This article was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.
The signs really began to become visible at the end of January 2020; there was an exodus of people brewing, and it was galvanizing fears on both sides of the political spectrum. The pandemic situation is cited by the mainstream media as the primary cause, but in reality, the migration had started at least 3 years earlier.
Americans were leaving certain states and cities behind by the tens of thousands, and these places were predominantly leftist in their policies and population. California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, etc.; all of these progressive states were bleeding residents since 2017, the pandemic just accelerated the situation.
There are a number of reasons given for the dramatic shift in population, but two specific reasons stand above the rest: Economy and political ideals. The pandemic itself is only a minor motivator. Consider the fact that residents of California left the state in droves for Texas over the summer DESPITE the problem of COVID infection spikes in major metropolitan areas of the Lone Star State. People didn’t care, they just wanted to get the hell out of California as quickly as possible.
Again, the main reason given by former Californians was politics. They are conservatives or moderates that felt isolated or trapped in a far-left cesspool and they realized their future life prospects depended on them transplanting to a more free and less bureaucratic place.
The fear among conservatives was that the pandemic would smoke leftists out of their hives and that they would spread to more conservative areas and “take over”. This does not seem to be the case. In fact, it appears that most leftists are stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that their states are dying and are actively defending state policies on the web. Check out the angry and delusional comments from California progressives on this opinion article in Arizona telling them to leave their failed policies behind if they move to the state.
These people are suffering from some serious saltiness, and the fact that they are still trying to claim that states like California are economically stable shows how truly delusional they are. Conservative states have nothing to worry about – The lefties are too dumb to relocate. They’re going to sit within the rotting corpses of the states they killed and pretend it smells like roses. This is what they do; when they are wrong or when they have failed they double and triple down. It’s their defining characteristic.
In my state of Montana real estate purchases have surged over the past year. Recent data on school enrollment numbers are up 15% – 20% in cities like Missoula. This includes new students in public schools as well as those registered for homeschooling, and it’s a massive spike for the region. The majority of new students are recent transplants from other states. I have spoken with hundreds of these people personally and ALL of them said they were moving to Montana because they were conservative, many of them were preppers and many of them wanted to be around other conservatives in the event that the world continues on its current downward spiral.
They do sometimes mention the coronavirus situation, but they generally are not worried about the virus itself. Rather, they are concerned about the virus RESPONSE. Meaning, they want to retain their freedoms, they do not like the draconian restrictions put in place in their former states and they are trying to escape the business lockdowns that are killing local economies.
Some states like California have responded as leftists typically do, by seeking to punish people for walking away from the collective. This includes a new Wealth Tax law in the works that would require people with high incomes such as business owners leaving California to continue to pay taxes to the state for 10 years, even though they no longer live there. In other words, successful business owners who leave California will have to pay taxes to two separate state governments at the same time.
California Assemblyman Rob Bonta, one of the people supporting the Wealth Tax proposal, asserts that the pandemic is the cause of California’s economic troubles including a huge surge in the homeless population. However, the spike in poverty and homelessness was escalating well before the coronavirus ever appeared. It was the hard-left policies of the state government that caused this mess; they can’t blame everything on COVID, though conmen like Bonta will certainly try.
The fact that leftist states are poised to institute punishments or disincentives for leaving (which is unconstitutional, by the way), shows just how bad the migration has become for them. Frankly, these state governments need to be taught a lesson, and one of the only lessons they understand is the loss of tax revenues.
It should not be surprising at all that conservatives are rushing for the exits, these places are on fire and progressive legislators are throwing Molotov cocktails for good measure. I’m only surprised by the speed and scale of the migration, the whole thing is happening so fast it makes your head spin.
My point is, the migration is very real. No one can deny anymore that it is happening. But what does it mean for the future of America?
As I have noted in previous articles, in my view the BEST case scenario we can possibly hope for as conservatives is a balkanization of the US-based on ideals and principles. According to the economic data and social upheaval I am seeing, I think there is little chance we can save the whole country in the short term. Instead, conservatives organizing together regionally is the best bet in stopping widespread unconstitutional changes to our laws and usurpation of our culture.
