I used to be able to tell myself that I was okay living in Montana. We were "conservative" but not "Conservative". We had democrats in the Senate and as governor.

But now the things that conservatives claimed they stood for no longer matter. They used to say that they wanted to be left alone. It's why you see so many unironic no step on snek license plates up here.

Even here, where we have a fantastic drag scene and (in the larger areas) a "do not fuck with one of us no matter their orientation or identity" vibe; we're seeing the GOP mind virus take hold.

At our last Pride gathering we had out and open white supremacists begging us to attack them. Our city soccer league has had an, everybody is welcome no matter what, policy. We almost had to cancel this year because our insurance doubled after a single sick bastard took issue with out having three transitioned players. He threatened to come back with his buddies after we confronted him. We still had to file a police report.

And it's not even the majority of ruralites! Both of the incidents I described were Idahoans coming here to stir shit up.

I'm a blue person, stuck in the southeast. I'm nearly 59 years old, so I can't transplant easily. My spouse has family roots and a house here too. (I don't, I've been more mobile before I met her).

She's not likely to sell her house either (despite being liberal) because she bought the home she grew up in; Nostalgia. I'm hoping that in 8 years when I retire, she and I will be more on the same sheet of music. Maybe she'll be ready to downsize (though she still harbors the idea of keeping the house, renting it, and being able to will it to her daughter), and we can consider leaving.

The only game plan I can come up with is get a nice van as our "second home" and live full time on the road; Quite an expensive way to escape. Sigh...I hope she and I sync up eventually.

I live in a blue state I love and my immediate family lives in a red state. I've seriously considered moving to be closer to them even though it would be a bit of a downgrade, geographically. However, I'm not going to move somewhere that my wife won't be able to make her own decisions about medical care. We're not sure whether we're going to have kids yet, but there is no way we'd do it in that red state. And even if we decide not to go the kid route, things don't always happen as predicted and I want her to be able to get all necessary medical care without having to drive to a different state.

I'd be okay with being blue in a sea of red, but not at the expense of my family's health and safety.

The article mentions the types of people who left these states, but I am more interested in the economic activity in the years to come with all this movement. This is a classic example of people voting with their feet. Reagan spoke of this stuff back in the 80s.

[...] this is one of the—the built-in guarantee of freedom is our federalism that makes us so unique, and that is the right of the citizen to vote with his feet. If a State is badly managed, the people will either do one of two things: They will either use their power at the polls to redress that, or they'll go someplace else. And we've seen industries driven out of some States by adverse tax policies and so forth. - Ronald Reagan, November 19, 1981

We have yet to see how all this movement will impact the individual states themselves or the country as a whole yet. For example, we do not know how all this will all play out economically for the red/blue states. COVID mixed with Remote Work has upended a lot of the soft lines that kept people within a state to begin with (for many, but not all). Truly wild times we are in.

So uh... What do we do? The best ideas we've seen basically boil down to gambling on being able to make small parts of symptoms of the root problems slightly better in local areas... ~Strawberry

It would be ideal if blue cities in red states seceded and formed their own 51st state of free cities. The rural voter oriented laws which emerge from state governments impede the right of city citizens to the pursuit of Happiness.