I live in a pretty red state, but there are only 9 or 10 states swingier than mine. Progressives I know are moving to solid blue states and feeling virtuous about it. Two of my friends moved to the west coast, and I can tell they're looking at me like if I can stand to live here, I must not feel as strongly about politics as they do.
This despite the fact that we're all old, white, and economically privileged enough that we're for all practical purposes immune to the awful policies that are being put in place.
The sad thing is, the idea that moving away is a constructive political act comes straight from Atlas Shrugged. It's right wing logic. Express your consumer preference, and through the magic of the invisible hand, that becomes political power. Making yourself happy is the only form of political engagement you need.
> the idea that moving away is a constructive political act comes straight from Atlas Shrugged
Heh. I read Atlas Shrugged in college, and at the time I liked it pretty well. I was hungry for a book about The Big Questions.
But now, I see the protagonists saying, "these leeches keep taking advantage of me! I'm going to move to a secret town in the middle of nowhere, and deny them my genius!" And it's the most teenaged, self-important thing I've ever heard.
Saw an interview in which she said her first two books were too subtle/abstract and not understood. So she wrote the third one in a way that even a... teenager could understand.
I would love to move to Galt's Gulch. Sadly, I'm not worthy enough to be selected for inclusion. It's an enticing idea of just moving away to live with all the other smart people. The trick is being smart enough to fit in.
As a progressive in a deep red state, there is a certain amount of exhaustion that comes with feeling like an outsider.
I like many things about where I live, and I've become practiced at getting along with people that I have deep disagreements with on politics.
But particularly this morning, I can sympathize with the urge to move to a place where I'm more likely to share a common set of values with the average person in the grocery store, and those values are more likely to be reflected by the institutions around me.
I wouldn't feel any virtue moving to a deep blue area, but I would feel a bit of relief.
we're for all practical purposes immune to the awful policies that are being put in place.
this is probably not going to pan out. Trump's become the figurehead for an organized and motivated movement to completely dismantle the administrative state. nobody's going to be immune to the effects of that. Project 2025 includes shutting down the weather service, even to the point of privatizing tornado warnings. he's also talked many times about replacing the entire income tax system with hefty tariffs, which literally hundreds of economists say would be a disastrous move.
they're also talking about a national abortion ban. you might indeed be old enough for that not to affect your life any more, but if you have extended family, it will affect someone you care about, guaranteed.
last but not least, Trump's stated goal of mass deportation would require intense surveillance, broad leeway for law enforcement agencies, and drastically reduced civil liberties protections. once you've got that, you can target a lot of people. a site like Twitter is going to have a lot of data about political inclinations, and cultural factors like sexuality or race that can get you targeted politically.
the real problem that got Trump in office was normalcy bias. what we're dealing with is so bad that if you tell people who don't already know, they assume you're exaggerating.
> the real problem that got Trump in office was normalcy bias. what we're dealing with is so bad that if you tell people who don't already know, they assume you're exaggerating.
This is understated IMO. In almost every other democracy in the world, 1% of the mess that comes out of Trump's mouth would deem him utterly unelectable on account of how crazy he sounds. The US seems to lap it up though.
This is true, and it's probably because he now operates in an altered context — the narrative of persecution, especially by those perceived to be 'elite'. Without that, all Americans would see through his nonsense just as the inhabitants of democracies elsewhere do.
His opponents have done a very bad job of not making it look like everyone's simply biased and out to get him, and he's capitalised on that.
> they're also talking about a national abortion ban. you might indeed be old enough for that not to affect your life any more, but if you have extended family, it will affect someone you care about, guaranteed
I do care about the people who will be affected. But it won't be people in my social class.
There's a lot of hypocrisy built into the social conservative mentality. I've seen the world they want to go back to, and it was never about eliminating, say, abortion. Progressives think that right wingers want to eradicate abortion the way progressives want to eliminate malaria and poverty. There are a few extremists who do, yes. But most right wing people just want to institute social rules that stigmatize abortion. They want people who get abortions to be discreet about it, and they want to shame and punish anybody who gets caught. They want abortions to be a crime for the poor and a scandal for the rich. That's all they want. If they get that, they don't care how many abortions people get.
My friends are sophisticated enough and have enough resources that they would be able to get an abortion if they needed one. They would find an anonymous way to get a pregnancy test. They would not share knowledge of their pregnancy with anyone. They would schedule a holiday in an abortion-friendly place and Instagram every step of it. In this way, they would respect the taboo, and that's all that most right wing people care about. Rich people being able to break the rules is very much part of the plan.
The burden of punishment will fall on people who weren't wealthy or sophisticated enough to navigate this hypocrisy, or who belong to disfavored groups (racial minorities, etc.) who are specifically targeted for enforcement.
Think of how Alan Turing was punished for homosexuality. The nature of his sexual behavior was obvious to the police, but he was not going to be punished for it. All he had to do was deny it. Show respect for the taboo. But he didn't deny it, he didn't participate in the hypocrisy, so he was punished.
> last but not least, Trump's stated goal of mass deportation would require intense surveillance
You're thinking like a progressive technocrat. You're thinking, how would I institute a fair, efficient, and effective program of mass deportation? Trump doesn't care how many people he deports, or even whether he deports the right people. He's not going to be surveilling rich white people to catch people like Elon Musk who overstay their visa. Any mass deportations will be like his wall: a half-assed, purely symbolic stunt that makes his supporters happy and confuses progressives because of the blatant lack of ambition to accomplish anything.
Again, the victims will be people that right wingers consider fair game because of their economic status and their skin color.
This despite the fact that we're all old, white, and economically privileged enough that we're for all practical purposes immune to the awful policies that are being put in place.
The sad thing is, the idea that moving away is a constructive political act comes straight from Atlas Shrugged. It's right wing logic. Express your consumer preference, and through the magic of the invisible hand, that becomes political power. Making yourself happy is the only form of political engagement you need.