RESIDUALLY INHABITED BY ... PROGRESSIVES?

Illinois, where the productive people get chased out, and the alternative lifestyles cluster.

Illinois has become the most progressive state in the Union.

Just look at the summer our governor is having. Last month, the state Supreme Court ruled his SAFE-T Act constitutional, making Illinois the first state to eliminate cash bail. On Monday, he “doubled down” on expanding access to abortion, announcing $23 million in grants to clinics experiencing a surge in demand from our neighboring states, which have mostly banned the procedure. Illinois already has one of the nation’s most liberal abortion laws, the Reproductive Health Act, which establishes abortion as a “fundamental right” and declares that a “fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this state.”

And look at the summer [Chicago's] mayor is having, launching a progressive agenda that includes eliminating the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers and raising real estate taxes on million-dollar homes. Actually, just look at our mayor: a union organizer who ran on a platform of making the rich “pay their fair share.” Johnson is the most left-wing big city mayor in the United States. He doesn’t call himself a socialist, but his City Council floor leader, alderperson Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, does.

How's that working out?  "Will it play in Peoria?" takes a new tone, for one.

Governor Pritzker calls Illinois an “oasis” in the Midwest for women seeking reproductive health care. That’s a result of Chicago becoming an oasis for young, educated Midwesterners who moved here to get the hell out of conservative small towns in Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri.

During the mayoral campaign, the most dedicated Johnson volunteer I met was Jonathan Nagy, a 33-year-old queer artist who moved to Chicago from his hometown in Ohio in 2016. Small-town Ohio is not a great place to be queer, or an artist. Nagy settled in Logan Square because he was “looking for a political community” and “wanted intentional spaces to meet my neighbors.” Those sound like the motivations that have created [Bill] Bishop’s Big Sort. Bishop also wrote that “gay couples were congregating in particular cities — specific zip codes, in fact.”

(This isn’t just happening in Chicago. Peoria has also become a destination for queer, minority migrants attracted by its cost of living and its location in a Blue state.)

A destination, yes, but what sort of future does a soft-on-crime abortion oasis offer?

What's a Militant Normal to do?  Pick up and leave?  The self-styled progressives are happy to see the opposition go.  Suggest some sort of sensible alternative?  To whom?  Wait for reality to bat last?  There is a debt ceiling, and the Jarrett regency's ability to print money to bail out the states run by Democrats will come to an end.  The endgame will not be pretty.