Morning Wire - Blue State Exodus | 2.26.22

Episode Date: February 26, 2022

Americans move out of blue states further polarizing the nation, Russia’s relationship with China, and lawsuits against racist school admissions policies. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The data is in. On balance, Americans are moving out of blue states and into red states and further entrenching political polarization in the United States. What's driving the political self-sorting of America? And what does it mean for the future of the nation? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's February 26th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire. As Russia continues its expansion into Ukraine, China is the only major country that hasn't criticized the aggression. We'll look at the developing relationship between the two superpowers and how it could affect the global stage. And a legal group is challenging the admissions policies in K-12 schools across the country, which they say discriminate against Asian students. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. This show is sponsored by Birch Gold Group. Inflation is destroying the dollar.

Birch Gold Group can help protect your IRA or 401K with a precious metals IRA. Text wire to 989898 to claim a free info kit on physical gold and silver. There's zero obligation. Text the word wire to 9898989898 to protect your savings today. During COVID lockdowns, millions of Americans moved out of cities. New data on where they moved highlights the stark political divide in the U.S. Here are the details as Daily Wire's Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, you've been digging into the numbers here.

What can you tell us? So we've been hearing anecdotally all year about the supposed it flock to red states. But now there's a growing pile of data to back that up. First, the Census Bureau released their annual report on which states gained the most new residents in 2021, and of the top 10 biggest gainers, eight were red states. Despite all the negative media coverage surrounding their governor's handling of the pandemic, Texas and Florida came in at first and second, respectively, gaining half a million new residents between them. Next came Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah, and Tennessee, which all added 50 to 100,000 each.

So people are definitely flocking to those red states. Yeah, and there are other metrics that support that claim as well. For example, the National Movers Study every year looks into which states had the highest percentage of in-bound moves compared to outbound. They found that seven of the ten states with the highest rate of new residents by that metric were also red. And if you reverse that figure and look at which states had the highest percentage of outbound versus inbound moves.

It was dominated by blue states with just two red states in the top 10. Anecdotally, we hear a lot about people leaving California and New York, but what do the numbers actually show? Well, again,

the data completely backs up those anecdotal claims that we'd all kind of been feeling for the last year or so. The five states with the highest rate of outbound moves were New Jersey, Illinois, New York,

Connecticut, and California. So really the bluest of the blue states. And the Census Bureau data shows much the same with New York, California, and Illinois leading the way in losing the most residents overall. So if you're in one of those red states we mentioned earlier and you feel like you're seeing more license plates from California, New York, you're not crazy. It's definitely real. So what drove people out of these particular states and into places like Florida and Texas?

Well, one leading theory when this trend first became noticeable was that it was all about job opportunities. The belief was that people were simply fleeing to places like Texas and Florida because that's where the jobs were. that they just so happen to be red states. But it's interesting, according to the new data, just 32% of people moved because of their work. During COVID, people were able to basically work from wherever they wanted, so they didn't need to move for work. So the push into these specific states was really driven by people seeking other things, like a lower cost of living, better lifestyle, closeness to family, and also looser COVID restrictions. Those are all things that people cited in this poll. So stepping back, as you might imagine, the Census Bureau is hesitant

to point out the political correlation here, even though it appears obvious. To put it simply, red states have considerably lower costs of living, lower tax burdens, looser COVID restrictions, and in general, more educational freedom for parents. So all of those things definitely appear to have contributed to this shift we've seen. So what's the long-term impact here? What will be the result of this migration and self-sorting? Yeah, as always, it depends on who you ask. In terms of long-term impact, one theory is that the state's losing the most people,

will be pressured to reevaluate some unpopular policies as a way of stopping the bleeding. And once that happens, people will start moving back and the state will sort of find its equilibrium. But another theory is that this trend is only going to divide America further and that this is just the start. And as like-minded people increasingly congregate in the same cities and states, the result will be increased polarization on a national level. NPR recently ran an interesting piece highlighting the fact that both blue and red Americans are increasingly moving for political reasons, and are increasingly ended up surrounded by people who agree with them, kind of creating bubbles. So we don't know the long-term impact right now, but we've already seen the short-term impact. California, New York, and Illinois, for example, each lost congressional seats because so many people fled their state.

