[weiming]

Tongue-in-cheek comment that I've read somewhere is that folks flee Democrat-run cities due to high taxes and mismanagement and move elsewhere, but then continue voting Democrat to bring back the same policies they wanted to escape from.

[reaperducer]

folks flee Democrat-run cities due to high taxes and mismanagement and move elsewhere, but then continue voting Democrat

This does seem to be the case.

If you look at the voting statistics for cities where Californians are fleeing -- Boise, Las Vegas, Reno, Salt Lake City, etc -- those cities are rapidly turning blue.

But I don't know if they continue voting Democrat "to bring back" their old laws and lifestyle so much as they're just used to voting a particular way and continue to do so.

There don't seem to be a lot of people who put effort into making informed voting choices on a candidate-by-candidate basis and just go for whatever party they voted for last time.

[milkytron]

> But I don't know if they continue voting Democrat "to bring back" their old laws and lifestyle so much as they're just used to voting a particular way and continue to do so.

I think the way people vote tends to reflect their beliefs. And generally, beliefs don't change often or drastically.

[reaperducer]

I think the way people vote tends to reflect their beliefs. And generally, beliefs don't change often or drastically.

I see a lot of people who vote based on how they've always voted, rather than based on their actual beliefs. It's part of the tribalism of it all.

Three data points:

In West Virginia there is an expression called Yellow Dog Democrat, which means that the person would vote for a yellow dog before he voted for a Republican.

In Chicago, for the better part of the last century, the policies and positions a lot of the so-called Democratic Party politicians would be considered to be very Republican in other states.

One set of my in-laws lives what would be considered by many to be a redneck lifestyle, deep in the woods, surrounded by guns and beer and American flags, and cobbled-together vehicles, and talking smack about Bernie Sanders being a Communist and such. But guess what? When they go to vote, they vote Democrat simply because they always have.

It's the reason in some elections in some places you have the option (or sometimes the requirement) of pushing one button and voting for everyone on that party's ticket, rather than being forced to choose each candidate on their own merits.

[dodobirdlord]

There’s not really a such thing as a candidate-by-candidate basis, certainly not these days. Candidates are reliant on party infrastructure, endorsements, and fundraising. So when the time comes to line up votes the party speaker or governor or whoever is the acting voice of the party says “jump” and everyone jumps. Voting for a Republican or a Democrat means voting for one more vote for the party line on anything that counts, so you might as well pick which party line you like better and move on with life. It’s sad that this perversely incentivizes things to not change, since it makes party endorsements all the more important.

[dsfyu404ed]

I think a lot of the problem that "democrat" and "republican" are relative to everyone else in the area whereas the official party platform that candidates have to work toward to get $$$ is more or less nationally homogeneous.

Your neighbors in SF might think you're Newt Gingrich but relative to your new neighbors in Boise you may as well be Bernie Sanders.

[Proziam]

I live in Henderson, NV and can at least anecdotally confirm that what you're describing is true. People moving from California, many of whom cite 'safety' reasons, maintain pro-regulation and anti-gun stances, despite Henderson's murder rate being 1/5 that of Oakland, 1/2 of LA, and 1/2 of San Francisco.

[kaikai]

Are you proposing that Henderson is safer than these large cities because there's less gun control, rather than other factors?

[kube-system]

I think they're proposing that Henderson's lack of California-flavor gun-control hasn't caused it to be unsafe.

[Proziam]

This was what I was trying to communicate, albeit not as clearly as I should have!

[formerchamp]

100%. The safest cities in America have the least gun control. Maine passed constitutional carry 5 years ago with much resistance and last year was voted the safest place to live in America. Meanwhile cities like Chicago with the strictest laws are murder capitals. Liberals then say but the guns are coming from X, Y, Z! Well why aren't X, Y, Z murder capitals? Let's deal with the root of the problem and clearly it's not guns/the symptom.

[Proziam]

Just to get my personal bias out of the way: I'm pro-gun, and strongly pro-individual freedom across the board. That goes up to the extent that I don't even care what types of weapons someone owns, so long as they don't use them to harm others.

