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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat the hell happened to Florida
The last few years Florida has seemed to take a hard right direction and it doesnt make sense. From 1992-2016 Florida seemed to be the most purple state that voted for both Republicans and Democrats statewide and the margins were very very close.....at the same time its population has grown, normally when a states population grows it becomes bluer (Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Virginia) and when it shrinks it becomes redder (Iowa, Ohio, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan), but Florida seems to have defied that trend
mucifer
(23,367 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,070 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Sure, some MAGATs are moving to FL because press on DeSantis's doings, and of course Trump's, deceives them that this is a hard-right state.
We actually know two, whom our friends update us on now and then, a pair of gay white and Hispanic guys angrily and bitterly fleeing a dark-red (!) county in socialist California for retirement in south FL, which they clearly see as a safe place where they'll be surrounded by virtuous, patriotic, MAGAT lovers like themselves.
Florida is still purple, tho, and over time more conservatives will either die or move back to their home states in their frail years than are being drawn by political passions -- and will stay. Lots of people who move to FL also discover they made a mistake and leave. I'm guessing that insane-level partisan hostility is going to become the #1 worst reason.
RKP5637
(67,030 posts)walkingman
(7,505 posts)deal with gerrymandering. 2022 is gonna be ugly.
Mad_Machine76
(24,353 posts)walkingman
(7,505 posts)bill. He is calling a special session to make sure that gets done and then another one later in the fall for gerrymandering. Our entire Texas Leadership are the personification of the tRump GOP. An absolute bunch of hillbillies. I know some people feel bad for Abbott because of his legs (that is a story in itself) but I consider him a dickless piece of shit and could care less.
Mad_Machine76
(24,353 posts)Doesn't mean that they can't be an awful person, unfortunately.
FBaggins
(26,693 posts)uponit7771
(90,225 posts)gab13by13
(20,849 posts)USAFRetired_Liberal
(4,167 posts)They cry about Dominion because they know what they do with ES&S
BComplex
(7,977 posts)that had ES&S machines ended up going for the republican candidate.
Many of us wonder about that since the republicans are such masters of projection and shitfuckery.
spooky3
(34,300 posts)RW retirees moving there (less of a factor in other growing states) and an increase in Latinx population, some of whom have macho attitudes.
Elessar Zappa
(13,649 posts)have a very large amount of Hispanics and they voted almost 70% for Biden. I wonder why its different in Florida?
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)mnhtnbb
(31,315 posts)USAFRetired_Liberal
(4,167 posts)Then they should know what political party has authoritarian tendencies....
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)JHB
(37,128 posts)It doesn't matter that Republicans call the kind of economy we had during the Eisenhower administration "socialist", and that Democrats are trying to make the country more like the one they fled to instead of fled from.
They hear the magic word and the button is pushed.
mnhtnbb
(31,315 posts)and leans right. I'm also aware of moneyed Venezuelans having moved to Florida and they are really right wing.
In It to Win It
(8,139 posts)Klaralven
(7,510 posts)csziggy
(34,119 posts)Retirees moving to Florida because we have no income tax, just sales and property taxes - and the property taxes have nice homestead exemptions plus the state tries to limit what the counties can charge.
Before 1970, Florida had so few Republicans that we didn't even have Republican primaries. For most races, if you wanted to have a say, you had to be registered Democratic since they were decided in the primaries. Between the backlash to the Civil Rights Act and Republicans moving into the state, in 1966 we had our first Republican governor since Reconstruction, Claude Kirk, and the number of Republicans has increased ever since.
Once Jeb Bush was elected in 1999, gerrymandering in 2000 and 2010, the legislature being controlled by Republicans, Florida has not had a fair election for over twenty years. And the Florida Democratic Party just doesn't seem to be very effective at fighting them.
MOMFUDSKI
(5,186 posts)MANY are RW nutjobs. These days one must have a coupla bucks to even consider moving to Florida and there you go. Just met a couple at our condo pool today from Chicago. My husband and I talked at length with them. They actually bought a condo here 15 years ago and he is now retired but she is still working. Got around to "did you get your vaccines?" and he (retired cop) said he respects the HIPPA laws (now you are insulting my intelligence) and didn't want to say. So there was the answer. We said we got ours. The wife got hers probably because of her job telling her to. I say to myself - OK, RW/copper/trumper and hope I don't run into him ever again at the pool. But I know exactly who he is and that we have ONE MORE trumper neighbor. UGH
FBaggins
(26,693 posts)The older demographic groups are generally redder.
mnhtnbb
(31,315 posts)FBaggins
(26,693 posts)and/or the ones who choose to move to FL are redder than the ones who choose to stay in NY.
NY seniors voted for Biden by four points, but FL seniors voted for Trump by ten points.
pstokely
(10,508 posts)instead of NY which is solid blue
EYESORE 9001
(25,808 posts)The proportion of Floridas population that is 60 and
older is growing more rapidly than other components
of the population. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates
that 32.5 percent of Floridas population will be 60 and
older by the year 2030, an increase of 34 percent from
2012.
https://acl.gov/sites/default/files/programs/2016-11/Florida%20Epi%20Profile%20Final.pdf
I realize that becoming more conservative with age is not a foregone conclusion, but it happens with a good deal or regularity.
moondust
(19,917 posts)Where the corrupt go to wallow.
Saoirse9
(3,662 posts)I lost my best friend and a few other friends because of trump.
Family here (loads of cousins) are all into trump.
Heart breaking. It isn't just RWers moving here. My friends and family have lived here all of their lives.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)Saoirse9
(3,662 posts)But it isn't enough to overcome the right wing mind set.
