> There is a very pronounced trend of people migrating away from states that are controlled by Democrats for reasons that are potentially ideologically driven policy failures.
This observation may actually indicate the opposite, it is conservative policies that are failing. To see this, consider two potential reasons why people move away from urbanized progressive areas into more conservative areas:
1. Progressive policy failures (as you suggest)
2. The conservative areas are under-developed, and therefore have a greater potential for growth, which creates incentives to move there.
Under the first hypothesis, liberal policies ruin things. But under the second hypothesis, conservative policies ruin things. There is a pretty simple way to test out which is true: if the first is true, and progressive policies are at fault, then a conservative area would become more conservative as it becomes more popular and more people move there. If the second is true, then conservative areas would become more liberal as it becomes more developed.
Pretty much every originally conservative area that becomes developed later becomes more liberal (hello Texas). It's pretty clear that your hypothesis is false.
This feels like some bizarre version of 'white savior complex.'. The truth isn't 1 or 2, but somewhere in between. Conservative areas don't need you, and progressive policies aren't all failures.
This observation may actually indicate the opposite, it is conservative policies that are failing. To see this, consider two potential reasons why people move away from urbanized progressive areas into more conservative areas:
1. Progressive policy failures (as you suggest)
2. The conservative areas are under-developed, and therefore have a greater potential for growth, which creates incentives to move there.
Under the first hypothesis, liberal policies ruin things. But under the second hypothesis, conservative policies ruin things. There is a pretty simple way to test out which is true: if the first is true, and progressive policies are at fault, then a conservative area would become more conservative as it becomes more popular and more people move there. If the second is true, then conservative areas would become more liberal as it becomes more developed.
Pretty much every originally conservative area that becomes developed later becomes more liberal (hello Texas). It's pretty clear that your hypothesis is false.