Florida Is Bleeding

Also Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana ... the only red state that isn't hemorrhaging college grads is Texas, and even there you won't find an obstetrician or midwife in nearly half its counties.

I’ll make this fast because the Thanksgiving holiday is fast approaching. You should read my December New Republic cover story about the migration of college grads away from red-state culture wars as the result of two elections (2010 and 2016) and the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision. Among other consequences, an ob-gyn can now make considerably more money in rural Mississippi than in midtown Manhattan. But throwing money at red-state baby doctors doesn’t fix this problem, and harassing teachers and professors, which is happening in lots of red states but especially Florida, is potentially catastrophic financially. (When a factory leaves town the college remains; more factories close every day than institutions of higher learning close every year.) You hear a lot (including from me) that Democrats are cutting their throats by alienating working-class voters. You hear less about Republicans cutting their throats by alienating the college vote they depended on even back when they scorned “egghead” Adlai supporters in the 1950s.

This is one of my better pieces. Please read it and then fight about it with your crazy MAGA uncle over the mashed potatoes and stuffing. If you upset grandma that’s too goddamned bad. Here it is.

If you have any extra time to kill after that, I posted this piece yesterday about labor unions finally heeding the advice of Willie Sutton and going where the money is.