In the United States, there is a silent exodus. It’s not because of war or catastrophe. It goes deeper: people are leaving because they no longer believe. They don’t believe in their cities, their mayors, their communities, or the rusty promise of the American dream. The new report from North American Van Lines, a moving company with over 90 years of hauling furniture and frustrations, confirms what had already been smelling like an airport corridor: Americans are fleeing… from themselves.
They are no longer economic migrants, but ideologically displaced people. They are fleeing their own states because they have become uninhabitable, unsafe, or simply incoherent. An internal exodus, massive, sustained, and deeply political. In other words: moving has become the new form of protest.
Who’s leaving, who’s staying?
Illinois, California, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania: all are losing residents. It’s no coincidence that these are historically Democratic states, with progressive governments, high taxes, and inflation disguised as “diversity.” The winners: South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, Texas. Coincidence? None. These are the same states that a decade ago were called “retrograde,” “anti-immigrant,” or “not very inclusive.” Today, those same territories are a refuge for those who can no longer cope with the cost of living and crime in big cities.
“We’re moving because we’re tired of paying so much to live poorly,” says one of those surveyed in the report. Translation: they’re fed up with financing the chaos.
Reasons? All of them. Excessive taxes, impossible rents, urban violence, schools converted into indoctrination centers, and a growing sense that the city is no longer a place to live, but to survive. What was once “the land of opportunity” is now “the runaway state.”
COVID was the catalyst. Inflation, the final straw. Teleworking did the unthinkable: it freed millions from their zip codes. And with that, it also freed their political decisions. Today, moving is a class decision, but also a decision of conscience. Those who can, leave. And those who can’t, resist. Although not for long.
Florida, the new New York
Florida tops the list of destinations. It’s no longer just for retirees or “anti-communist” Latinos. Now engineers from Silicon Valley, teachers from Chicago, technicians from New Jersey are arriving. The profile of the new internal migrant is surprising: young, educated, anxious families. They flee the progressive urban utopia to take refuge in a less scintillating, but more stable, reality.
Texas and Arizona are also welcoming. And not only because they offer better prices, but because they promise something more valuable: normalcy. In times of cognitive dissonance and existential debates about what a woman is or what justice means, there are those who prefer the peace of a clean street and a school that teaches arithmetic.
Moving as a Vote
This exodus isn’t just demographic. It’s electoral. Every family that leaves New York and settles in Georgia is altering the political balance. The map is literally shifting. And the political parties, instead of reading the data, remain locked in their ideological bubbles. Democracy isn’t just measured in votes, but in habitable square footage.
The moves of the 21st century are the new census of disenchantment, not only due to mass migrations around the world, but now also in the United States. Behind every U-Haul truck is a manifesto: “I didn’t leave, I was kicked out.” It is the silent cry of millions who no longer want to save their city, but to save themselves from it.
What is brewing is not just a geographical reconfiguration. It is a new moral topography. A country where people are moving not only to pay less, but to believe more. More in their neighbors, in their police, in their school, in their lives.
Because in the end, it doesn’t matter where you live, but whether you can live with yourself. And in that, many Americans are starting over. From scratch. With a box, a GPS, and a decision that speaks volumes: leaving (the city) is the only way to stay (in the country).
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