In rural areas in particular we enjoy far more freedom and the majority of people have no interest in abiding by lockdown restrictions. We ignore them. A friend of mine recently had family visit from California and they were astonished at how ‘normal’ daily life was in Montana. They said just being able to go to a restaurant and eat there or walk into a store without being forced to wear a mask was a strange feeling as if they were visiting a foreign nation.
This is saddening to me. The coronavirus is certainly not worth this loss of liberty.
I suspect that the conservative migration will lead to some interesting side-effects. First and foremost there will be continued attempts to stop it. Eventually, states like California will try to implement measures beyond tax punishment. They may even try to exploit the pandemic as a rationale for locking down state borders in the name of “protecting citizen health”. I would not be surprised if hard-left states actively try to physically stop residents from moving away.
As the economy continues to decline and stagflation strikes, likely very hard in 2021 regardless of who is in the White House (you can thank the Federal Reserve for that), price increases will eventually prevent Americans from being able to relocate anyway. But, for the next six months at least I think the migration will continue to grow.
The congregation of conservatives today is perhaps the first time in a long time that we have sought to build a unified front for preserving the American way of life, free from big government, free from bureaucracy, and free from socialist subversion. Without the migration, we have zero chance of achieving this, but there are some who will argue against it.
I have noticed that certain conservatives and moderates are claiming that by leaving places like California or New York the movement is “abandoning the fight” and exposing those regions to complete takeover. News Flash for these folks: You already lost those states. You lost that fight. They have been taken over. And, if you understand strategy in the slightest, you will wrap your heads around the need for a strategic withdrawal so that you can live to fight more winnable battles another day.
This mentality reminds me of the people that were arguing that conservatives should not start their own social media platforms “because the real fight is on Twitter and Facebook”. This is naive thinking. Those platforms are OWNED by the extreme left, and there is no one on these websites that will be convinced by your arguments no matter how reasonable or factual. It’s time to build alternatives that are freer and stop wasting our energies on lemmings that cannot be saved.
What I find most fascinating about the current migration is that it’s bringing together conservatives and moderates or “classical liberals” that have been alienated by modern social justice movements. In my opinion, most moderate liberals are actually conservatives or libertarians and they’re just not ready to admit it yet, but I’m glad to see these people working together.
The fight that is coming will require us to ally with people that do not necessarily share ALL our views, and that’s okay. The goal is to get to the truth, and to use what works best, and to maintain a set of shared cultural principles that value freedom. Americans aren’t relocating anymore out of convenience or economic incentives – it’s actually rather inconvenient and expensive to relocate these days. They aren’t moving due to climate or job availability or wages. They are moving because they have a shared desire to be free. It’s really that simple.
And, the sooner free peoples band together, the safer we will be from the statists and tyrants of the world. If that means the US is broken apart for a time in the process, then so be it. It’s better than having the entire country fall because rational people were isolated from each other.
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The Balkanization of the U.S. would be the coup de grace to the constitution. You cannot claim to be conservative if you are willing to Balkanize the U.S. That is radical. Not conservative. Let history be your guide. Look at the Balkan states. Why create hostile enemies on borders as well as sacrifice coast lines, ports, points of entry, etc. If you break the country up, there is no more United States. If the United States does not exist, the constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land and the psychopaths that have violated it can no longer be held accountable. Surely you know that. Why do you want the sick and evil corrupt psychopaths to get away with their crime spree free and clear? States swing back and forth from DNC to RNC. They always have. Many so called conservatives are equally as guilty as so called liberals. The Republican Texas legislature vs. the Texas governor Republican Greg Abbott is a prime example. Greg Abbott was shot down by the legislature for encroachments on constitutional rights.
Do you really want California and New York to hold the rest of the country hostage if they disband? That would happen if there were to be a Balkanization of the country. That is what just happened and the “conservatives” said, yeah, ok, go ahead, be my guest. Do what ever the hell that you want to. Yeah, the “conservatives” have it all figured out. LOL!