It will always boggle my mind how people can defy logic and facts to worship the Fuckface von Clownstick.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)... with too many dem leadership can flood a zone with an defined issue.
It was this way in TX too; a mixed voting area and dems not able to flood that area with an issue.
I'm thinking maybe its money but more think its we're not on message outlets enough to do it like the GQP does.
Saoirse9
(3,662 posts)Not intimately familiar with how they work.
I started to get involved when 45 was still in office but had to give it up when work interfered.
Whiskeytide
(4,459 posts)... to register and vote in 2016. These people are mostly from the rural areas of the state who had not voted in years, or perhaps had never voted, because no one in politics had ever spoken to them in their language before.
Luciferous
(6,067 posts)In It to Win It
(8,139 posts)voters are moving to other states.
Over the last few election cycles, the vote counts captured by Republican candidates seem to steadily increase cycle-after-cycle and vote count for Democratic candidates seem to remain stagnant.
mcar
(42,206 posts)When we moved to this rural retirement county to work, it was southern Democrat. Every elected official was Democrat. It also was the only county to vote for Ross Perot so the seeds were there.
I'd see all these letters in the local paper about the UN overthrowing the government, messages in contrails, and other wacky stuff. Then, billboards started popping up with all kinds of anti Bill Clinton propaganda. "Rush is Right" bumper stickers proliferated.
By the time Jeb! Bush was elected governor in 1999, the country's elected officials started trending Republican. All the execs at the small hospital where I worked changed from Dem to Rep to have more influence over the hospital's fate. I'd hear them discussing Limbaugh's show all the time. While there were always a lot of churches here, more and more fundy churches popped up and were very successful while the mainstream churches lagged.
In my community, it was all about taxes and abortion. Nothing else mattered. The school district couldn't build new schools that were desperately needed because the retirees wouldn't even vote for a half penny sales tax increase. They constantly complained about having to pay to fund schools in their property taxes, since their kids were grown.
The cult isn't of Trump; it's of the current form of Republicanism. It's been growing more and more autocratic for decades.
Florida reflects the U.S., in a very real way. The creep of Republicanism, and now the creep toward fascism. The FL Democratic Party has not done a good job communicating the very real values of Democrats and let Republicans get away with idiocy like "Dems are going to take your gunz!!11" We didn't help ourselves with the whole defund the police nonsense.
My .02 on the issue.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Of course, a lot of RWers in general, already influenced to far-right and extremist beliefs in this century, have gone batshit, up-for-atrocities crazy.
Otherwise, the most pertinent population change was in somewhat increased Hispanic participation, who overall average conservative. The majority chose Trump.
OTHER otherwise, 47.9% of Floridians voted Democratic in 2020, every vote a rejection of the hard right.
Elessar Zappa
(13,649 posts)Huge majority of Hispanics in NM, AZ, NV and CA voted Biden. Texas and Florida was where they voted more conservative. Not sure why that is.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)To refuse to demonize someone, or over 5 million someones in this case, because of what state he lives in, or skin color or ethnicity?
Elessar Zappa
(13,649 posts)cbabe
(3,438 posts)fish swim in the streets of Miami. The existential threat of physical death in an aging population and way of life death with climate change. Leaving many crazed and crying out for a strong man savior.
Wicked Blue
(5,767 posts)uponit7771
(90,225 posts)... needs to acknowledge this and stop whistling past the graveyard when it comes to Florida
Mad_Machine76
(24,353 posts)That's the problem? What are their specific issues of concern? Just about everything Democrats support is generally good for all communities. Republicans generally don't want any (non-citizen) Hispanics to have public assistance, to vote, or to even have a good chance to become a citizen. What do the Republicans offer them that Democrats don't? Is it because of religion?
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)... for Florida there needs to be on the ground community people working with the Democratic party for messaging.
For multiple community leaders and some people who live there the Democrats were missing in Florida.
I understand what you're saying especially when Putin's whore was incredibly racist against Hispanic people of color but if we don't have a message for those communities other than we're better than the racists then we still lose
Sneederbunk
(14,207 posts)stillcool
(32,626 posts)Carl Hiaasen books are very helpful.
PortTack
(32,605 posts)AZ, TX, VA, GA,are gaining in population due to tech companies. Techies are naturally liberal in their views and voting habits
dawg
(10,607 posts)ananda
(28,779 posts)Remember Florida 2000?
ChubbyStar
(3,191 posts)Shit has been crazy in Florida for more than 2 decades.
ananda
(28,779 posts)Including serious voter intimidation and suppression.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)I am thinking simple population growth doesn't quite explain the demographics shifts in those states. We'd have to find some research on the matter, but I imagine it would have to do with that growth being attributable to migration (as opposed to live births), and where these new residents are coming from.
This is all anecdotal, but I grew up in New England and graduated college in the early 2000's. The high cost of living and scarcity of good-paying jobs for young people entering the job market made southern states like Virginia and Texas (which has long been courting big businesses to set up shop in their state) appealing destinations for young professionals.
Florida, meanwhile, remains a retirement state.
WarGamer
(12,103 posts)Idaho was big in the 90's and 00's...
Now every unhappy rw'er from LA, Chicago and the Northeast runs to FL.
helpisontheway
(5,004 posts)We thought about it for a bit because Florida would not tax my husbands military retirement. It was also because of the beaches and other things to do. Thank goodness we did not move there. Yes, VA taxes my husbands military retirement but it is a much better place to live. First of all we are BLUE and have stayed that way since President Obama flipped it. Plus we have beaches and tourist attractions too. Our beaches are not as pretty as the Gulf coast of Florida but at least we have one.
JI7
(89,172 posts)and fewer regulations.
Unlike some other states where people move there for jobs in growing industries like tech where it usually leads to more liberal population.