That's the sort of thing that gets the attention of legislators and can start to serve as a wake-up call. Yeah, it certainly can. Fascinating stuff. Cabot, thanks. Any time. That's DailyWire's Cabot Phillips. Coming up, has China been emboldened by Russia's invasion of Ukraine? You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app. And you'll get content from all your favorite Daily Wire shows. Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you.

As Ukraine continues to fight back against a Russian invasion, national security experts are sounding the alarm over what the conflict could mean for China's role on the global stage. Here with more on China's role in the ongoing Ukraine crisis is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth. First off, Ian, how did China respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Well, in simple terms, China is a major outlier when it comes to Biden's United Front against Russian aggression. During his speech on Thursday, Biden celebrated the fact that the vast majority of the world is standing together in opposition to Russia. However, that doesn't include China, and it doesn't look like there are plans on the table to change this. Are you urging China to help isolate Russia?

I'm not prepared to comment at the moment. During a news conference on Thursday, China's foreign minister refused to define. Russia's attack as an invasion, even blaming the U.S. of fueling and fanning the flames of conflict. So their language is really echoing Vladimir Putin? Essentially, yes, and it's not really surprising. Russia and China have grown close in recent months, especially with Putin unveiling new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5 billion earlier this month. This is signaling a shift away from European energy dependence. And then we must remember that this all plays into China's territorial ambitions. While Russia has been eyeing Ukraine, China has been setting its sights on Taiwan,

and the threat of Chinese military action is only growing, given Putin's success in the short term in recent days. Yeah, let's dig into that more. How do you think China will respond to the international community's reaction to the invasion of Ukraine? Well, there's no doubt that Xi Jinping is going to be watching how the United States and other Western allies handle the situation in Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party's desire to envelop Taiwan is hardly a secret, and now there's a growing concern in the international community that a lack of concrete action against Putin and Russia could incentivize China to take military action of its own. On Thursday morning, China was reportedly running programs on state TV networks comparing Ukraine to the future of Taiwan. There were also

reports from Taiwanese officials that nine Chinese aircraft had entered into their air defense zone. So it's fair to say that this apparent escalation in hostilities is tied to what's going on in Ukraine. And with all of this happening, the Biden administration reportedly pulled back on a Trump era initiative combating China. Tell us about that. Yeah, back in 2018, President Trump passed a so-called China initiative meant to combat the Chinese Communist Party's spying efforts on U.S. soil, specifically when it comes to American intellectual property and sensitive research on college campuses. The DOJ described the initiative as focusing on, quote, identifying and prosecuting those engaged in trade secret theft hacking and economic espionage. Remember, China steals an estimated $500 billion worth of

American intellectual property each year, and this policy essentially enabled the government to track down the perpetrators and punish them accordingly. But now it's been revoked. So it's been revoked. Do we know why? The Biden administration gave two main reasons. First, they claimed it was ineffective at stopping espionage. They pointed to a lack of success in prosecuting some cases at the criminal level and basically said the initiative wasn't worth the trouble. Second, and this is the part that really got people's attention, they said the program was politically incorrect. Officials with the administration say they were concerned that the initiative could result in innocent Chinese Americans being falsely maligned or suspected of espionage just because of their ethnicity, or that it could lead to racial discrimination.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security said, quote, by grouping cases under the China Initiative rubric, we help give rise to a harmful perception that the department applies a lower standard to investigate and prosecute criminal conduct related to that country, or that we in some way view people with racial, ethnic, or familial ties to China differently. But with the Russian military rolling into Ukraine and China effectively circling Taiwan, issues like political correctness are looking more irrelevant by the day. Well, thanks for the inside, Ian. You bet.

