Repressing freedom and the pursuit of knowledge has led to brain drains before. How about this time?
The culture wars are on like Donkey Kong. Among all the Trump-a-rific stuff being considered, here are just two examples out of Texas. A new law just passed will, I kid you not, authorize the placement of “chaplains” into the position of public school counselor. Such individuals would require neither the normal licensure nor training that counselors must possess. I guess God will guide them? But if you were worried that Texas schools might be abandoning the concept of requirements completely, well, fret not. Their state Senate passed a bill mandating that the 10 Commandments be displayed in every classroom, although thankfully it failed to pass the state House. For now. Hallelujah indeed.
In fact, red states all across our country have recently implemented a series of hard-right policies targeting a very long list. There’s abortion rights, education (relating to teaching about racism, sexual orientation/gender identity, and other so-called “divisive topics” in American classrooms from kindergarten to college), gun safety, banning library books, curtailing LGBTQ+ rights, and more, which polls show are generally unpopular.
Could these culture war policies, which impose the views of white Christian evangelical racists on everyone else in the community, lead to a kind of brain drain of people moving out of very conservatively governed parts of the country? We’re already seeing evidence of this among doctors—including those in training, and particularly in OB/GYN (oh well, only half the population needs them!)—as well as college applicants and potential faculty members (with Florida and Texas not at all surprisingly showing the earliest effects) along with K-12 teachers, not to mention queer parents and LGBTQ+ Americans in general.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ right-wing culture war directly caused Disney to cancel a long-planned investment in Florida—turning down a huge tax break that would have subsidized it—and 2,000 new jobs disappeared just like the Little Mermaid’s voice. Does that make DeSantis the new Ursula? Let your imagination run wild there. Back in the real world, Henry Grabar at Slate asked a very practical question, namely “how far Republican governors can go before corporations and their employees begin to reconsider” whether they want to be in red states.
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