Americans Flee Progressive Governance
– By Howard Sierer –
American flight from high-tax, high-cost states and cities to more friendly parts of the country is a clear repudiation of overbearing progressive governance.
Last May, the Census Bureau published data documenting a large exodus from cities with notoriously-progressive mayors and city councils. Between July 2020 and July 2021, San Francisco’s population fell 6.3%, New York City’s fell 3.5%, and both Washington DC and Boston lost 2.9% of their citizens.
Where did they go? Most of us in Utah and in other western states have new neighbors who moved here from California, escaping that state’s oppressive taxation and its obsessive fixation on adopting the latest progressive fad.
A recent California law outlawing the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035 is the latest in a long line of measures marking the triumph of progressive ideals that impose dramatically higher costs on its residents while yielding dubious benefits. Large numbers of those residents are voting with their feet: according to the Census Bureau, “California had the most domestic out-movers, with 661,026 people moving to another state” in the previous year.
Residents in large, ill-governed cities in the east are likewise heading for the exits, with Florida being the destination for many. The New York Post reported in September that this year through August, 41,885 New Yorkers registered for driver’s licenses in Florida, on track for a new record.
Even with offices beginning to open again following the pandemic, what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis calls the “Great American Exodus” shows no sign of slowing down.
Fashion designer Alvin Valley, quoted in the Post article, is typical of New Yorkers heading south. He says, “First it was the billionaires, then it was the rich following behind them. Now you have the middle class. Many families just began to feel like New York was becoming unlivable. Especially for younger couples in their 30s and 40s with kids. They don’t want to get on the subway. It’s a safety issue; it’s a school issue.”
As Valley’s comments illustrate, the exodus isn’t just about sunshine or lower taxes, although both certainly are contributing factors. Lower taxes – Florida, Texas, and Tennessee all have no state income tax – reflect their citizens’ preference for smaller government instead of smothering progressive control.
Valley highlights urban crime, a major issue for many and certainly a factor in next month’s elections. Progressives took the lead in defunding the police, leaving many Democratic politicians and candidates holding the bag when crime surged. The party has tried to distance itself from defunding, but the label has stuck anyway.
Progressive city leaders have implemented no bail policies for “minor” crimes and wholesale early release for criminals convicted of those crimes with equally baleful results. Is anyone surprised that street crime, shoplifting, and drug use in public places have soared in these cities?
Valley’s “school issue” is failing big-city public schools. Those schools are controlled by teachers’ unions that are the biggest contributors to mayoral, city council and school board candidates. Teachers’ unions are open about the fact that they represent teachers, not students or parents. The predictable result: parents are either enrolling their children in charter schools if available or leaving town.
Progressive state and local governments drove others of their citizens to move out by imposing needlessly-extended COVID business lockdowns, school closures and masking requirements that had been shown to be ineffective and unnecessary within the pandemic’s first few months. Enjoying their new-found “emergency powers,” progressives in many places restricted personal freedom well into 2022.
This exodus from the north and from California is not “white flight,” as some might assume. Brookings Institution demographer William Frey’s September report describes what he calls a “movement largely driven by younger, college-educated Black Americans, from both northern and western places of origin. They have contributed to the growth of the ‘New South,’ especially in Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina, as well as metropolitan regions such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston.”
Driven by this veritable flood of Americans escaping progressive governance, Miami has become a boom town. Miami’s Republican Mayor Francis X. Suarez attributes his city’s success to a “friendlier business climate.”
Progressives demonize both citizens and companies that choose to locate to places where personal freedom and business opportunity are valued, not diminished by the latest progressive, one-size-fits-all fad to remake society. Freedom to choose where we live and work is guaranteed by our Constitution, which reserves many powers to states. Yet another reason to cheer the limited government envisioned by our Founding Fathers.
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