A Sunshine State of Mind
22nd June 2022
“I thank God for this place.” It might seem a weird thing to say, unapologetically earnest and deeply uncool, but, in Florida, it’s very common to overhear someone saying exactly this. On the beach. By a pool. In a restaurant. At the checkout line at Publix.
Some other phrases you hear a lot: “I wish we had made the move sooner.” “I feel like I’ve added years to my life.” “Living the dream.” “Another day in paradise.”
It is a unique moment in Florida’s history. The feeling of gratitude is very real. Millions of people seem to have woken up one day and decided they had to become Floridians right away. I am among them.
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Florida has internalized the lesson of Texas. You can’t build something worthwhile and then surrender it to people who, although they are escaping a place that has begun to collapse, show no evidence of understanding why that collapse is happening. People move for all kinds of reasons, like weather or taxes. Not all of them realize the role they, and their votes, may have played in creating the chaos in their rearview mirrors. So far, the influx of people to Florida is indeed “voting right.” For the first time ever, registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats in Florida, by over 100,000.