If you’re old enough, you’ll recall the 1961 Berlin crisis. I recall it subsequently, when schools taught real history. That crisis happened during the Cold War’s peak years. In brief, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev wanted the U.S. out of West Berlin. There were multiple reasons, but, chiefly, access to West Berlin allowed East Germans to escape communist rule.

According to the National Archives, by 1961, as many as four million Germans had escaped East Germany using West Berlin. With tensions rising, and the hemorrhaging increasing, Khrushchev ordered the Soviets’ East German puppet government to string barbed wire and erect concrete barricades around West Berlin to stop the outflow. That was the beginning of the Berlin Wall, which stood as a testament to communism’s failure until 1989.

What does that have to do with America today? The point is that people vote with their feet when conditions become unacceptable. That’s no less true here. Since the nation’s inception — in fact, long before the founding — people came to the continent to escape troubles and moved west in search of better lives. East Germans fled primarily because of politics — albeit, of a brutal, totalitarian stripe.

Annually and increasingly, tens of thousands of people are leaving blue states because of politics. High taxes and red tape, inflated costs, unchecked crime, failing schools, and unashamed race bias — directed at whites — are pushing people out. Soft political tyranny and cultural decay are drivers. Human nature is universal. People will endure until they cannot.

That’s bleak news for blue states. Regardless how many times Gavin Newsom shrugs, ongoing outmigration is having adverse consequences for California and its blue cousins. Red states are benefitting. The influx of money, skilled labor, tech expertise, and businesses are gifts.

Blue state population drains have been occurring for a couple of decades. Outmigration is compounded by low fertility rates. COVID tyranny — generally worse in blue states — spurred further exoduses. Blue states have yet to recover fully from draconian lockdowns.

Wrote Steven Malanga in a fact-packed analysis for City Journal, February 4:

By contrast, Democratic states dominate the list of places with the biggest outflow of residents. Nine of the ten states losing the most population are Democratic, led by California, with a net loss of 229,000 residents, and including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois. A notable addition to the bottom ten is Colorado — a politically competitive state as recently as 2019 but dominated by Democrats since. Unlike California and New York, which have seen net outmigration for more than a decade, Colorado’s fortunes have only recently turned, but dramatically so, as the state recorded the eighth-highest net loss of residents last fiscal year. Only four of the 15 Democratic trifecta states last year gained residents: Washington, Oregon, Delaware, and Maine. In all, Democratic-led states lost about 495,000 residents to net migration.

Opening the borders to millions of “undocumented” migrants was supposedly the remedy for what ails blue states. Population replenishment — albeit with poorly educated, low-skilled peoples — is necessary. Welfare dependency ensures Democrat control. More bodies are required for U.S. Census purposes.

The Biden administration oversaw and manipulated the 2020 Census data to make sure illegals were counted for political reasons. Beyond propping up blue states, hordes of illegals streaming into red states were supposed to “transform” them. With millions of illegals still in the country, Democrats’ hope of transformations isn’t dead yet, but President Trump is determined to foil their schemes. The president closed the borders at an astonishing clip. In little more than a year, over 2.8 million illegals have been deported or have self-deported. The SAVE Act needs to be passed.

The point is worth stressing. Democrats are preoccupied with political survival. Without more bodies — without larger numbers of pliant constituents — population shifts sound a death knell. The 2030 census is pivotal. Perhaps eight — maybe more — U.S. House seats and electoral college votes are expected to shift to red states. The next census is yet another reason to maintain GOP congressional majorities and elect J.D. Vance president — the GOP’s putative nominee — in 2028.

With Trump’s rise in 2016, party realignment has accelerated. The college-educated affluent are now mainstays of the Democrat coalition, along with blacks. That represents an historic reversal. The GOP used to be the party of big money. Yes, money counts, and money fuels the progressive Left’s control of institutions, but those advantages aren’t enough. Numbers matter, and the Great American Middle are the numbers.

Working class and middle-income Americans are trending toward the GOP — or more, accurately, away from Democrats and toward Trump. Jacksonian Democracy, Lincoln Republicanism, McKinley’s working man’s GOP, and FDR’s New Deal are proof that working-class and middle-income voters decide political fortunes.

Not all the wealthy are Democrat locks, however. More of them are abandoning blue states. Since the affluent pay a disproportionate share of taxes, that’s a gut punch to spendthrift Democrats, who keep raising taxes, which helps fuel their states’ doom loops.

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani is proposing higher taxes on the wealthy to finance his free lunch ploys. He’s about to learn the hard way that money flees quickly and fixed assets can be divested. His supporters claim that if the wealthy don’t like paying more taxes and decide to leave, their businesses can seized. As one of Mamdani’s backers said in an X post video, anyone looking to scram could face confiscatory fines. Never mind constitutional guarantees. Mandani’s supporters are edging closer to the Russian mindset circa 1961.

Not incidentally, blue-collar and middle-income citizens pay taxes, too. Socially, these cohorts anchor communities. They provide skilled labor and management. They’re service providers. They start small businesses. It’s a double whammy for blue states when the wealthy and the Great American Middle departs.

In the early 2000s, Ruy Teixeira and John Judis wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority. It was an optimistic assessment of the Democrats’ future. To Teixeira’s credit, he admits that not only did a Democrat majority not materialize, but that the progressive moment has passed. Teixeira counsels Democrats to return to a more centrist approach to policy and governance. But are Democrats listening? It doesn’t seem so.

A majority of Virginia voters — driven by affluent, government careerists and contractors in Northern Virginia’s D.C. suburbs — just elected Abigail Spanberger governor and handed Democrats legislative majorities. No sooner were Democrats sworn in then a slew of new tax proposals emerged. Wasn’t Democrats’ mantra affordability? They’re also pushing softer criminal penalties. And Spanberger signed an executive order ending cooperation with federal authorities to curtail immigration enforcement. Democrats need the bodies.

Another reason people are leaving blue states, quality of life. Portland is an example.

Wrote Mark Hemmingway for RealClearInvestigations, February 4:

In December, bestselling author and humorist David Sedaris wrote a New Yorker magazine essay about a recent trip to Portland, Oregon. While on a walk to a donut shop, he “lost count of the strung-out addicts I passed on my way” before eventually encountering four homeless people huddled around an empty baby carriage and smoking drugs right on the sidewalk. Moments later, a dog belonging to one of the addicts rushed out and bit him.

Joel Kotkin, a well-regarded demographer and old-school Democrat, in a February 1 New York Post opinion piece, wonders if California is a “lost cause?” After cataloguing many of California’s woes caused by Democrats, Kotkin writes that there aren’t enough Republicans in the once Golden State to win and effect change. He’s right about that. His hope is that “San Jose’s pragmatic [Democrat] Mayor Matt Mahan” wins his party’s gubernatorial nomination. We suppose he’s a voice of sanity. But can one sane voice change California’s miserable dynamic?

Probably not. With a younger generation of Democrats moving even further left, and increasing numbers of sensible Californians voting with their feet, California’s troubles may be baked in. As is the case in other blue states.

Maybe Democrats should consult history? Germans remember. Go ask them.

J. Robert Smith can be found at X. His handle is @JRobertSmith1. At Gab, @JRobertSmith. He blogs occasionally at Flyover.