Andrea Iravani
No, states do NOT swing from liberal to conservative. The average GOP stooge refuses to push for voter ID. Ballot harvesting and dead man voters are standard operating procedures. If YOU want to be something other than a KB warrior, move to CA, NY, MA, NJ, or IL. Don’t be a bloody KB warrior and lecture others to stay in a state that is DANGEROUS.
You complain about your civil rights being trampled, but you want everyone else to wallow in misery. IT IS OUR RIGHT TO MOVE and settle in any damned state we want. And your right too. So pickup your laptop and go west! Some great property values in San Francisco, just don’t step in the human waste near the cafes! Bring your rape whistle and pepper spray, ’cause 911 takes a while!
You are wrong. States do move back and forth from RNC to DNC. Look it up propagandist! I am not telling people which states to live in! At no point did I ever say that people should remain in a state that they do not want to live in! I am simply saying that the U.S. should not be broken up and Balkanized!
Andrea Iravani
Don’t california my Arizona! That shit didn’t work in the land of the libtards and we won’t put up with it here! Molon Labe!
Sounds like a good plan really. Here in Oz conservatives will move to Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. Victoria is already lost, as you will have seen in the MSM. South Australia is nearly as bad, while New South Wales is split between Sydney and the East Coast being full of lefties, while regional areas in the West of the state are conservative.
The world has gone corrupt. The ironic thing is that the world is also under total surveillance, which shows that the surveillance state is totally corrupt. The world is worse than insane, it is evil. I just didn’t realize it before because I didn’t want to believe it, certainly not because of a lack of evidence proving that it was. It is not new either. To claim that the world suddenly became evil ignores over 4,000 years of recorded history. So much for surveillance ending corruption and evil, it has escalated and assisted it. Obviously, most people also choose not to believe that the world is evil, because most people end up having children. It is cognitive dissonance and psy-opping. Oh, nevermind the bombs going off all over the world, nevermind the intentional abuse, most people are nice. No, they really aren’t. People would have stopped it by now, after over 4,000 years if MOST people were nice. They just aren’t, unfortunately.
Andrea Iravani
Watch out for those “former Calif people” moving in !
They end up bringing their progressive liberal ideas with them which they demand everyone follow.
Don’t believe me, do your own research look at Colorado now.
The migration of the Calif. people started there in the 90’s with the tech boom in the Denver metro area and 30 short years later after being infected, look at the mess it’s in.
It’s a mini progressive California now!
Be vigilant and prepared.
We always loved Colorado and never thought we’d leave. We were born here. But you’re right, it’s not the same.
The Recall Pollis signature gathering groups are out right now, so find out where they are sitting that day and make sure to sign. They want to acquire 800k sigs to be on the safe side. They guy said they’re organizing primarily on facecrooked.
It’s not over yet but we’re looking very seriously at moving out. It’s just we’re tied to our jobs to such a high degree, it’s difficult to transplant. We’ll take a loss almost impossible to recover from. But if it never ends we’ll start over some where else. We are not going to abide ‘a mask culture’ or a ‘sanctuary state’ much longer. We want our kids back in school, and under no circumstances will force them to wear masks at school. Some kid sneezed and they’re talking about full face shields on top of masks for all public school kids now. We’re not going to fill out surveys and give our identity information to eat at a restaurant. It’s a complete nightmare which changes the face of culture and society.
Not sure of Montana, it’s the neverending winter. Not sure of Arizona, it’s the bake you alive heat. Not sure of moving east, too many flatlanders and with pesticides, living near factory farms may have substantial risk. Can’t seek out great lakes states anymore, active migration infestation and rampant political corruption. Had hoped the Greenland into USA thing would have happened that would have been a trip to be able to move there and retain rights. Can’t go to Texas until the migration issue is settled. The entire West coast is toast. Who wants to see the family dog or the family child chomped by a gator and deal with bugs that never die off in the winter and get larger than cats? Florida is off the menu. Rioting and looting, lost another dozen states. Dr Beggich from Infowars is always on about Alaska, sounds appealing. Then we looked at actual property purchases, it’s not quite so simple. Some places have arsenic in water and need that ported in, others only get supplies via plane, others are just so rural, and it’s cold all the damned time and it’s seasonal access. How would we work and earn a living? We’re not trying to go full off grid homesteaders, we just want to retain our liberties and traditional suburbia life.
