“Seattle AI founder looks to leave as taxes rise: ‘Everybody that I know … is in the process of leaving’,” Fox News reported Saturday. “Jesse Proudman says Venice.ai is looking at Texas, Nevada, Florida and Tennessee as alternatives to Seattle’s tax climate.”
That’s three “red” states and one “purple” state that Proudman is setting his sights on. If he and “everybody he knows” move there, what can we expect from them?
The OpenSecrets donor lookup shows him solidly and consistently in the Democrat camp, with the first two entries going to Hillary Clinton and the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility. Clinton’s stance on the Second Amendment is well known: she’s a zealous prohibitionist.
So, what does the Alliance consider “gun responsibility”? Their “Timeline” shows their “Victories” over the past decade, and each one is a loss for gun owners. You got it, they want it.
That doesn’t bode well for freer states that Proudman and “everybody” he knows want to move to, where they will presumably continue to advance Democrat rule. They’re seemingly oblivious to the repeated human experience that once a majority is achieved, restraints against collectivist excesses can be thrown off. Besides, controlling everything is expensive. And if those in charge want it they can take it.
It’s almost like all freedoms are interconnected or something, and that an unrestrained government powerful enough to control guns is powerful enough to do whatever it wants.
That lesson appears lost on people who should be smart enough to know better. But the reality is, the self-styled “party of the working man” is increasingly the party of high-profile billionaires, even though the increasingly in-your-face Marxists the rope-selling capitalists are financing (like Seattle’s wholly unqualified Mayor Katie Wilson) have made no secret of their contempt for the well-heeled useful idiots who enable them.
While some are beginning to awaken to the fact that history is not kind to the “One Percent” when the proletariat decides they’re too fat and it’s too hungry, plutocrat lifeboat schemes like “guaranteed annual income” or Apocalyptic luxury bunkers will prove desperately delusional. The only thing that will work is what they’re helping to ban.
And it’s not just the wealthy Democrats.
“On the East Coast, New York City is facing a renewed exodus. According to a Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) study released earlier this month, the Big Apple lost more residents than it gained last year,” Fox News notes. “The report found that New York City lost approximately 114,000 more domestic residents to other U.S. cities than it gained in 2025, reversing two years of marginal growth.”
AOC’s mom loves the lower taxes. But her support for the “Green New Deal” shows she hasn’t learned a thing about politics.
“Boston’s affordability crisis drives young workers to consider leaving,” Fox Business adds. “Survey finds nearly half of those leaving the Northeast are heading south as rent hits $2,918 a month in Boston.”
How does that demographic vote again?
Proudman’s the one who brought up Texas, a state the gun prohibitionists have been eyeing to turn back to “blue” for some time (many younger gun owners today don’t remember Gov. Ann Richards, who wouldn’t let Texans vote on concealed carry). As things stand at this writing, committed gun-banner James Talrico leads both John Cornyn and Ken Paxton in the Senate race.
Who thinks an influx of hypocritical Democrats into these states, voters who don’t want to personally “pay their fair share” (their terminology, not mine) for the type of government they demand, will work out well for gun owners?
We’ve seen what happened in Colorado. We can see what’s happening all over the country in an analysis by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, which blindly opines:
“Texas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee were the biggest net winners from interstate migration, while California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts were the biggest net losers.”
If your only value is short-term financial gains, they may have a point. But long-term losses from increasingly strident collectivist demands – not just on incomes but on essential freedoms like the right of the people to keep and bear arms – are predictable.
For its size, South Carolina is seeing the biggest influx per capita of new residents from other states, equal to just over 1% of its population. In other words, for every 100 people living in the state, one new person moved in from elsewhere in the country… With the influx of residents, South Carolina gained more than 29,000 new tax filers and roughly $4.1 billion in income. This shift is likely to boost local economies in the state as new residents bring spending power and help fill open jobs in growing industries.
It’s all reminiscent of the story of Esau, who traded his birthright for a mess of pottage. And what’s not being factored in by these migrating Democrats is when their new nests become as fouled as the ones they abandoned, there will be no safe haven to fly to.
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About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
