People keep telling Josh Moon to move to California.
He’s never lived in any state other than Alabama, but every time Moon writes something even mildly progressive as a columnist and investigative reporter at the news site the Alabama Political Reporter, he’s met with a flood of emails suggesting he might be better off in the Golden State.
It began to irritate Moon so much, it pushed him to write an entire column earlier this month dedicated to the problem.
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“Each time I write something that suggests a progressive solution to a problem or criticize the backwards, Alabama-method for addressing issues, I receive the same comments from the same group of dopes. ‘Why don’t you move to California or somewhere where people think like you?!?!?!”” Moon wrote.
For many people, the very word “California” has come to represent more than just the state itself. It symbolizes liberal values, “woke” culture and environmental progressivism. A large swath of California residents would applaud these stereotypes, but there are also plenty of people in the state who wouldn’t want to be linked to these generalizations.
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“I think it’s an easy retort for stupid people,” Moon told SFGATE of the “why don’t you move to California” notion.
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Hollywood Sign between Palm trees from central Los Angeles., Oct. 19, 2018.
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But data shows that people actually may be leaving California because of these very cliches. A good portion of those who relocate are more likely to be registered Republicans, according to a report from the Public Policy Institute of California. The reverse is true, as well: Those who move into the state are more likely to be Democrats, the research showed.
Money is often part of the leave California argument, but California has it right when it comes to taxes, Moon said — something he’d like to see changed in Alabama. When he dug into what it might be like for an Alabama family of four making $130,000 a year to live in California, he wrote, “I mean, it has to be awful, right? People are always talking about how incredibly high the tax burden is in California.”
It turns out the tax burden is much less for that family in California than in Alabama, according to Moon’s research. Plus, “property taxes are roughly equal. Those hidden fees for court costs and registrations are typically less in California,” he wrote.
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These economic issues stem from historical tax codes that were crafted in 1901 that helped the rich stay rich and the poor — notably, Black Americans — stay poor, Moon argued in the column. California’s highest tax rate sits at 13.3%, while Alabama’s tops out at 5%.
“Maybe that’s why the entire state of California enjoys a higher ranked school system, higher ranked health care system, higher ranked mental health care system. Better infrastructure. More access to high-speed internet. And a prison system that isn’t rated third-world,” Moon wrote.
USA, Alabama, Montgomery, high angle view of buildings on Commerce Street
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He went on to criticize Alabama’s high sales taxes, expensive traffic tickets and those excessive courts fees, ultimately blaming the state’s lack of independent thinking for its enacting policies it knows are bad or unfair.
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“Look, I’m not here to tell you that everything is perfect in California. I am trying to show you that things could be better in Alabama if you stopped believing goofy, group-think ideas that were concocted by the wealthy to keep everyone in their place,” Moon wrote.
Then, the barrage of emails came, with many of those familiar messages (though no more than average, he said). “The funniest ones are the ones that tell me to go back to wherever I came from,” Moon told SFGATE with a laugh, since he was born in Alabama.
Alabama is a deeply red state. Evangelical Christianity fuels views on many issues, like gun and abortion rights. It has its own stereotypes that undoubtedly don’t apply to everyone who lives there. But Moon said he thinks his columns particularly anger local residents because he’s just like them. He drives a pickup truck, can “out-fish most everybody” and has “done all the redneck things,” he said. But political polarization has gotten so much worse in the Trump era, and it has driven partisan hate in the state, he continued.
As for why it’s always California he should be moving to, Moon said he blames it simply on the state’s fame, since everyone knows it so well from TV and movies.
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Personally, it’s always amusing to this writer that California is the liberal scapegoat for Fox News and its ilk. Massachusetts has a higher concentration of liberal voters and has acted first on many progressive policies, like being the first state to legalize gay marriage, along with enacting early health care reforms. Vermont often gives the Democratic candidate a larger margin of victory than California does, while also frequently leading on climate initiatives, like a recent law that requires fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change damage. Taken more simply, California is just too geographically large to be as universally liberal as these aforementioned East Coast states. Call up any political map, and you’ll see that half California leans red.
Welcome to California, Interstate 10.
Joe Sohm/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
I often get similar emails when I write about the broken parts of California. “That’s exactly why I left Commiefornia!” they say, followed by some quick praise for Utah, Montana or Nevada.
Still, no one writes Moon to say, “Why don’t you move to Massachusetts or Vermont.” Taxachusetts and The Land of Bernie just don’t come to mind, I guess.
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Moon said he’s visited California at least three times and has never encountered a more friendly and welcoming place. Since his visits, “I’ve told people I don’t know why anyone lives anywhere other than Southern California,” he said. When asked if he’d actually move to California, Moon said, “Oh hell, yeah” enthusiastically and joked that he hopes his daughter can get into college here so they have a reason to go.
“I do love [Alabama], I just wish that the people in it would be a little better sometimes,” he said.