How to reform Colorado? Wyoming and the Dakota’s are looking like the only sensible places. Don’t like the idea of being painted red for pot though. And will they like a baseball hat wearer who only drives half sized trucks? Going to live in an RV and never land again if this keeps up, what a total nightmare. Tyranny approaches as we stand somewhere in the year of late 1930’s. And it begins. How people race to the precipice without understanding where the ledge is.
You were born. Just in time. To fight race war. Merry Christmas!
Liberalism and progressive ideologies will continue to expand at a rapid pace as long as the Federal Reserve remains in place. When do we get to vote on that?
I wear my mask all improperly on purpose now. It’s that or lose my professional license for trespassing charges and such. So I keep it greasy on the garage floor and super dirty, wear it with only 1 strap on instead of 2. And for the quick visits I just hold a crinkled old dirt mask sideways on my face and take it down when I pay. Then after the transaction is over and I’m on the way out, I may just drop it on the floor or forget to wear it. I purposefully litter masks everywhere and don’t even think about the cost, because it’s the principal of the matter. They want a ‘mask culture’, I can help deliver that. Halloween is cancelled and I’m sick of seeing the amahozonian van drive by every hour. My dentist had the yearly form and there is a new question on it; ‘are you a mouth breather’. WTF!
This sucks! This sucks! This sucks! You’re fired! You too, you’re fired! You too, FIRED FIRED FIRED! Take your contract tracing and energy audits and die today. I left the water on all day on purpose, tired of the development expansion and I hope the reservoirs run dry. I hope every restaurant closes and never re opens. I hope the stock market crashes. I hope there are millions of displaced homeless people. I hope the dollar falls through the floor. I hope people fight to leave the US rather than enter. Whatever it takes to stop government expansion and return to a focus of liberty first, that’s what I hope for. I’ll be fine. Those idiots, they deserve what’s coming.
I live in Boston, we are stuck here for another year due to job/vesting in retirement situations. I cannot wait to move! I dream every day of getting out of this cesspool – too liberal, too many people, too expensive!
All of the same, social problems spread to redder states, before I got a chance to move.
Although I am sure there are undiscovered, unruined places, how many times should you keep moving?
Thanks Brandon Smith for another thoughtful article. As a fugitive from the Demonrat tyranny of CA, I agree with your article wholeheartedly. Leftists doNOT listen to their constituents, manage tax money poorly, and provide benefits & priorities to NON-CITIZENS at the expense of tax-paying CITIZENS. This anti-American bias is NOT acceptable.
I will PRAY for my country from my home this weekend with many that gather on the Capitol Mall.
I am really curious how California will legally be able to extort money from people who left the state permanently, and if this article is to be believed specifically because they disagreed with how the state was being run. A ten year rolling penalty for bailing out. Gov. Newsom is going to get a whole lot of “return to sender address unknown” responses to the bills he plans on sending out. I expect that most people who are/have left are moving to more gun friendly areas as well (always a bonus for the freedom minded), so sending a Sacramento ninja tax collector team (not-yet-proposed-publicly-but certainly-thought-about) would likely result in negative results. This whole year is like chapters of “Atlas Shrugged” being turned into local stage productions-with minor adjustments to the script to accomodate rampant looting & rioting disguised as social justice expressions.
Also, CA controversially requires the fire victims to keep paying the same property taxes.
There is no Republican, state-capitalist candidate, which expects you to own the land, free-and-clear, without supporting socialist, state services, as a precondition to ownership.
The means of production, point-of-sale, and (redundant) licensure are all formally owned by the state, and no conservative, of which I am aware, is fiscally-conservative or even traditional.
Great points “T”. “Return to sender” mail will pile-up in Sacramental. The “ninja-tax-collector-team” will rapidly lose personnel. After a short time, they will no longer be able to recruit replacements. Folks are indeed moving to places that don’t tolerate tyranny.
Let us hope they leave their liberal policies at the border of California as well. Until then quadratactical.com
They do not leave their liberal policies at the state line.
