Planning the Next Great Migration

Indiana could support its urban areas easily if, as usual, people ate less meat. It has a historic industrial base in the north and good farmland downstate, and the population density is not excessive. This state could easily make room for more migrants; the only uncertainty is political. The GOP holds a supermajority in both branches of the legislature due to both the state’s conservative, rural character and its rather extreme gerrymandering, recently claimed to be worse than 95% of U.S. states. The legislative districts to be used from 2022 onwards not only “crack” parts of Indianapolis into irrelevancy, but similarly break up Fort Wayne, Lafayette, and Evansville. During 2021, the legislature and the Trump-loyalist attorney general devoted time to taking exceptional action to strip the Republican governor of power to respond to the pandemic.

Migrants who hope to live in a secular democracy would be taking a serious risk by moving here, although it might be relatively easy to get across the border in a hurry if needed. They should be prepared to live under very conservative government, with economic life dominated by polluters and union-busters, and to face increasingly aggressive anti-LGBTQ and possibly anti-immigrant policies as soon as the federal courts will let the state get away with it. Younger female residents should be prepared to travel to another state if emergency reproductive health care is needed. At present, I doubt that Indiana is a good choice for most such people, although if this pre-breakup period lasts long enough that climate change forces many millions of migrants out of the Western or coastal regions, increasing population pressures in the bluer states may make Indiana appear more attractive as a more affordable destination with more available jobs.

Migrants who hope to end up in a Red theocracy would also be taking some risk. Despite its right-wing politics and “home of the KKK” status, Indiana never was culturally or economically a Southern state, and a state government that was really confident that “urban” residents remain a small minority wouldn’t have to work so hard to gerrymander them out of political participation. Betting on Indiana to join the Confederacy might not pay off.

All that said, many Indiana communities have much to offer in terms of day-to-day quality of life. If you are one of the 43 remaining Americans who genuinely don’t care about politics and don’t expect any of the culture-war issues to affect you personally, this state could be a fine destination.

Virginia is now a bluish-purple state in terms of its people’s preferences. Virginia has in the recent past had problems with racist gerrymandering so severe as to be limited by the U.S. Supreme Court, yet elects a good number of Democrats; as of this writing, it appears that the 2022 pro-GOP bias will be somewhat moderated. It was one of the original 13 U.S. states and is geographically adjacent to presumed Northeastern states, so if any of the former Confederate states were to look north following a breakup of the U.S., Virginia would be the most likely. That is the prediction of Stephen Marche. However, culturally it is primarily Southern and I would not bet on its future affiliations.