On October 8, 2015, Glenn Reynolds’ USA Today column featured a proposal that people in states receiving a large influx of immigrants from other US States work up a “welcome wagon” that would be “Something that would explain to them why the place they’re moving to is doing better than the place they left, and suggesting that they might not want to vote for the same policies that are driving their old home states into bankruptcy.” That was sound advice. Professor Reynolds suggested that some of the money bags supporting the GOP get behind the effort.
So what’s happened over the last five years? Here’s Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit Blog, currently the latest mention of the welcome wagon proposal on November 5, 2020, “Someone still needs to implement my Welcome Wagon Project.”
Five years of waiting for someone else to pick this up is enough.
I’ve cracked open a new email address, welcomewagon@citizenintelligence.org and am giving the project a free three month trial. If you are interested in participating, drop me a line.
You’re never going to convince blue tribalists from CA, NY, etc., to vote sanely when they move somewhere else. Their tribal affiliation is too strong. It would destroy their conception of self, and people just don’t do that easily.
Remember the late 60’s and the 70’s.
The people living in Washington and Oregon frequently said: “Please don’t move up here and put in California policies.”
This seems worth a try. What have we got to lose? Sign me up!
Brian – Culture is upstream from politics. I believe the cost will not be high to distribute and the number of people who are on the fringes of the tribe far outnumbers the hardcore people who truly have their identity wrapped up in blue politics.
Oliver Shank – Did they engage with those people in an organized way? I have never heard the tale how they did it. It seemed all very haphazard to me.
Lucretius – If you haven’t already sent me an email, write me a note to welcomewagon@citizenintelligence.org . The next task is sorting out a specification for what is to be done.
The leftie immigrants from Blue states are giving us a bad name. Us – people on the Right who are in ever-decreasing minority here and are attempting to move out to the MidWest and/or South.
Because of them we are not welcome.
I’ve been trying to find work in the big cities outside of the East Coast; once a recruiter hears I’m in NYC and “willing to relocate”, their enthusiasm turns sour and I’m given all kinds of excuses.
I am sure I am not the only one in this situation.
Brian, remember – some of us are hostages here, behind the enemy lines.
Tatyana: I live in Central New York. People here could literally all be diagnosed with PTSD from the past 50 years. New people here aren’t greeted with “Welcome!”, they’re asked “Why would anyone move here?”
I’ve said here before that I encourage you welcome wagon folks to just drop Andy’s name in conversation with transplanted New Yorkers, if they respond with expletives then they’re probably good and should be welcomed, if not you need to shun them and get them to leave before they settle in like cockroaches and ruin the place.
Tatyana – You are part of the target audience. Besides all of the political issues are cultural ones. I lived in the Midwest for two decades. I never really understood what made the people of Chicago and surrounding areas tick. And those politically blue, blue state emigrants are not only politically bad for their red state destinations, they’re culturally bad because they have a habit of trying to shame those who disagree with them.
TM Lutas:
“they have a habit of trying to shame those who disagree with them”
…and the other way around. I have experienced that, from some [Southern, conservative] commenters on my blog, who didn’t like my views on religion, f.ex.
I haven’t found in Glenn’s post you linked a request to cultural conformity. But if that’s true, then thank you for the warning. Maybe it is not a good idea to move out of NY, and to exchange one type of busybodies to another.
Tatyana – It’s not about cultural conformity. I had a Masshole recently talking about how South Carolina transplants were going to rise up and overwhelm the uncivilized natives and get rid of Graham. That was offensive not only as a political statement but if you’re going to another state and your explicit stated attitude is that the natives are uncivilized, there’s something seriously wrong with you and your friend group as a matter of culture.
You just don’t do that. But she saw nothing wrong with saying so on a public forum and could hardly conceive that another transplant (me) would find that offensive.
You don’t want to be shamed as a transplant. I agree. That sort of thing is wrong. But I’ve seen a lot more going the other direction locally than natives shaming transplants.
TM Lutas:
I’m very much into American individualism’ tradition, and tend not to sign up with any collective action. Definitely not a SJW. Besides, I’ve experienced immigration on a bigger scale than intra-states: from f.SU to US, with all the accompanying cultural, etc adaptations. There is a Russian saying I agree with: “Don’t bring your own rules to a strange monastery”.
But all this, plus my political view and affiliations are not written on my forehead or in my resume (and they shouldn’t), so it is back to recruiters who shy away from me when they hear where I live.
This is a good idea. Any group of people moving to a new state will be a mix of reachable and hardcore lefties. The hardcores are likely a minority, since hardcores usually are. If the rest can be reached, then you may manage to get a neutral or positive result on an influx of immigrants to a new state.