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While You Adios California, Your New State Wants You to Leave Your Bad Policies Behind – Opinion

By Pluralist / December 28, 2021

This young man took to his Twitter account and blog to confess he has become a cliché. Hari Raghavan used to sneer at Californians for years, but now he admits that he’s making the move. Raghavan is a technology guy, which is surprising because he is encouraging the Silicon Valley’s wilted roses to bloom under his feet in order for Silicon Beach to shine.

New Red State: Another champagne liberal, who caused the chaos in their state’s own country, is about to come to your state.

From Raghavan’s blog:

This is not a “fuck SF” post. It’s a sadness at what is gone, as well as a longing for the possibilities.

One year ago, I was laughing at people leaving the Bay Area. These were just fair-weather people, I assumed. They would be stupid for going to places like Texas and Florida that are political train wrecks.

My wife and I are now packing our lives into boxes after twelve months. It’s not to try to find a better place, but rather to just leave. Over the last 12 months, the pendulum swings hard.

I didn’t think this change in my mindset would happen, or so quickly. I wanted to share the journey, in part because I’ve been in both camps at various points, and I hope those on most parts of the spectrum will consider this a reasonable, balanced perspective.

In summary — there have been many wonderful things about the Bay Area environment and local tech ecosystem. Some of those positive aspects still persist. There have been many challenges to quality of living that have risen and intensified in recent years. The frustrations are mounting.

Progs gonna prog, I guess. After admitting he considered Texas and Florida “political train wrecks,” which state is Raghavan moving to? FLORIDA. Guess he’ll give Governor Ron DeSantis some personal pointers on how to right the train, compliments of California’s Newsolini himself, Governor Hair Gel.

Floridians, be afraid—be very afraid.

People fled California’s disastrous policies and sought to escape their own financial ruin. These people wanted to live the American Dream, have greater choices and freedoms without being ruled by the state government. States like California, New York and other states are unwilling or unable to leave them alone.

People who lived their fantasies and took the entire state’s money, even though others got very little. They either voted for policies that maintained the status quo of tax, theft, and social welfare—or ignored those policies—because they felt they didn’t affect them. Until now.

While it was slow going, progressives finally felt the effects of their bad decisions about who to vote for. Then they leave. They are not like their predecessors and they bring the same mentality to their new state. This is where the problem lies: They try to put in the same progressive policies as the one they left.

Check in with Austin to see how well that’s working for them.

California Adios, a phenomenon that exists in California, is something you should know. In just the last year, six of my friends have moved to Alabama, Florida and Texas. So-called public policy specialists are starting to realize that no one can replace them. Brandon Morse (my colleague) wrote about the California Policy Lab study showing more people leaving California than are coming in to it.

The experts were a little surprised at this.

“Although a lot of the talk has been about ‘Cal Exit’, we think the bigger story is on ‘Cal Entrances,’” said co-author of the study Evan White.

This is in line with California losing a congressional seat after the latest census, not because of a dramatic increase in people leaving, but rather a slower population growth compared to other states.

White stated that the Bay Area saw the most significant changes, with a decrease of 45% in entry from other states and an increase of 12% in exits.

According to him, his greatest surprise was the sheer number of drops at entrances.

“I guess I was a little bit surprised to see that entrances had fallen so much. It wasn’t so much that we saw it in a particular area. For me, the surprise was that this was a statewide phenomenon,” White said.

Raghavan’s blog post explains that people are often surprised by the realities of the ground. This includes rampant crime and homelessness.

We here at RedState have documented the stories for over a year now; the “experts” are still trying to figure it out. It is the same problem in California and nationwide with both local and state governments.

Florida and especially Miami will welcome Raghavan, who is a liberal state. Let’s hope he is open to forsaking the mindset and policy support that helped to make California a sinking ship full of holes. But, Florida is far from perfect, as Raghavan explains it.

This is such a cliché, but we’re moving to Miami.

I know there’s plenty to be apprehensive about. A shitshow political environment on the other extreme… but perhaps a blue dot in a red state will be more moderate than a blue dot in a blue state. A different sort of superficiality and status-seeking… but perhaps it won’t affect us because we won’t be spending all our time in Miami Beach. We’re swapping out wildfires for hurricanes… but perhaps we’ll take that excuse to travel a bit more a couple months of the year. Plenty of critters and snakes and gators and guns, but… welp, probably no mitigation against those things.

But there’s a lot to look forward to. It’s delicious, with many of the more exotic and richly-flavored ingredients that we enjoy. People seem happier and more relaxed. Customers are actually welcomed to the restaurants. The majority of items are cheaper and the taxes are generally lower. The social services appear to be somewhat better. It is possible to build a community of friends-of-friends. For the same amount, we get much more space. It is easier to walk around in the evenings. It is a little more like the warmth and hospitality I remember from the Midwest. The sunshine is also welcome to a few Vitamin-D deficient South Asians.

It is possible that he might be more careful about where he decides to shine. I’ve heard the alligators are worse than the homeless.

I’m sure we’ll find plenty to complain about (or maybe we won’t, because hopefully we’ll become less neurotic, too 😉). But we’re eager for a new chapter, to shake things up a bit, and mint a new identity for ourselves.

Here’s to the newest corner of the world where the upstarts are gathering.

The upstarts have invaded your state from the middle and south U.S. Better start some reeducation programs at the border to ensure they leave behind the mores and habits that ruined the state they’re fleeing.

In the meantime, the last sane person leaving California won’t have to turn off the lights; they burned out a while ago.

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Pluralist

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