President Trump Votes With His Feet

To those who have not figured it out yet, liberals want to massively expand the size and scope of the federal government.  This goes against the vision of the Founders who did not want a massive, centralized federal government.  In Federalist No. 45, future President James Madison declared that “the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” This federalist system has given Americans the option to leave states that no longer meet their needs while remaining a member of the American family.  Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once described the states as “laboratories of democracy.” Unfortunately, the leaders of many states do not seem to have the ability to recognize it when their experiments have failed miserably.  That especially goes for the head honchos in deep blue states. 

Fortunately for the residents of blue states unhappy with high taxes, plenty of other states have much lower taxes; and some have no income or sales taxes at all. As such, many Americans elect to “vote with their feet” by leaving high-tax blue states in favor of red or purple states or blue states with lower taxes.  President Trump announced last week that he intended to leave the state of New York.  In a series of tweets, President Trump explained the rationale behind his decision. After taking shots at the ultra-liberal leadership in Albany and New York City, the President correctly pointed out that “taxes and energy costs are way too high, Upstate is being allowed to die as other nearby state frack & drill for Gold (oil) while reducing jobs & creating jobs by the thousands.” 

As someone who used to live in upstate New York, I 1000 percent agree with the President’s assessment. I lived in a part of the state could benefit greatly from the legalization of fracking but the eco-socialists in Albany, buoyed by Democratic dominance in New York City, have prevented that from happening. My parents and I left upstate New York in the summer of 2006 for a variety of reasons; including the extremely high property taxes, the death of my paternal grandmother, my brother’s decision to settle down in Rhode Island, my father losing his job as a TV repairman thanks to people wanting to throw away their broken TVs as opposed to having them fixed, and the fact that I would have had to attend middle school in a bad neighborhood.  Sadly, the term “drug infested den” describes a large part of the city where my parents spent the first fifty years of their lives.  Rather than solve the problems plaguing Upstate New York, the Democratic dominated legislature thought it more important to pass a barbaric piece of legislation called the “Reproductive Healthcare Act.” After New York Governor Cuomo announced his decision to legalize fracking, many counties in New York’s Southern Tier flirted with the idea of seceding from the state and joining the Keystone State.  Unfortunately for the people in those counties who continue to pay high taxes and watch the leadership in Albany sue President Trump rather than fix the problems plaguing the state, the secession efforts have yet to bear any fruit.

President Trump has decided to make Florida, home to his golf club Mar-a-Lago, as his primary residence. Florida provides a refreshing contrast to New York in a number of ways. For starters, the weather in Florida definitely beats the weather in New York; especially in January and February. While President Trump had to fork over a substantial amount of his fortune to the inept state and local government of New York, he does not have to pay any income tax in Florida. As an added bonus, the politicians in Florida actually like the President; as opposed to the backstabbing politicians who run New York State that hate his guts.  Responding to Trump’s decision to leave the state, the anti-Trump Cuomo declared that “I don’t believe he was a New Yorker, anyway,” adding that “to be a New Yorker is a state of mind.” According to Cuomo, “to be a real New Yorker, you have to be inclusive. We don’t tolerate divisiveness.” Remember that the sanctimonious Cuomo once proclaimed that “extreme conservatives” who believe in the sanctity of life, the Second Amendment, and traditional marriage “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”  Considering the fact that Cuomo’s statement represents a textbook example of “divisiveness,” by his own standards, he fails to qualify as a “real New Yorker.”

In addition to the economic reasons that likely served as the primary factor in his decision to leave the Empire State in favor of the Sunshine State, political calculus likely played a role in his decision as well.  After all, the President’s vote means very little in New York; which went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 by more than 20 points.  In Florida, by contrast, every single vote counts; as the 2000 Presidential Election proved.  Florida, like New York, has 29 electoral votes and will have even more after the 2020 Census, as a result of many other Americans joining President Trump in leaving high-tax states like New York in favor of the low-tax paradise of Florida.  Blue states such as Illinois, New York, and even California will lose representation in the Electoral College and the House of Representatives as many of their residents seek refuge from high taxes. 