That said, the violence problems in Democrat-run cities is not because of the guns, nor is it due to gun regulation. There were a slew of poor governmental decisions that have led to massive inequality, poor social conditions, and fostered an us-vs-them culture through the militarizing of police and criminalizing of the poor.

It turns out that if people feel cornered with no way to improve their lives or escape their poor situation, they resort to organized crime or other desperate measures.

TLDR - Crime is primarily driven by social circumstances. Criminal culture is cultivated generationally by those circumstances.

[chasd00]

In the Northern suburbs of DFW there have been some news reports of this but more from a culture clash instead of policy point of view at the moment. Collin Country (North of Dallas) is growing tremendously with people moving in from all over the country.

It's all been positive with anecdotes like inviting "the new neighbors" to real TX bbq's and things like that but it's definitely real.

[redisman]

I don't think housing prices fit easily into generic-Democrats fault somehow. Which seems to be the main reason most people are moving out of the very expensive cities. Based on Bay Area vs Seattle vs Houston it seems to be mostly about do you build new buildings according to demand or not.

[humanrebar]

Houston's zoning laws and the prevailing attitudes about the role of government are not coincidental.

[jayd16]

Or, you know, they just want to move to a smaller city. Houston's still a third as dense as LA, NY or Chicago so its not like politics are the only differences.

[GhettoChild]

What is a large American city run by republicans?

[goles]

Obviously this depends upon your definition of large but Colorado Springs is the second largest city in Colorado at 713,856 in the county and 464,474 city. Has historically been republican and has recalled elected officials that voted for gun control. Colorado Springs is pretty frequently in the top running as one of the best places to live.

[kube-system]

Jacksonville, Fort Worth, etc...

[diafygi]

Tarrant County (Fort Worth), flipped blue last election.

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/elect...

[kube-system]

Senators don't run city governments, though.

[kortilla]

Which is proof of the topic on hand. The influx of Californians brought their Democrat voting behavior with them.

[syshum]

>>Tongue-in-cheek

it is not Tongue-in-cheek , democrats fail to make the connection to the policies they support and the effects of those policies.

See the polices are suppose to "fix" those problems and when they inevitably fail because socialism is not workable, they do not blame socialism they blame the execution, it just was not done "correctly", so if the just vote in the correct democrat this time socialism will work

[qqqwerty]

Prop 13, one of the major factors in the CA housing crisis, was a Republican led initiative passed in 1978. This may come as a surprise to you, but CA was Republican leaning until fairly recently (remember Arnold Schwarzenegger?). A lot of the factors that are contributing to the current housing crisis were established long before CA turned solidly blue.

[syshum]

In what possible way does having a Cap on property taxes, and requiring 2/3 majority to increase taxes cause a Housing Crisis?

>>but CA was Republican leaning until fairly recently (remember Arnold Schwarzenegger?).

Arnold Schwarzenegger was a RINO, Around here we would call him a Democrat, California Democrats are the extreme of the extreme Left. So anyone Right of Stalin is a Republican in California.

Further since 1978 (as far back as I could find data) the CA legislature has been Democrat Controlled, so sure they may have had a couple of "republican" Governors, that does not make them a Republican state or mean any free market policies where passed, the Democrats have had a tight grip on the state for as long as most people have been alive

[qqqwerty]

It is a complicated issue and there were number of unintended consequences. But the main one is that long time property owners (NIMBYs) are insulated from (if not down right incentivized to support) anti-development measures. Because their property tax rates were frozen at time of purchase, they do not feel the impact of rising property prices. It also has a chilling effect on housing 'liquidity', because moving out of your existing home to upsize/downsize would mean you loose your preferential tax treatment.

I added a link below that goes into some of the other issues that it created [1]. And in case you think I am trying to blame Republicans for the housing crisis, I am not. Local politics rarely align cleanly with national partisan fault lines. In California, the NIMBYs tend to be more conservative and have aligned themselves with liberal anti-gentrification and anti-development environmentalists. And the liberal leaning millennials (who are heavily impacted by the housing crisis) are aligned with right leaning pro-development groups.

