Color these (new) Tennessee former blue-staters red | Opinion
Blue-state advocates will sometimes claim that it’s only because of a lower cost of living that blue-staters are stampeding for the exits. But that oversimplifies the issue.
- George Korda is a political analyst for WATE-TV, hosts “State Your Case” from noon to 2 p.m. Sundays on WOKI-FM Newstalk 98.7 and is president of Korda Communications, a public relations and communications consulting firm.
Blue-state America’s tired, poor (or not) huddled masses yearning to breathe free are coming to Tennessee — and other red states — in huge numbers.
I recently met a highly educated, professional family from Washington state who’d moved to Knoxville. Wondering about their reasons for coming such a distance, I asked what motivated them. Their answer was that they no longer wanted to live in a state with Washington’s rising crime rate and politically liberal political, regulatory, taxation and educational priorities.
They must have been the scouting party, because shortly afterward several other family members fled the Evergreen State for the Volunteer State.
Where are they coming from?
But people are coming from a lot of blue places. A September 2021 News Sentinel article, "Where are new Knoxville residents coming from?" based on information from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors named the top 10 places of origin of people moving to Knoxville. Republican-led Miami, Florida, at 2.4% of those arriving, was the only red spot; all others were a blue hue. More than 41% came from just four places: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Money’s doing a good deal of talking in terms of where people want to go, or from where they want to get away. According to U-Haul’s website on Jan. 2, 2022, to rent a U-Haul truck with a pick-up date of Jan. 10 to move the contents of a three-to-four bedroom-sized home from Knoxville to Los Angeles cost $1,675. The charge to rent a similar truck to move from Los Angeles to Knoxville: $9,275.
To move to New York city from Knoxville, the rental cost on the U-Haul truck was $464. But to move from New York to Knoxville, $2,111 (note: these figures may not be current: the price to move from New York to Knoxville went up $7 dollars within a few seconds).
Tennessee isn’t the only recipient — or victim, depending on your point of view — of this mass migration. Net migration into Texas just from California was about 50,000 each year in 2018 and 2019, based on U.S. Census Bureau figures analyzed by Rice University. This past year, for the first time, California lost a congressional seat (which is based on population) while Texas gained two. Red state Florida gained a congressional seat; blue New York lost one.
America's mass migration
Forbes.com had a stark March 2021 headline for what’s happening around the country: “America’s Mass Migration Intensifies as ‘Leftugees’ Flee Blue States and Counties for Red.”
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The Forbes article said, “A recent poll found that 42 percent of San Francisco Bay Area tech workers and about 40 percent of New Yorkers would leave those regions if they could continue working remotely. It’s not that they want to live in these expensive urban centers, they feel they have to if they want to stay employed … for now, anyway.”
Blue-state advocates will sometimes claim that it’s only because of a lower cost of living that blue-staters are stampeding for the exits. But that oversimplifies the issue and ignores factors defenders find inconvenient. It’s also a reality that taxation and regulatory policies, from the local level on up, are substantial factors in making life more expensive.
Tennessee, dominated by the Democratic Party for more than a century, began to turn red in earnest in 1994, following the first two years of President Bill Clinton’s administration. Tennessee Republicans, taking advantage of the ever-more-leftward national Democratic Party lean, have been on the ascendancy ever since.
There are Tennesseans and others in red states who are understandably uncomfortable with the influx of blue-staters, fearing they might bring with them high-tax, big-government philosophies. But it appears most are coming to escape those situations, so it wouldn’t seem likely they’d want to duplicate those conditions in their new home.
This isn’t to say that Tennessee doesn’t have long-standing political “progressives” (read, “liberals”) within its population. They tend to be concentrated in the blue islands within the ocean of red that is Tennessee’s political coloration. Some blue-sters carp a good bit about Tennessee’s politics and low-tax climate.
On such occasions I make it a point to ask them this: “If you don’t like Tennessee, what blue state would you like to see Tennessee emulate? California? New York? New Jersey? Washington state? Another?”
I have never — and I mean never — gotten a straight answer as to why they want to turn Tennessee into a place they don’t want to live in the first place. Perhaps they like the taxation, regulatory and other advantages of living in red Tennessee while at the same time talking it down. That enables the best of both worlds: a sense of moral superiority while not having to live under the policies for which they claim to pine.
But if someone really wants to live in their blue political heaven, there are locations throughout the country that would love to see them. And the rental truck to move them won’t cost much.
George Korda is a political analyst for WATE-TV, hosts “State Your Case” from noon to 2 p.m. Sundays on WOKI-FM Newstalk 98.7 and is president of Korda Communications, a public relations and communications consulting firm.