President Trump’s decision to make Florida his home makes him the first Presidential candidate in a long time to live in a swing state.  For the past four Presidential election cycles, both of the major party’s presidential nominees have hailed from states that routinely supported one of the two political parties in Presidential elections. It looks like President Trump decided to take the advice I gave him earlier in the year and write a love letter to Florida; the state that ultimately put him on the gliding path to the Republican nomination in 2016. Thanks to his tireless campaigning ahead of the 2018 election, Florida has two Republican Senators for the first time in decades and a Republican governor. All of the Republican elected officials in Florida at the state and national level will serve as indispensable allies to the President as he seeks to win re-election in 2020.

Many deplorables trapped in blue states would surely like to join President Trump and their fellow Americans who have waved goodbye in favor of purple or red states. According to The San Francisco Gate, 53 percent of Californians want to leave the state.  Arguably, at one point, California had as much natural beauty as Florida; if not more.  The western state offers a lengthy pristine coastline while the eastern part of the state contains snow-capped mountains. 62 percent of respondents cited homelessness as a “very serious issue” for California.  After all, having to dodge feces and needles on the way to work surely diminishes the quality of life for residents of the Golden State. 

While many Americans of all political persuasions would like to leave blue states, a variety of factors prevent them from making the move; primarily concerns about employment.  Most Americans do not have the ability to simply pack everything up and move to a new state. Fox News host Sean Hannity has made his desire to leave “the United Socialist State of New York” in favor of Florida and Texas perfectly clear over the years; especially after Cuomo made his remarks suggesting that pro-life, pro-gun conservatives had no place in the state. Hannity explained that he has to pay a “40 percent tax, New York City tax, nearly 10 percent state tax” as well as “social security and FICA,” all of which adds up to roughly 62 percent of his income.  Panelists on “The Five” made similar points last week; with co-host Greg Gutfeld declaring that he would “leave New York in a second” before explaining the two reasons why he could not: “Fox is here…and my wife.”

Unfortunately, it’s not just conservatives who have decided to leave blue states for red or purple ones.  I came across a tweet that summarized the phenomenon of liberals fleeing blue states yet voting for politicians who support the same failed left-wing agenda.  Twitter user An0maly outlined “how to be a liberal city kid: 1.) Vote Democrat, 2.) Complain about homelessness, rent prices & gas prices, 3.) Move to another state when the city gets ruined, 4.) Vote Democrat again, 5.) Destroy the new state that you just fled to, 6.) Blame your destruction on the planet’s climate.” Shankar Singam, an advocate for “Calexit” actually bragged about the high number of people leaving the state, telling Tucker Carlson that their absence will make room for the “new wave of immigrants.”  He also bragged that “when our middle class does move out to Texas and Colorado they are taking their values out to the United States.  If you look at Texas, in fact, all the major cities Californians are going to they are turning blue.  And soon enough Texas will be a blue state.”  While interstate migration among the American people may partially explain the shift to the left in a number of states, specifically Vermont, no factor has done more to change the voting patterns of states than the explosion in the foreign-born population. 

Apparently, a never-ending flow of immigrants predisposed to vote Democratic has not flipped states blue fast enough for the likes of liberal politicians.  Shortly after the 2018 election yielded results that she did not like, failed Florida Senate and Congressional candidate Pam Keith sent out a tweet asking “Hey Blue State Dems: Have you considered moving to a red state?” Keith proceeded to lay out a mathematical argument explaining why cosmpolitans in liberal strongholds should give red states a chance: “A migration of only 50k people would turn some red states blue for the Senate & electoral college. Think about it. Wide open spaces, low cost of living & an outsized say in our politics. Indeed, 75k would flip FL.” 

With less than a year to go until the 2020 Presidential election, as many blue state Republicans as possible should turn the tables on Keith and work to counter the efforts of liberals to turn red and purple states blue via domestic migration and immigration. Understandably, not every blue state conservative can move or even wants to move.  While I would like to move to a purple or red state, I cannot and will not do so until I have the money necessary to live independently. 

Liberals recognize the fact that a lot of people have elected to “vote with their feet” by leaving blue states.  That might explain their increasing hostility to federalism; except when it comes to legalizing sanctuary cities and marijuana.  Rather than fixing the problems plaguing their own states, liberal states declare war on conservative states that dare to pass laws that protect the religious liberty of Americans who do not subscribe to the orthodoxy of political correctness.  If conservatives value their freedom, their liberty, and their vote, they should take the lead of President Trump and “vote with their feet” ahead of the 2020 Presidential election or as soon as possible.