Just following up on Christopher Reeves’ excellent diary from last week on the importance of resisting any foolish, short-sighted calls for Dems “to move to blue states” from battlegrounds and, in fact--if we are in a personal and financial position to do so--to instead opt to move to battleground states or red states (especially flippable smaller-population ones where modest movements can truly make a difference at state level).We all hate the Electoral College but for now we’re stuck with it, and the fact remains that Dems have won the popular vote in 7 of the past 8 Presidential elections (GOP hasn’t won it since 2004)--so when looking at this with a hard-headed strategic eye, the simple fact is that we have the numbers to win, and they don’t, and the margin improves further every year. Beyond the growing importance of massive voter registration, naturalization of eligible immigrants and GOTV, it’s then a question of math: about whether we can distribute our popular vote advantage to win in the EC (and, likewise winning more Senate seats). Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy--or perhaps, a more targeted version focusing on the swing states and smaller flippable red states--has to be the centerpiece of our platform and efforts, and any idea of just giving up and retreating to a few blue states is the height of dangerous delusion.
The overwhelming majority of Americans in general are based in locations due to jobs, family and other factors, but for those Blue voters among us who do have the ability and interest to move with this consideration in mind, it’s important to be strategic and help to leverage our growing popular vote majority to build an insurmountable Electoral Vote majority. As one of our precinct speakers put it last week, the GOP has made a permanent turn into fascism with Trump (and Trump’s model and followers, even if he’s not in the driver’s seat--see the RNC itself justifying the storming of the Capitol last year, and Trump’s endorsements dominating their primaries) and his knuckle-dragging SCOTUS and federal judge appointments leading the Republican Party and its neo-fascist ideology. Thinking that the GOP would ever return to the less repugnant Bob Dole or William Buckley version is sheer fantasy at this point--the now neo-fascist GOP is never changing because it’s driven by a shrinking, angry base terrified of a pluralistic USA. As she also put it, today’s GOP is the biggest threat ever to US democracy, and this also means that you aren’t safe in a blue state or red state if these fascists take control nationally, since they’ve essentially started a cold Civil War that was brewing even before their thugs stormed the Capitol on January 6. (Nor is just escaping overseas an option, an even more impractical idea than “let’s just move to safe blue states”—more detail on that below*.) Part of this involves thinking and acting strategically to seize an overwhelming EC advantage--which even the present demographics (as shown by popular vote totals, before we even get to the future trends) make possible--along with patient work to gain more and more control to build from the local level, in the state legislatures and statehouses.
The “move to blue states” meme is also grossly naive and delusional because it ignores the fact that virtually every red state (and all the purple states) have strong Blue regions that are often the best places for politically active, organized Democrats to move. (The whole “blue state/red state” division is more of a media oversimplification anyway.) In fact in at least a couple cases for associate precincts we’ve been in touch with, those “let’s all pack and move to a blue state” posts were found out to be coming from Republican sympathizers trying to undermine us in the EC--which isn’t surprising given how dumb and self-defeating such moves would be for our efforts to defend American democracy and progressivism. (If you see ever such posts on any social media, in most cases they’re likely just expressions of naivete, but since they may indeed be coming from Trumpian sympathizers trying to goad us into ceding ground in the EC, make sure to politely but substantively rebut them--we’ve been seeing more and more of this, and it makes a difference!)
In fact in part because of their battleground status, Dems in purple states (and smaller flippable red states) are consciously aware of the importance of political organizing and providing mutual support, which is often taken for granted in blue states. And as a bonus, homes and cost of living are often very affordable in those blue or mixed regions in battleground states. So for ex. if you’re a retiree in a safe blue state with some freedom to move, you have the option now and over the next couple years to basically sell at the top of a huge housing bubble, and help use the proceeds to move to a roomier home in a swing state or small red state--and the best part, you don’t have to move to a crazy red region. You would be surrounded by motivated and supportive Blue communities in and around Charlotte, Asheville, Carrboro or Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina; Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Corpus Christi or even (more and more) Amarillo or Arlington in Texas; much of greater Phoenix, Flagstaff or Yuma in Arizona (Phoenix has one of the most thriving artistic and LGBTQ communities in the US); Philly, Pittsburgh, Erie, Harrisburg or Reading in Pennsylvania; Atlanta, Columbus and (more-and-more) Macon in Georgia; Gainesville, Tallahassee, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota, basically all of Broward County (we’ve got some of the Bluest parts of the country down here) in Florida; Saginaw, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Marquette, a revitalizing Detroit, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids or Traverse City in Michigan; Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire, Appleton, Green Bay, Waukesha, Wausau, Fond Du Lac or Racine in Wisconsin; Cleveland, Cincinnati or Dayton in Ohio; Ames, Iowa City, Des Moines, Davenport and Cedar Rapids in Iowa; or Las Vegas and Reno in Nevada.
