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MOTR, Ep. 51: Americans Are Changing U.S. Politics With Their U-Haul Trailers

Jasper Moving Truck (Credit: Andrew Malcolm)
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One of the significant characteristics of the American character, both figuratively and literally, has been an ingrained restlessness.

Starting with the Pilgrims, who were unhappy where they came from, the arriving people who populated this brave and harsh new world were seeking something new and different. And they were willing to endure amazing hardships just to get there, let alone rebuild their lives.

They were looking for freedom, space, free land, adventure, fur, gold, silver, all kinds of attractions unlimited by the confining hierarchies, traditions, and class structures of the Old World.

And this New World certainly had space. You could fit three British Isles inside just Montana. Britain and France would go inside Texas nicely. And three Frances within Alaska.

It’s not terribly surprising then that the numerous succeeding generations in what became the Lower 48 states were raised with the same restless spirit.

For some 200 years, the North American population movements here were westward — first, from New England and the East Coast, into the Midwest, then the Great Plains, Rockies, the Northwest, and, of course, California. Northwestern University just outside Chicago got its name at founding in 1851 when Illinois, of all places, was the Northwest.

The American Frontier officially ended around 1890, according to historians.

But that didn’t stop the moves west, especially after the Interstate System was launched in the early 1950s by President Eisenhower, who came up with that idea as a national defense strategy when he was an Army colonel in 1920.

Some new Census figures, however, reveal a dramatic shift in where 21st Century Americans are choosing to move — and the various reasons behind those historic collective decisions.

That’s what I explore in this week’s audio op-ed.

The most recent audio commentary drew an unusually large number of listeners, I suspect because of human interest in what the final decision of former President Jimmy Carter was. He’s 98, the longest-lived one of all 46.

This week’s column, ICYMI, examined Joe Biden’s stubborn use of useless economic sanctions on Russia and Russians to stop their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

If sanctions had worked, we wouldn’t have just passed the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s killings, war crimes, and the wanton destruction of Ukraine’s cities. And Iran’s mullahs wouldn’t be nearly developing their own nuclear weapons. And North Korea……

And thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers would still be alive, along with even more Russian conscripts.

I highly recommend the regular, informed war updates by my colleague Streiff. Here’s his latest update.

Other RedState colleagues are wandering the subject list, as always, with interesting reads on a Democrat’s revealing comments about his party’s leader, and Washington state Democrats’ generous plan to award local homeless $1,000 a month each to spend as desired. Nothing could go wrong there.

And a surprising disclosure that FBI agents did not want to raid Donald Trump’s Florida home last year.

You know, you need not wait for my weekly recommendations on recent readings here. If you sign up for the free RedState newsletter, you’ll get twice-daily alerts of the Internet’s best conservative commentary straight to your In-box. Did I mention they’re FREE?

Just click here. I won’t tell. Heck, I won’t even know.

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