Regarding your RINO comment. I think this link is relevant [2]. The current Republican party would be considered extremely right wing in any other time or in any other first world country. Universal Healthcare receives bipartisan support in every advanced economy in the world other than the US. ObamaCare, the 'radical socialist left wing policy', was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation[3]. And Universal Basic Income was originally proposed by none other than Milton Friedman, the champion of free market economics[4]. So these 'socialists' that you deride aren't socialist at all, but rather centrist democrats pushing center-right policies.

[1] https://www.kqed.org/news/11700683/too-few-homes-is-proposit... [2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-republican-party-ha... [3] https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr... [4] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-19/univer...

[syshum]

>>And Universal Basic Income was originally proposed by none other than Milton Friedman

100% false, Friedman's negative income tax WAS NOT a UBI. it was a replacement for all welfare. It was the lesser of 2 evils and if you watch any of the talks he gave on the subject it is presented just as that. Better than massive government welfare programs

Further with UBI there are "good" ways to do it, (i.e I would be in favor of a Geo-Libertarian UBI) and there are Bad ways to do it (i.e UBI paid for with Income based Taxation)

> US. ObamaCare, the 'radical socialist left wing policy', was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation[3]

That is 100% misleading, Some parts where yes but many parts where not. 2 of the Big Differences is that the 90's plan included Tort Reform which is need to lower costs, and did not expand medicare like Obamacare did

It was also viewed as an unacceptable compromise by many republicans, the purpose of the bill was to compromise with the Democrats that wanted Single Payer, this is the exact compromise that was made for the ACA and as predicted by the Republicans in the 90's it simply gave the democrats grounds to then claim "it was not enough" and that the only option now is single payer government run healthcare.

It has more or less removed Free market alternatives from the debate which is sad

> The current Republican party would be considered extremely right wing in any other time or in any other first world country.

Wrong actually, if you look at any data the democrat party is pulled WIDELY to the left, where the Republican Party has more or less stayed the same or has shifted slightly to the left since 2000

Republicans have not changed their principles or policies in a large number of year, it is the "left" that has changed considerably.

[qqqwerty]

> 100% false, Friedman's negative income tax WAS NOT a UBI

Uhhh, you are flat out wrong. They are basically the same thing[1]. Here is a link from CATO (a conservative outlet) talking about how the benefit of UBI is it would replace existing welfare programs[2]. Maybe try using google before making ridiculous claims.

> the 90's plan included Tort Reform which is need to lower costs

Tort reform was a straw man argument that was used by Republicans in a desperate attempt to explain why the ACA was not a 'conservative' policy. Pointing out small differences in policy details to try and explain away the origins of the policy is straight up dishonest. And just to be clear, tort reform was left out because it does not have a meaningful impact on health care costs[3]. Including it in the ACA would have been pointless and just added more complexity to an already complex piece of legislation. It was 100% the right thing to do.

> it simply gave the democrats grounds to then claim "it was not enough"

Largely because Republicans have continued to knee-cap the ACA at every turn. We tried to fix healthcare with a bipartisan policy, and you all threw a hissy-fit and decided to do everything in your power to make it fail. So I have zero sympathy with your single-payer fear mongering. The democrats shift towards stronger support for single payer was entirely in response to the shortcomings of the ACA, which largely happened due to Republican obstruction. You brought this on yourselves.

> Republican Party has more or less stayed the same or has shifted slightly to the left since 2000

I posted a link that was using data from a non-partisan research institute, and the conclusions of that research was that Republicans have been shifting rightward, even since 2000. Here is the link again[4]. Please show me credible non-partisan research to support your claim that the 'democrat party is pulled WIDELY to the left'. If you think the rise of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren some how proves your point, consider this: Bernie Sanders has been in politics since the 1980s. And as mentioned in my original post, his policy proposals would be considered center-left in any other time or in any other country. The only thing that has changed in the past 25 years in American politics is the complete take over of the Republican party by overzealous ultra right-wing anti-government partisans.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/6djjsj/whats_b... [2] https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/universal-basic... [3] https://publicintegrity.org/health/analysis-the-mythical-ben... [4] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-republican-party-ha...