I should have followed the initial waves of people whom cashed out and moved on.
The allure of increasing property value was substantial. But now the days of easy movement are over. Going to need this equity as a final failsafe based on future political and state happenings.
This must be how the rich people felt as the taxation drove them out of those big states. We’re going to take a loss anyways, so why bother keeping up with it.
Double dog dare you to try and put a cash value on liberty. You can try. You will not succeed. Big city gets closer every day, now with the train, more development, more traffic, nothing is the same. An unbroken concrete landscape. Mega blocks. Mega avenues. Mega cities.
And large cities in conservative states turning blue. Stay where you are sh!theads.
Wildfires are the cause for Californian’ s leaving not failed political policies.
There was an exodus before the fires. NV and AZ saw housing prices jump back in 2018, so it WAS due to state tax increases, $0.73 gas tax, illegal immigrant violence and the costs of housing. ALL of this is due to failed political policies. Nice try Gavin.
There are waves of white flight, on a 10-15yr cycle of subsidized brownwashing.
When the school lets out, it looks like an entirely different country, one year.
Then, we get a couple of new streets and a sports (soccer) park.
New developments called opportunity zones (minority building projects) are in the style of wall-to-wall Mc Mansions and feature heavily in the crime map.
The streets — named after wildlflowers, civil rights advocates, and Indians — return to nature within the first 5 yrs for the use of styrofoam and hollow plastics as an architectural element.
Competing gang graffiti and literal, dead bodies are in the “green” spaces for wildlife and healthy joggers. Officials will remove anything fruiting that takes root, or any native tree that provides cover for undesirables.
Wow Darth, interesting you said that.
What made Rome a pre eminent super power?
Everyone and I mean everyone had an olive tree on their grounds. They lined avenues, roads, everywhere with olive trees. It was a significant export and provided a diverse array of fungibility to other products like wood and textile, while also being fungible as tradable. Citizens were encouraged to plant them everywhere.
Abe Lincoln and the apple tree. History repeated in a certain way.
It is an act of serious and profound disobedience to the state to plant food producing items on public grounds. Don’t let them catch you doing it but make sure to do it routinely. I have some wild grapes down by the river and am still trying to find a way to get the apple seeds to sprout and survive the bunnies by the creek. I throw my older garden seeds into the drain and see randoms springing up along the creeks edge now and then. I have an apple tree right by the fence line and constantly tell new homeowners, don’t forget to plant something that produces food, make your land work for you.
Meanwhile, the city continues to butcher pine and other trees by trimming their lower branches for better visibility or something. They know nothing of trees. The upper branches support the photosynthesis and expansion. The lower branches support the root health and help condition soils to the proper ph balance. Trees that have their largest branches closest to the ground like pines do so for a reason. Trimming that is a death sentence for all of them. Cuts their age life in half.
Jogging is for nerds. Styrofoam foundation, aka; structural foundation. Nope, that’s not what you want. Solid pour concrete from the 50’s used the most durable granites on the planet, and exhausted entire mountains until the supply was gone. That’s why those old homes last so long. Have to special request blended in kevlar fibers and additives now if you want to recreate that kind of concrete.
Just as long as these movers don’t bring one stupid liberal idea with them
To be Frank, I would leave anywhere mired in uppity, violent blacks. It doesn’t matter if their grievances are legit or not, they have form in bringing poverty and high crime wherever they congregate in large numbers (ghettos).
That means the best solution is to live separately. Stress is unhealthy and blacks cause far too much stress to the communities where they gather and complain.
Identity crises, arrested development, the rolling stone which gathers no moss.
Based on the tactics of Marxists, I think they would keep you on your toes, forever moving, if it was their power.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/liminality
I have lived a long time and I have never seen a black neighbourhood improve, or set the standard for high-quality living.
Just look at those high-end design magazines: see any black ‘hoods’ in there? Or a consistent black ‘vernacular’ architecture?
The basis of civilisation is the ability to build; to dream and then realise that dream. It isn’t to park your butt in somebody else’s former home because you crapped the neighbourhood out with crime and poverty. That is called squatting.
Build Wakanda and I will buy a condo there.