America’s Becoming a Suicide Pact
Dave Dildine/WTOP
How Do You Have a Functioning Democracy With…Red States?
by umair haque
Right about now, America’s Red States are fast on their way to becoming…dystopias. “Open carry” laws have led to dramatic…wait for it…open…violence. Women are second class citizens. Basic freedoms are going up in smoke. Teachers are criminalized. Kids are demonized. The LGBTQ are smeared as groomers — and then attacked legislatively. Books, banned.
The fanatics have taken over.
What does the future hold for America’s Red States? I won’t mince words, it’s not going to be pretty, and it’s a warning to the world. A world which is turning to its own Red-State-America-style demagogues and fanatics for a measure of security in a troubled world. It’s — emphatically — not worth it.
What happens as Red States begin to erase modernity itself? As they become places that resemble “third world countries”? As their polities, hijacked by extremists, theocrats, lunatics, turn authoritarian? And they go on a crusade to simply annihilate anyone they regard as inferior, first rhetorically, then legislatively, and then by inciting and licensing maniacs with guns? Giving those kinds of people badges and titles? Perhaps you’ve already forgotten the last massacre. I haven’t.
The classical vicious cycle of self-inflicted ruin is what’s already beginning to happen.
There’s an open secret about Red States. They’re broke. They take in more from the federal government than they collect. That’s not true for every Red State…but it will be soon.
The notable exceptions are, for example, Florida and Texas. And you can already see what’s happening there. Ron DeSantis has begun to politically attack…Disney. The State’s most historic employer. Disney just pulled out of a billion dollar investment package. Pretty simple, right?
What tends to happen as societies collapse is what we economists call “capital flight.” America’s Red States didn’t have much capital to begin with. And where that capital is still in Red States, it’s already beginning to flee. If DeSantis continues his crusade against Disney, how long do you think it’ll take before Disney just…packs up…and moves? You can see the theme writ large in that example, and it’s an illustration of the larger effect.
Why does capital flight take place? Well, picture yourself as an investor. Maybe even just…I don’t know…buying a home. Would you want to live in a Red State, if you had a choice? Probably not. That’s because you’d take on all kinds of risk. The risk of…being shot by some violent maniac with a gun. The risk of having a gay kid, and them being persecuted. Your straight kid getting in trouble for…reading books. You getting in trouble for “aiding and abetting” a woman. That’s all leaving aside the emotional climate of intolerance and rage. All those forms of risk are very real.
They’re even larger for investors. Who knows when a government that’s turned authoritarian is going to…attack your company? Your investment? For God knows what? Maybe one of your execs is gay. What a crime. Maybe your CEO gets pictured on a plane reading the wrong book. Maybe your latest ad campaign says everyone’s a person. Bang. They start to attack you. They pass whole new laws and appoint “oversight committees” to start political witch hunts. Sane money avoids political instability for a very good reason: it carries with significant, usually lethal, amounts of risk.
So. There Red States are. America’s dirty secret is that their lunacy, their extremism, LOL, is being funded by…Blue States. Remember, apart from a handful of exceptions, Red States are subsidized by the government. Now, Blue States don’t resent that, because by and large, people in them think everyone should have basics like roads, schools, hospitals, books, libraries, and so forth. But as this cycle of capital flight continues…what happens?
The already barely extant public purse of Red States will shrink, as capital flees, for friendlier climes. And as it does, what little in the way of public services Red States have will shrink. Their economies will go into a tailspin, sooner or later, thanks to all this fanaticism and authoritarianism. And as it does, what kinds of places will they be left to live in?
Then you’ve got the combination of a climate of bigotry, fear, rage, hate. The gun violence. And now you’ve also got…not a lot else. Maybe cheap housing. But everything else is broken. Another Red State illustrates that pretty well, and that’s Texas. Texas is a rich state — for a reason called oil and gas. But Texas hasn’t spent that money wisely. It’s got poor to nonexistent infrastructure. It’s power grid and its water system are decrepit. Its school system is ranked 40 out of 50. That’s about all the infrastructure it has. It’s not exactly renowned for boulevards, town squares, and high speed trains, after all. All that wealth — squandered.
What happens as societies enter this vicious cycle — as political fanaticism causes capital flight? Well, sadly, that very capital flight tends to solidify and entrench fanaticism. Because as people get poorer, they get more desperate. The demagogue’s Big Lies catch hold and catch fire. Violence spirals. The rule of law stops functioning. And in that way, authoritarianism crystallizes into a newer, harder phase.