The "Big Sort"—Americans leaving blue states for redder pastures—has been celebrated by conservatives as a case study in federalism. If Democratic majorities in California, New York, and Illinois govern recklessly, residents will leave for states with different politics, such as Florida, Texas, and Tennessee.
The American experiment in real life.
But this phenomenon embodies one of the most politically tenuous characteristics of the modern conservative movement: the instinct to retreat into strongholds, but rarely to advance.
Conservatives conserve, and progressives progress. Offense is the Left's best defense.
Republicans are not only leaving blue states and cities, but also public schools as progressive ideology—especially on gender and sex—invades the classroom. More parents are moving their children into private schools and homeschooling.
This trend appears in higher education, too. Considering the hostile, anti-conservative environment predominant on college campuses since the 1960s, it's understandable that conservatives promote anything-but-college alternatives.
The film industry was once a pro-America bastion. Today, aside from a handful of conservative stars from a bygone era, being an open conservative in Hollywood is career suicide.
Newsrooms, tech companies, publishers, and (increasingly) corporate management are predominantly Democratic.
No wonder the Right feels like it's losing America: Conservatives are underrepresented in the institutions with the most social influence and control.
To be sure, the Right is not solely retreating. Conservatives and disaffected liberals are building alternatives, from PragerU to the University of Austin and more, while Fox News remains the single most popular cable news network.
But with over 60 million students in U.S. public schools and postsecondary schools, 20 million nightly viewers of flagship news on CBS, ABC, and NBC, 231 million worldwide Netflix subscribers, 162 million worldwide Disney+ subscribers, 70% of Americans using social media, and 30 million total employees of Fortune 500 companies, mainstream left-captured institutions dominate.
So where are conservatives winning? Where they play to win—in the courtroom and at the ballot box, for example.
Republicans control 55% of all state legislative seats nationally and have 22 "trifectas" (combined control of a state House, a state Senate, and a governor's mansion) compared to 17 Democratic trifectas. Former swing states like Florida, Ohio, and Iowa are now solidly Republican.
The right to own and carry firearms is legally entrenched. The right to homeschool children is spreading. Abortion law has been restored to the democratic process. Conservatives will have a friendly-ish majority on the U.S. Supreme Court for many years to come.
But there's a catch: Because conservatives aim to conserve and the Left aims to change, progressives are always gaining ground somewhere. So even Republican victories often just mean going back to a recent left-wing past, or going forward to a slightly less left-wing future.
If conservatives succeed in removing transgender ideology from all public school classrooms, that would merely restore the status quo ante, when left-wing ideology already pervaded curricula.
NFL players may have stopped kneeling for the national anthem—a small but meaningful win for conservatives – but platitudes like "It Takes All of Us", "Inspire Change," and, more to the point, "Black Lives Matter," still line end zones and helmets, and the NFL's "Inspire Change" initiative has "committed $250 million to social justice causes over a 10-year period."
The Right defeated the Democrats' attempt to use OSHA to force tens of millions of private-sector employees to get the COVID-19 shot, but Democratic leaders still controlled Americans' freedom of movement and medical behavior for years in a terrifyingly authoritarian fashion, and they never paid a political or legal price.
Democrats' relentlessness forces Republicans into a game of whack-a-mole, draining them of the time, money, and focus needed to force Democrats to defend their own territory.
The Republican Party has given up on California, although the state still has 39 million residents and 54 electoral votes. But the Democrats will never stop fighting to make Texas a battleground state.
As Republicans barely attempt to court urban voters, Democrats have turned America's suburbs purple.
Two generations ago, being an outspoken conservative in Hollywood, a corporate boardroom, or a mainline Protestant church would not have required courage. But taking over a country's institutions takes time. Time is the ultimate ingredient in decay, and it is on the Left's side.
As Gertrude says to Hamlet, "All that lives must die."
The Republican exodus from some left-dominated mainstream institutions might be wise, but only if it is done strategically, with the intent to counter-attack specific targets from a newfound position of strength.
Conservatives are wise to build new institutions. But while they retreat into strongholds, they must also consider that if they don't fight in California, Disney, and Harvard today, they'll be fighting in Texas, Fox, and Hillsdale tomorrow.
Jared Sichel is a partner at Winning Tuesday, an award-winning political marketing agency.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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