But it isn’t just in the standard menu of battleground states where we have those solid Blue regions, and where we can look to win. Blue Aardvark, Johnny Wendell and other posters on Christopher’s diary made some great points about the flippability and winnability even of states we don’t normally think of, and of the Blue sections growing within them, too. Mississippi is closer than we often realize, esp as more African-Americans and African immigrants settle there (many of the former returning to old family plots), indeed cities like Jackson, Hattiesburg, Tupelo, Gulfport, Biloxi and Oxford have a growing Black American entrepreneurial class and intelligentsia, and the Mississippi Delta region is one of the most strongly Democratic in the country. In South Carolina there’s not only Charleston and Columbia, but also coastal cities with more liberal retirees, or boom-towns like Spartanburg, Aiken and Greenville attracting more educated and Democratic voters and, like Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama, African-Americans returning from northern cities to old family farm plots. Alabama for its part has not only Birmingham and Montgomery, but also artistic and tech hubs like Huntsville, Mobile, Muscle Shoals and Tuscaloosa. Among the smaller flippable states--where a movement of just a tiny fraction of Blue Californians, New Yorkers or New Englanders would turn them Blue (“Bluewashing” is perhaps the term occasionally used)--there’s liberal and hip Juneau and Anchorage in Alaska (the state’s generally a nature-lover’s, artist’s and athlete’s paradise, and it’s already trending progressive in many places). Boise and Cheyenne are gradually trending Bluer, and Idaho and Wyoming are so small that a relatively small migration would flip them. And then there’s also the fact that even more traditionally red (in Presidential elections) states like Kentucky, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Montana have Democrats pulling off strong wins for governor, once solid-red House districts and Senate seats. They may be a bit tougher to win than the other closer battleground states, but again down the road, they’re worth solidifying as we gain stronger footholds in the main swing states and smaller flippable red states. It’s again important to remember that not only are present US demographics (based on popular vote) strongly in Democrats’ favor, but even more so in future years. (Not to mention that GOP officials and the base seem to be doing their best to kill off their own voters by denying them healthcare, opposing COVID vaccines and masks, selling out working-class blue-collar jobs for the profit of billionaires and other policies. Many of us esp down in Florida and Texas have relatives among that base so this isn’t a happy topic but it is what it is—and we’d much rather convert them to the progressive side, some of them have indeed come.)
And on an informative historical note of interest--there’s actually an important precedent for this. Again it’s worth reiterating, the overwhelming majority of Americans of either party or independents can’t just pick up and move anyway due to jobs, homes, families and other factors. But even with such constraints, America has a history of mass migration from the then-equivalent of progressive Blue Staters who made a huge difference: Kansas after the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Although the “headline history” of Bleeding Kansas is what usually attracts our attention, in fact it was the willingness of progressives to move en masse from what were--essentially at the time--safe blue states (mostly in New England and New York) to Kansas that changed the course of history for the region. With the Act and the popular sovereignty doctrine, the first settlers to Kansas were largely slaveowners and their supporters, working to bring their own horrific version of chattel slavery to the state while also preparing a mini-Trail of Tears for the indigenous tribes there. But because of the mass migration of those 1850’s Blue Staters to Kansas, abolitionists and other progressives eventually gained a demographic upper hand to outnumber the pro-slavery faction. They were from there able to save untold thousands of African-Americans from the horrors of the particularly violent form of slavery that took hold in the Plains, and help protect many of the native American tribes from an Andrew Jackson-like displacement. At the most critical juncture facing that era’s version of a fascist, aristocratic group of extreme conservatives, progressives stepped up to leave their safe progressive states and move to Kansas in large numbers to make sure that the knuckle-draggers were denied control. We’re now facing an analogous threat today in 2022, the most dangerous organized fascist political party in the US since those pre-Civil War days in the form of today’s Republican Party. And we need to step up and build an unbeatable majority in the Electoral College for the same reasons.
*And just a final quick point as mentioned before--the idea of American progressives just “picking up and moving overseas” is even dumber and more impractical than just picking up and moving to supposedly safe blue states. International movement and migration is extremely hard in general for anyone who’s actually done it--slow, expensive and incredibly tough to qualify--but now all but impossible with the effects of COVID, conflicts and economic troubles. The idea of some disaffected progressives to just pack up to go to Europe right now esp is just fantasy. First, the EU isn’t some progressive paradise--it does have more social supports and safety nets, but from several of us having worked there, you come to realize it has as much to do with supporting economic competitiveness and national economic well being as progressive ideals. If anything the European Union is much more tribal and xenophobic than the US due to its long history of ancient tribes becoming nations, and those safety nets are designed for the good of the taxpaying population--they’re not nearly as generous as sometimes supposed, and “get to work” expectations are often even tougher. Not to mention that if the US went full fascist from a GOP takeover at the national level, it’s not like you’d be safe in Europe either. The EU then would be squeezed between a fascist (and probably militaristic) USA, a fascist Russia and a highly mercantilist China, already by far the world’s largest economy (based on GDP by PPP, the real measure used by World Bank and most of the world) and with enough trade leverage to overwhelm a democratic Europe surrounded by hostile powers. And finally there’s the visas--again it was hard enough to get to the EU before, but now it’s all but impossible with recent developments. We have some old associates there, and they’re seeing that both during and after the war in Ukraine (the latter often when the biggest movements occur), the EU may well be taking in more than 10-12 million people over a span of just 6-8 months (they’ve already taken in close to half that)--that’s more than the past 2 decades put together! And as things are turning out, now more and more the asylees and refugees are Russians or Belarussians fleeing the draft or just dissidents (some posing as Ukrainians crossing into Poland), and the EU can never send them back. It’s a tremendous strain on the EU’s housing and jobs market, so as our old co-workers in Europe described it, the EU for a good while is essentially “Fortress Europe” and closed except for further migrations from the ex-USSR, or their diaspora populations from the Americas, Australia or New Zealand. Unless you have a very special in-demand skill, or can get into Europe through a back-door--in practice this means either marriage, or coming in through ancestry in one of the EU members (jus sanguinnis)--there’s basically no way in there. So we have to fight and win here, in the United States, and keep the fascists from power here in the US. And that, again, means following the example of the “1850’s Blue Staters” when we can to move from safe blue states to help secure battleground states and smaller flippable red states. We’re at one of those critically urgent points to preserve US democracy now, and we need to think and act strategically.