Due to a business appointment in Los Angeles right after Oshkosh and the uncertainty of how long it might take to cross the Rockies in the Cirrus SR20 (a day if the weather is clear and winds aloft are calm or a week, if climate change has generated clouds and strong winds at 12,000′ (turbulence and downdrafts on the lee side), I decided to fly United out of Chicago’s O’Hare airport. A 35-year-old single friend and I departed EAA AirVenture on Saturday and we pondered our options for an overnight visit to Chicagoland. My default destination is the Art Institute, so I suggested downtown. This was not appealing to him. We ended up in the northern suburbs of Deerfield and Northbrook, which happens to be where a second cousin of mine lives with her husband. During a visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden, they said that they wanted to move out of Illinois due to a reduced quality of life that began in 2020 and was continuing to slide downward. They almost never went into the city anymore due to a perception that the risk of crime was now too high. Even their posh suburb had suffered from retail space vacancies (half the stores in a strip mall where we ate dinner (at House 406) were vacant).
They’re stuck in Illinois/suburban Chicago for now due to the need to care for elderly relatives, but perhaps eventually they can escape before they need to pay the state’s $211 billion in unfunded pension liabilities (that’s about $17,500 per current resident, so perhaps Joe Biden can fix via executive order? It’s not that different from the student loan obligations he sought to transfer to the working class).
What interests me is that witnessing and noting the sharp decline that began during the lockdowns did not shake my cousin’s or her husband’s faith in Faucism. They continue to believe in Science-driven lockdowns, school closures, mask orders, and vaccine coercion. Nor has their perception of increased crime and disorder in Democrat-governed Chicago within Democrat-governed Illinois caused them to question their 100-percent confidence in government by Democrats. Their stated perception is that various places in Florida offer magnificent lifestyle and infrastructure benefits compared to suburban Chicago, but they would never move to Florida “because of politics.” What do they think would pull the city of Chicago out of what they say has been a nosedive starting in 2020? “The city doesn’t spend enough on the poor. There are too many people in Chicago for whom going to prison isn’t that big a difference compared to their current life so they have no incentive to stay out.”
The value of their house is perhaps 30 percent lower than it would be if Chicago were safe and vibrant and rich Chicagoans hadn’t moved to Florida. So this has literally hit them where they live and yet their faith remains as strong as ever.
One of my pet theories is that Americans’ political beliefs are actually religious beliefs, not subject to rational analysis. I relate the above story because it confirms my pet theory. I.e., like any good Scientist, I like to follow confirmation bias.
Some photos from the Botanic Garden:
I had the same experience visiting family outside of Portland, OR about a year ago (before the 2022 election). The #1 topic was how bad Portland had become with crime, graffiti, homelessness, and drug use, and how they no longer went into the city if they could avoid it.
The other topic was how horrified they were at the idea of a Republican winning the race for some local seat.
* I genuinely wonder if Democratic candidates underestimate the demand for tough-on-crime Democrats.
As always, those of us in red southern states would prefer they stay in Illinois. Because they’ll move down here, and continue to vote for the same party that turned their previous home into a shithole.
They’re like locusts. They destroy where they live, then move along to destroy somewhere else.
“They’re like locusts.”
Or, like, er…umm…never mind.
“…the state’s $211 billion in unfunded pension liabilities…”
The FL Retirement System (FRS) is funded at 82.9%
https://www.ai-cio.com/news/floridas-pension-posts-14-billion-investment-loss-in-fiscal-2022/
“The Florida Retirement System Pension Plan reported a 6.7%, or $14.24 billion, investment loss for the fiscal year ended June 30 [2023], well off both its benchmark’s return of 13.42% and its assumed rate of return of 6.7%. It is also a huge swing from the previous year, when the portfolio returned 29.46%… The investment losses also helped lower the pension plan’s funded ratio for the year to 82.9%, as of July 1, 2022, which is the latest actuarial valuation, from 96.4% at the end of fiscal 2021…”
Well, that makes me feel good. Not a lot, but I’m eligible for my full State of FL lifetime annual $30,000 pension in two years.
Humans, all of us, are only partially rational. You are right, “Americans’ political beliefs are actually religious beliefs, not subject to rational analysis.” There are some differences, most religions have the concept of sin, faults that offend the doctrine and bring guilt. American political religion is free of personal sin, the sinners are always the ones who don’t agree with you. For example, many Americans sponsor lofty labor laws and do not pay social security for their nannies without feeling guilt.
Hard to imagine a Chicago suburb experiencing any pain. The Home Alone house is still worth many millions. Lions still think owning a house in the rust belt for summer & south TX for winter is the ideal way to beat inflation targeting.
Pretty obvious that Faucism and the like are religious beliefs. People participate in religion in large part because of a search for community, because there they feel safe — probably biological in origin, like fish swimming in a school. Earlier people found that community through established religions. Now they find it through crackpot ideas like Faucism, global warming, DEI, fluidity of gender. The smartest Indian-American running for president, and maybe the smartest guy who has ever run for president, repeatedly addresses this.
docter fauci is my heero.
>One of my pet theories is that Americans’ political beliefs are actually religious beliefs, not subject to rational analysis
I am reading “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari who advances this same idea: although examples are given from other continents too e.g. Communism, Nazism.