America’s most interesting man has moved to Texas. Elon Musk joined the millions of ‘refugees’ who have fled California over the past decade. The move isn’t exactly a surprise. Musk has been a vocal critic of the state’s lockdown policies throughout the pandemic, and it is also worth noting that Tesla, Inc. selected Austin as the sight of its new Gigafactory last May.
If it were anyone else, it would hardly be worth mentioning. Elon, however, holds a unique place in our society. Tesla may just be the most exciting company in the country (look at their stock price). A $40,000 Model 3 generates the interest of cars triple its price. Moreover, Tesla is as strange intersection of Silicon Valley and the Midwest. It is where tech and American manufacturing collide. Even leaving aside his other projects, this alone makes him a person of cultural significance
It remains an open question whether he is simply following a popular trend or whether he is blazing a trail. Will the coastal power be dispersed throughout the country? Will the tech giants move to greener pasture? I tend to think not. Elon Musk is the exception that proves the rule. He is an outsider. Any hope that a red pill fad will sweep the tech industry is a bit far-fetched. Ultimately, I don’t think Silicon Valley has the chutzpah to do anything intellectually unique. Somehow, in a herd of people who think exactly the same, they suppose they have new ideas that will change the world. Let them rot is what I say.
There is another wave, however, that has been spreading across the country for some time. It is the mass exodus of the common folk. In this case, I think Elon Musk’s move represents them more closely. Over 650,000 Californians left the state in 2019. A similar number abandoned New York and New Jersey by the way. Moving trends indicate the numbers will be even higher in 2020. Naturally, there are many reasons for this. Outrageous cost of living combined with declining living standards has overcome many who swore they would never leave.
There is also the fact that doing business in the state has become so unreasonably difficult. Even before Covid, the mountain of regulations had become an unbearable burden for many. The further weight of the pandemic response has left business owners desperate. As their leaders have shown an astonishing incompetence in these matters, it is little wonder they are moving on.
While the exodus may be a positive sign in a number of ways, it often seems more like an invasion to the conservatives who inhabit the rest of the country. One has to think it a little strange that someone can leave a state for its lousy policies and not think to change their voting patterns. Nevertheless, this has clearly been the case. They turned Colorado blue some time ago. This year, Arizona was the latest victim. For goodness sake, Beto O’Rourke almost won a Senate race in Texas in 2018.
The possibility of losing Texas brings the issue into focus. Landslide elections were once quite common without respect to party. The intense emotional polarization that accompanies the current political landscape makes new developments feel inalterable, however. Losing a state like Texas would seem to hand power to the left indefinitely. There is also the reasonable concern that the interior of the country will be made just like the coastal dumpster fires so many had fled. If this happens, where else can you go?
Although I have felt the weight of all of these fears, I am not ready to throw in the towel. In fact, I believe there are many reasons to be quite hopeful. That is not to say, however, that these concerns are irrelevant. It is rather that, unless our democratic process is entirely broken, maintaining power in national elections is never so easy as it is in theory. It is quite likely that in gaining ground in certain areas they will lose hold of something else. The two fears I find most justified are these: the normalization of coastal values and the aforementioned destruction of individual states.
While I do consider these to be real threats, we are certainly not powerless against them. These battles are not won by presidential elections but by the simple course of faithfulness. As this is a path too easily neglected, I will try to offer some practical advice.
First, we must begin to think smaller. Although President Trump has done a great service to the country by breathing life into a dying Republican Party, I am not sure, yet, how we will move forward. So much of our attention has been drawn to the man himself. As we are already predisposed to overvalue the politics of Washington, we must be careful to maintain a healthy balance.
Truth be told. All the actions of the federal government, good or bad, have relatively little bearing on our daily lives. Investment into local politics seems to me, by far, the more profitable venture. Good mayors and sheriffs are a better defense against tyranny than winning the White House. More attention to the places we can actually change, like our schools, would go further in preserving our state and culture.
Along the same line, if we are to affect our cities and towns, we must actually care about them. It seems obvious, but we are too often swept up (or beaten down) by ideals that only distract from reality. By loving our cities simply because they are our cities, we might find they become a good deal lovelier as a result. Chesterton made an interesting observation on this point.
If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great…Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.
G.K. Chesterton — Orthodoxy
The migration patterns of liberals are well outside our control. What is within our reach is the quality of our own homes. Does our home bring forth life? Do our houses make a nicer or uglier neighborhood? Even the affairs of the city are much nearer our grasp. If we cared more for them than swings of national elections, I think we would find that the swings had rather lost their sting.
Most cultural and political collapses are the result of self-fulfilling prophecies. If our attention is always drawn to losing the nation, we probably will. It is by faithfully building where we are able that we can affect meaningful change.
The Free Narnian 