
Can you help?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Tags: Humor, Shaggy Dog Stories
Don’t Sweat the Small Politics…And It’s All Small Politics
I like it!
My agent came up with “The Severn Habits of Highly Reflective Steeples”. I’ve decided not to publish after all, if I have to use that. Could be a trademark infringement.
There is one problem: while this might be a good analysis for West Virginia, it’s not for the entire country.
51% of Native Texans voted for Beto.
57% of Migrant Texans voted for Cruz.
That is what the lotteries are for. Voluntary taxation. All Leftists should play irresponsibly.
Even though it’s my original home state, who’s talking about West Virginia? Except for Joe Manchin, who votes Republican when he thinks Chuck Schumer is looking the other way, West Virginia has flipped from Democratic to Republican.
Virginia has unfortunately gone the other way. And now we’re giving $800 million in tax breaks to the richest man in the country to move his business to what’s already one of the richest and traffic-snarled areas of the nation.
New Hampshire keeps getting more and more like MA too. sigh
My solution of making transplants wait a few years before being allowed to vote is unconstitutional. Too bad.
We have the same problem with internal immigration here in South Carolina. Other than sales tax, our income tax and property taxes are fairly low. Rest assured however, there are those (mostly transplants and Democrats) who say these taxes are “too low” and feel they could be raised “just a little”.
We all know how that works. First, it’s “just a little”. Then it becomes “just a little more”. Then they say, “If we raise them a little more, just think of all the wonderful things we can do.”
I can see it now – bullet trains from Columbia to Charleston and Myrtle Beach . . .
This isn’t specifically about voting (at least not until they get in) but concerning population movements, I read that one of the caravan “folks” (as Obama would say) explained why he didn’t want to stop in Mexico -or maybe it was just stay in his own country. He said that he could only make $3.00 an hour there, but he could make $15.00 in the U.S.
Maybe that should only be after being tested in English or at least having American employers sponsor a trickle with proof of need for workers? Or however it was supposed to work, although people slipping away from being tracked is an old problem. You know the courts wouldn’t allow a “lower tier” of wage that might “exploit” those who could be happy with $7.50 etc.
In the meantime, thanks to all the liberal brainiacs who thought raising the minimum wage would provide a “living wage” for (presumably) our fellow citizens. Nope, besides all of us subsidizing future democrats to come here (in social services taxation or higher prices), our own poor are pushed aside at least partly by the mostly unneeded “newcomers.” And glowing stories sent back home (or a televised easy crossing) will encourage even more to show up.
Here’s the thing.
Sometimes people change their minds.
In the 1930s, the Democrats stomped all over the Republicans in most parts of the United States.
In the 1940s it was much the same, with the mid-term election of 1946 as a rare exception.
But over time, in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s, peoples’ attitudes changed and by 1980 Reagan was elected president in a 44 state victory and a Republican Senate majority.
And in 2016, despite all of the immigration into the United States over the past decades, the voters elected a Republican US House, a Republican US Senate and a Republican president.
So, is demography really destiny? I tend to doubt it. My parents are both Democrats. I’m a Republican.
Heck, back in the 1980s, my Dad was a Republican who voted for Reagan twice. But then he started voting Democrat.
When I was young and for many years, my parents were solid union-member Democrats. They grew up during the depression, voted for Kennedy, Johnson, etc. By the time they both passed away (in 2007 and 2016), they wouldn’t consider voting for a Democrat, unless it was a local race and they knew the candidate personally.