Blue States Archives - The Michigan Star

America Is Undergoing a Massive Population Shift

December 25, 2023 Michigan Star Staff

Democrat-run states are still losing population, new Census Bureau data reveal, a development that could have electoral implications when the government reapportions congressional districts in 2030.

Oregon, California, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, all states with Democratic governors and Democrat-controlled state legislatures, lost between 0.01% and 0.52% of their population between July 2022 and July 2023, according to the Census Bureau. Left-leaning states experienced similar declines in the lead-up to the 2020 Census, which led to them losing seats in the House of Representatives and votes in the Electoral College, an outcome that could occur again in 2030 if current trends persist.

Commentary: ‘American Refugees’ Is a New Book That Offers Some Surprises About Those Fleeing Blue States

November 12, 2023 Michigan Star Staff

By now, most readers are aware of the ongoing exodus from blue states to red states, from places like California and New York to the Carolinas, Texas, and Florida. Some of these migrants are retirees in search of warmer weather. Some are millennials in U-Haul vans looking to lower the cost of living or in search of better jobs.

And some are just men and women fed up with high taxes, bad schools, street crime, crumbling cities, and left-wing policies.

New York, California, and Illinois See Incomes Decline for First Time Since 2009

October 10, 2023 The Center Square

America’s three largest Democratic states, along with Rhode Island, Mississippi, Louisiana and the District of Columbia experienced income declines in the last year while the nation as a whole saw incomes rise by 2%. New York incomes suffered the worst, declining 1.6%, while California incomes declined the least, at just 0.2%.

These figures come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s revised numbers for 2022, which also reduced national growth from 2.1% to 1.9%, a cut in reported growth of roughly 10%.

Americans Move to Red and Blue States as Polarization Deepens

July 10, 2023 Michigan Star Staff

As political polarization is on the rise in the United States, Americans are increasingly moving to either deep-red states or deep-blue states in order to live among others who share their political beliefs.

According to the Associated Press, 48 out of the 50 states have one party in control of their state legislature. In 28 of these states, the party in control has a veto-proof supermajority in at least one chamber. As a result, Republican-controlled states are implementing more conservative policies while Democratically-controlled states enact more left-wing policies.

Commentary: Let the Blue Cities and States Fail

April 13, 2023 Michigan Star Staff

A Wall Street Journal article on Sunday predicted the obvious: the Biden administration is on the verge of demanding yet another bailout of the failed, rotting Democrat machines that have destroyed every jurisdiction they run:

The Federal Reserve’s latest interest-rate hike paired with the continuing bank panic is causing credit conditions to tighten. State and local governments could be the next sinking ships that Washington gets called on to rescue.

Parents Organization Reports Nearly 6,000 U.S. Public Schools Support Keeping Child’s Gender Identity Hidden from Parents

March 9, 2023 Susan Berry, PhD

A Parents Defending Education (PDE) report revealed that 5,904 government schools in the United States maintain transgender or “gender nonconforming” policies that openly assert school staff can or should keep a child’s preferred gender identity hidden from parents.

Blue States Consider Letting Anatomical Males into Women’s Prisons, Hiding Their Backgrounds

February 22, 2022February 21, 2022 Michigan Star Staff

barbed wire fence, outiside of a prison yard

As West Coast states deal with the fallout of putting anatomically male inmates in women’s prisons, the East Coast is looking to join the club.

Maryland is considering legislation similar to a California law that lets inmates choose their correctional facility based on self-declared gender identity, an option that concerned even transgender inmates in the Golden State.

A purported draft executive order by President Joe Biden would do the same to federal prisons, prompting GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas to introduce opposing legislation.

Migration from Blue States to Certain Cities Spikes Cost of Living There

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 The Center Square

The cost of living is skyrocketing in certain “migration destination” cities where those fleeing mostly blue states are landing, according to a newly released report.

Redfin released the analysis, which shows that cities like Atlanta, Phoenix and Tampa have seen higher rates of inflation than the country overall. According to the report, those increases are “double the inflation rates in San Francisco and New York, places people are moving away from.”

“Migration into those places is one reason for rapidly rising prices of consumer goods and services,” Redfin said. “Because of high inflation, including rising home prices, the financial advantage of living in what are now relatively affordable places is likely to diminish.”

Commentary: The New ‘Blue Confederacy’

November 23, 2021November 22, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Why are progressive regions of the country—especially in the old major liberal cities (e.g., Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle)—institutionalizing de facto racial quotas through “proportional representation” based on “disparate impact”? Why are they promoting ethnic and racial chauvinism, such as allowing college students to select the race of their own roommates, calibrating graduation ceremonies by skin color and tribe, segregating campus “safe spaces” by race, and banning literature that does not meet commissariat diktats?

