Each day Robert Reich tweets, it becomes more difficult to imagine that he ever spent four years serving in a presidential Cabinet. But on Wednesday, he inadvertently made a good point.
“Anyone curious about how America would do under full Republican rule needs only look at Florida or Texas,” the former secretary of labor tweeted. He followed that up by urging Californians to vote no in the recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom, obviously trying to draw a contrast between the states.
California: Vote no on the recall. The deadline to mail in your ballots is September 14. Please spread the word. https://t.co/9aHry9hwGB
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) September 8, 2021
The problem here is the non sequitur between the two tweets.
Twitter has warped Reich’s perception of reality because he is evidently not aware that he is making a case for Republicans, not against them. According to the 2020 census, Texas saw the third biggest percentage increase in residents compared to 2010, behind only Utah and Idaho. Florida saw the seventh biggest increase. People are flocking to states that Republicans govern.
Apparently, people have looked at Florida and Texas (and Tennessee and Idaho and Utah) and decided they like them — a lot. In fact, they prefer to live in these places over California, and in many cases, they are moving from California to those states. The Golden State remains a natural paradise with beautiful weather, yet its population grew (by 6.1%) at less than half the rate of either Texas’s 15.9% or Florida’s 14.6%. That puts California below the national average of 7.4% and caused it to lose a seat in Congress.
To make it even more clear, the New York Times has summarized the analysis of California’s inbound and outbound residents. According to the data for 2019, more than 653,000 residents left the state during that year, whereas only about 480,000 have moved in from other states. (The population grew based on births outnumbering deaths by more than the difference.) More than twice as many Californians moved to Texas from California in 2019 (82,235) than vice versa (37,063).
Reich is not a serious man. His warnings about turning the country into Texas and Florida are meant to be chum in the water for his Twitter followers, who will gladly eat it up as they read about ludicrous scary stories about what progressives think is happening in those states. But, inadvertently, Reich is making a case for “full Republican rule.” Lots of people are choosing it with their feet, and it is useful that he should point this out.
