The blue state model — high taxes, big unions, very high levels of government service — as Walter Russell Mead and others will be happy to tell you, is not doing well. The city of Detroit is exhibit A for this theory, but many cities and states are moving in that direction.

Texas (in everything except climate) out-performs California, and masses of people leave blue states for red ones. Clearly, the conservative model delivers a much better life for most people, but the Republican Party, which believes in its principles, struggles to sell itself to the American people, while those damaged the most by liberal government — non-whites and the poor in the big urban enclaves — give their votes by the boatload to Democratic machines.