When you break down the migration numbers even further, the results are fascinating. While California loses residents to most states, it enjoys net positive migration mainly from other blue states, most notably New York, Illinois, and New Jersey. This means that California’s population churn — immigration combined with domestic migration — pushes it farther down the progressive path.
Third, while Teixeira and Leyden point to California as a model for combatting inequality, it’s one of the most unequal states in the nation. The most prosperous parts of the state are not only undeniably beautiful, they’re also populated by a creative and entrepreneurial class that gives each place a distinctive intellectual energy. If you’re rich enough, parts of California are very, very nice places to live. If you’re not, housing prices will keep you out more effectively than the guards at any gated community.
.. The end result is inequality so great that the nation’s tech titans happen to live in the poverty capital of America. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, nearly one out of five state residents is poor.
Finally, California’s progressive supermajority has led to a spate of petty authoritarianism that most Americans reject. I’ve written extensively about how California is seceding from the Constitution. The state has taken direct aim at the First Amendment rights of its pro-life citizens, implemented confiscatory gun-control policies, regulated pronoun usage, and repeatedly attempted to restrict religious liberty. All too often California progressives have demonstrated that “California values” are incompatible with the Bill of Rights.
.. the so-called “Cal 3” initiative announced that it had collected more than 600,000 signatures to put the break-up of the state on California’s November ballot. The longshot proposal would create three new states — North California, South California, and California — and its proponents promise that it would solve persistent problems created by “failing school systems, high taxes, deteriorating infrastructure and strained government.”
But if California progressives try to remake, say, Tennessee in their own image, they’ll find that resistance is fierce. American federalism can encompass progressive and conservative enclaves. American polarization reinforces and hardens those bubbles. Teixera and Leyden believe that one side is destined to dominate. Perhaps. But there’s a different option: We could be destined to go our separate ways.