It's Daily Wires, Ian Howarth. In a landmark federal lawsuit, a conservative group called Pacific Legal Foundation is challenging recent changes to K-12 admissions policies in public schools across the country. On Friday, a federal judge ruled, that Fairfax County's school authorities broke the law by altering admissions requirements at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia to deliberately limit the number of Asian American students enrolled at the school.

Here to discuss is Daily Wires Charlotte Pence Bond. Charlotte, welcome. Hey, Georgia. So a foundation is trying to change admissions policies at public schools. So why is this case or group of cases such a big deal? And what changes are they looking to make? Yeah, so there's a lot of. a group called Pacific Legal Foundation, and they're looking to push back against so-called

diversity initiatives in school admissions that a lot of K-12 schools have implemented in recent years. For example, they filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of parents, students, alumni, staff, and community members in Virginia over school admissions policies at a high school named Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. With the Thomas Jefferson case, the litigation is against specific policy changes made by the school, which the legal group says primary hurt Asian students. The school claims that they're maintaining merit-based and race-blind criteria, but lawyers with the Pacific Legal Foundation say the school is simply using other proxies to factor for race. So what's an example of a proxy that these schools are allegedly using for race?

So Thomas Jefferson High School is an elite tech school actually near where I grew up in Virginia. The school used to admit students based on the merit of student applications, but they recently made a change to accept the top 1.5 percent of students applying from each middle school in the feeder pattern, but not more than 1.5 percent. So as the legal argument goes, they were using geography as a proxy for race. In the past, one middle school might let around 80 kids in, but then they were capped at much fewer. And what evidence does Pacific legal have to support the claim that these changes are, in fact, proxies for race? Well, looking again at Thomas Jefferson, the school changed its admission policies in 2020. After the policy changed, the school saw a drastic reduction in Asian students from 73% to 54%.

In fact, other demographic groups, including white students, saw increases in admissions. Only Asians saw reduction. Here's Aaron Wilcox. She's a lead attorney on these cases for Pacific legal. K-12 schools know that they can't have an overt racial quota. They can't say that our school needs to have 25% of black kids, 25% Hispanic kids, anything like that. a court's going to strike that down pretty quickly. So what they've done instead are, as you said, using these racial proxies.

This will be the first lawsuit of its kind where parents have challenged these racial proxies where a judge would find that is unconstitutional. So that's a massive wind, especially because lots of school districts across the country are kind of watching this case. And today we have one. We have one. I can't even speak. I'm so thrilled for all of us.

of you for America, for the American dream. We did it. Well, speaking of the Supreme Court, the court just took on two very high-profile affirmative action cases at the collegiate level. Right. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases, one from Harvard and one from the University of North Carolina. Those cases will likely be on deck for the upcoming term. Affirmative action has been debated for decades at the collegiate level and in some cases struck down. But a legal challenge like this one at the K-12 level is really being watched as other schools across the country consider creating similar policies. And there are a lot of parents invested in this issue. Just last week, parents in San Francisco recalled three members of the city's

school board over similar policies. In that instance, the San Francisco School Board voted to eliminate the merit-based system in favor of a lottery system to an elite high school, which was extremely unpopular with parents. At first, the changes were to accommodate pandemic restrictions, but later the board said it would make them permanent for racial reasons. There's been some legal back and forth about it, but it's an ongoing issue in San Francisco. The Thomas Jefferson lawsuit is different from the cases before the Supreme Court, though, because Thomas Jefferson never specifically talks about race as part of its admissions criteria. So this win could open up a new avenue for legal action for other parents and students. Charlotte, thanks for bringing us

this story. Thanks for having me on. That's Daily Wires, Charlotte Pence-Bond. If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to more. MorningWire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five-star review. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back next week with the news you need to know. If you like this podcast, get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at dailywire.com slash subscribe.