THE QUINTESSENCE OF QUESTION-BEGGING.

A Time contributor called William Kleinknecht complains, "No One Is Talking About What Ron DeSantis Has Actually Done to Florida."  He's the author of States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America.  It's a funny kind of "undermining" when whatever those leaders are doing seems to be attracting internal migration, but you do you, Willy.

Florida falls short in almost any measure that matters to the lives of its citizens. More than four years into the DeSantis governorship, Florida continues to languish toward the bottom of state rankings assessing the quality of health care, school funding, long-term elder care, and other areas key to a successful society.

Florida may be the place where “woke goes to die”—as DeSantis is fond of saying—but it is also where teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the nation, unemployment benefits are stingier than in any other state, and wage theft flourishes with little interference from the DeSantis administration. In 2021, DeSantis campaigned against a successful ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage, which had been stuck at $8.65 an hour. Under DeSantis’s watch, the Sunshine State has not exactly been a workers’ paradise.

Look, if people want those Californian or Illinois style public benefits, they have the option of moving there.  That's not happening, is it?  In addition, the migration from metropolitan areas to metropolitan areas has not turned out favorably for those big cities in blue social model states.  "There has been a general migration from the 'Rust Belt' to the 'Sun Belt' going on as long as [James Joyner has] paid attention to such things. Newer cities aren’t really 'cities' at all in the way I tend to think of them; they’re really more concentrated suburbs."  That reminds me to take a closer look at the effect of parking minima, zoning codes, and air conditioning on urban form, but not today.

I'll let Lidblog's W. T. Huston give Mr Kleinknecht the Bronx cheer.  "This happens because liberal states are all… to a location… failed states, while the red states are thriving and growing. Once again, we see that Democrats destroy everything they touch."  Florida might not be a "workers' paradise," but then, the places that are trying to be workers' paradises are dump heaps.