Why are they turning into one-party political fiefdoms separating the rich and poor, increasingly resembling feudal societies as members of the middle class flee or disappear? What does it mean that they are becoming more and more intolerant in their cancel culture, and quasi-religious intolerance of dissent, on issues from climate change and abortion-on-demand to critical race theory and wokeness?

Isn’t it strange that there are entire states and regions wholly reliant on the money and power of “one-crop” Big Tech monopolies? And why, in the 21st century no less, are Democratic-controlled counties, cities, and entire states nullifying federal law?

Commentary: Keep Slandering Red States, Corporate Media and We’ll Keep Winning

October 31, 2021October 30, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

One of the delights of living in Montana under complete Republican governance is that even though your state can be mercilessly trashed by the arrogant blue state corporate media, they can’t do much to stop you or your neighbors from living your best lives.

I kept that in mind this week with the simultaneous appearance of not one, but two extended hit pieces on the poor, benighted, ignorant, awful, rednecks in Montana: one in Jeff Bezos’ propaganda fishwrap, the Washington Post, and the other in the failing New York Times.

I had low expectations before reading each, and in that sense the articles did not disappoint; but they are worthy of forensic examination, because both, in different ways, provide sterling examples of the arrogant ignorance that epitomizes our failing elite class, and the hysterical desperation they feel as both power and the narrative slip from their grasp.

Commentary: America Spends Millions Promoting Election Integrity Abroad While Ignoring It at Home

May 22, 2021May 21, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

In 1999, Tim Meisburger helped Indonesia run its first open election in almost half a century.

“The people were very distrustful of the process because in the past the party in power rigged elections to get the outcome they wanted,” Meisburger, former Director of Democracy and Governance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, explained. The United States helped fund more than 500,000 election observers across the country to prevent voter fraud and ballot tampering.

“Because of that scrutiny, the elections were fair and honest,” Meisburger added.

How Georgia’s Voting Law Compares to Seven Blue, Purple States’ Laws

April 12, 2021April 11, 2021 Michigan Star Staff

Democrats have repeatedly denounced the new Georgia election integrity law that requires IDs for absentee ballots, but seldom criticize blue states that have comparable laws on their books—or in some cases, laws making it more difficult to vote than in Georgia.

“Overall, the Georgia law is pretty much in the mainstream and is not regressive or restrictive,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, told The Daily Signal. “The availability of absentee ballots and early voting is a lot more progressive than what’s in blue states.”

Here’s a look at how the new Georgia election law stacks up to voting laws in Democrat-leaning blue states.

Analysis: Federal Tax Overhaul Increased Taxes on Wealthy in Many Blue States

December 31, 2020December 30, 2020 The Center Square

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, harpooned by progressive Democrats as a handout to wealthy corporations, turned out to be more progressive in practice, new data from the federal government revealed.

The federal tax reform measure supported by President Donald Trump increased taxes on some wealthy property owners in high-tax jurisdictions such as Illinois and New Jersey and decreased tax burdens on the middle class.

Commentary: The Battle for California Is the Battle for America

October 25, 2020October 24, 2020 Michigan Star Staff

By now, this is a familiar story. California is a failed state. Thanks to years of progressive mismanagement and neglect, the cities are lawless and the forests are burning. Residents pay the highest prices in America for unreliable electricity. Water is rationed. Homes are unaffordable. The public schools are a joke. Freeways are congested and crumbling. And if they’re not still on lockdown or otherwise already destroyed by it, business owners contend with the most hostile regulatory climate in American history.

Analysis: The Hard Facts on COVID-19 Science Denial

August 26, 2020August 25, 2020 Michigan Star Staff

In a Washington Post op-ed titled “More Republican Casualties From Trump’s Coronavirus Denial,” columnist Jennifer Rubin claims that “red states”—specifically Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas—are “paying the price” for their “arrogant and reckless disregard of expert advice.”

In concert with Rubin, multitudes of reporters and commentators have declared that Republican governors have worsened the effects of Covid-19 by “denying science” and reopening “too early.” Meanwhile, they have praised Democratic governors, like Andrew Cuomo of NY and Phil Murphy of NJ, for their handling of the pandemic.

Commentary: Blue States Have Been Hit Much Harder by COVID-19

July 2, 2020July 1, 2020 Michigan Star Staff

In March, data guru Nate Silver wrote about the different ways blue states and red states were experiencing the COVID-19 epidemic, noting that “states Clinton won do have considerably more total reported cases.”

COVID-19 was not just a blue state problem though. Silver pointed out that cases in red states were increasing far more rapidly.