Why won’t Americans move away from states that they characterize as oppressive?
“NAACP Issues Travel Advisory in Florida” (NAACP):
the NAACP Board of Directors issued a formal travel advisory for the state of Florida. The travel advisory comes in direct response to Governor Ron DeSantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.
The formal travel notice states, “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”
“Let me be clear – failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all,” said NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson. “Under the leadership of Governor Desantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon. He should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to stand up and fight. We’re not backing down, and we encourage our allies to join us in the battle for the soul of our nation.”
According to the NAACP Board members, Florida has either no soul or an evil soul. Democracy might “prevail” in the future, which implies that right now there is no democracy in Florida. Therefore, nobody should risk spending a week at Disney World or on the Miami Beach sand.
Where do the successful intelligent people who issued this advisory choose to live? Florida. The Board of Directors page lists Leon W. Russell as the Chair. Mr. Russell’s Twitter profile says that he chooses to live in Tampa, Florida. The page shows that at least some other Board members also choose to live in Florida:
In other words, the folks who said that Florida is too dangerous to visit for even a few days due to its missing and/or defective soul and its lack of democracy choose to live in Florida all-year every-year. There is no income or estate tax in Florida, but the folks who issued this warning pay sales tax to support the tyranny of Ron DeSantis (whose name they do not capitalize properly!) every time that they shop at Publix. If they keep sending money to the tyrant, shouldn’t he infer that they actually support whatever it is that he is doing?
The Republicans I know who live in Democrat-run states don’t say that they are suffering from “fascism”, but they still say that they disagree with lockdowns, school closures, mask orders, vaccine papers checks, race-based government programs, gender reassignment surgery for teenagers, etc. When I suggested to a pilot friend in Maskachusetts that he move to a state where the government would use his tax money to do things that he supports, he said that he wants to but that his wife wants to “stay and fight”. He pays about $400,000 per year in state/local taxes. I suggested that he give me $400k/year and that I would do a bunch of stuff that he disagrees with in exchange. His wife can trash talk me on Facebook and Twitter to her heart’s content. Does he think that I will be motivated to change while the $400k checks continue to roll in?
“Stay and fight” makes sense to me if the dispute is over the appropriate level of school funding or whether zoning laws should be relaxed to allow construction of massive apartment buildings to accommodate some of the 100+ million additional Americans who are going to be living here due to our mostly-open-borders immigration policy. But “stay and fight” wouldn’t have made sense against a totalitarian 20th century government. Nobody who stayed to fight Stalin or Mao had any significant positive impact. Yet it is precisely this kind of totalitarianism that Florida Democrats say they are experiencing. Some examples from the tyrant’s opponent in the 2022 general election:
After what he called “fascism” won by a landslide, did he move to a fascism-free state? I haven’t found any media stories suggesting that Crist did anything to free himself. He’s quietly living in Florida, apparently, paying taxes to keep fascism going. (See Will Democrats have to move if Republicans win in their states? for some more examples.)
Marijuana entrepreneur-partnered Nikki Fried is running the Florida Democrats right now. She chooses to live in Florida, where she says that “fascism” prevails (since we must work to “end fascism”):
Why don’t we see Democrats fleeing fascism in significant numbers? There should be plenty of room right now in the fascism-free state of New York: “NYC lost 5.3% of its population — nearly a half-million people — since COVID, with most heading South” (New York Post, May 18, 2023).
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