What should we make of the exodus of millions of Americans from blue states to red ones, primarily in the South? In 2021, North American Van Lines reported that the Carolinas, Tennessee, Florida, Arizona, and Texas were the top destinations for movers, and the top five states for departures were Illinois, California, New Jersey, Michigan, and New York. Is this phenomenon, as many wonks and pundits are celebrating, proof positive of the failed governance of the left, an exciting development that should reinvigorate the right?
That is more or less the opinion of author and journalist Roger L. Simon in American Refugees: The Untold Story of the Mass Exodus from Blue States to Red States. “Blue-to-red migrants tend to be serious constitutional conservatives, and they might be the cavalry that rescues the red states from their own problems,” reads the inside cover. In Simon’s telling, conservative Yankees fleeing the suicidal policies of liberal America are often the ones rescuing the South from the failures and negligence of complacent Southern RINOs (Republicans in Name Only).
There’s certainly something to that. As noble as the South is, it is no less susceptible to the venal, duplicitous tendencies of politics than anywhere else, as is depicted so deftly in Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men or the Coen Brothers’ 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? But is this all the South now serves in America’s imagination — a political redoubt for those Americans exasperated with the destructive policies of the left, a place where you can still wave the stars and stripes with pride, a region resisting the insanity of wokeism?
Though political machinations define the bulk of American Refugees (which largely takes place in Simon’s adopted home of Tennessee), the author does seem to appreciate that the South means more than just conservative politics. He observes after moving to the Volunteer State that natives are nicer than Californians, and liberally say “y’all,” regardless of accent. But being Southern is more than just a little twang in the vocal cords to sing along with the latest country tunes: “You have to eat a lot of shrimp and grits to become a genuine Southerner,” he writes.
To his credit, despite initial concerns, Simon decides he opposes the renaming of everything that memorializes Confederates. In his defense he cites the wisdom of L.P. Hartley: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” And, Simon adds: “One of the keys to living contentedly as a refugee is to accept the reality and lifestyle of your new home.”
That enculturation even extends to religion. In perhaps one of the most authentically Southern anecdotes in the book, Simon recounts being greeted at the gym by a man who asked him what church he would be joining. Following a cancer diagnosis, Simon finds himself honored by the prayers of many evangelical friends. Feeling his heart strangely warmed, Simon rediscovers his own Jewish faith.
And, to his credit, Simon and his wife, screenwriter Sheryl Longin, become intimately involved in local Tennessee politics, helping natives in their battle to resist the rise of critical race theory and transgender ideology in local schools. In contrast, Simon portrays carpetbagging conservative transplants such as Robby Starbuck and Morgan Ortagus as little more than grifters exploiting a political moment. He quotes a local Tennessee politician who rebukes that flavor of conservative transplant to the South: “We want representation in Congress that understands, not only which interstates come into Nashville, but understands our culture — our Southern culture.”
That said, there is a certain narrowness to the narrative, which the reader cannot help but interpret through a lens of political expediency given many of Simon’s assessments. “If there were one red state I would tell you not to move to… Georgia,” he asserts, because The Peach State is now purple. Is our residence really to be determined primarily by its political character, as if loyalty to kith and kin or patriotism for a particular place are but trifling afterthoughts.
Indeed, in one of the more telling parts of American Refugees, we read: “One of the questions potential California expats frequently ask existing California expats is whether they can get good sushi in their new home.” With respect, you can keep your damn sushi, yankee. Elsewhere he describes the American dream as “freedom, God, and family, in whatever order you choose.” Yet getting that order correct is precisely what has enabled the South to preserve its character and culture in the face of the atomizing, dehumanizing forces of a materialist modernity that obsesses over creature comforts and the latest culinary trends.
I must also confess a certain skepticism given that many of Simon’s vignettes of transplants to the South are of childless or empty-nester liberal-turned-conservative boomers who have decided to spend their retirement or final professional years in Dixie. Rather than a true cultural paradigm shift this sounds more like another manifestation of the savior complex that has defined the boomer generation since they were old enough to complain about their entitled upbringing in the greatest nation on earth. In the 1960s and 1970s, they rose up to save America from unjust wars abroad and racism and bigotry at home. Now, in Simon’s telling, they are going to save America from the very same evils they championed, while of course still enjoying a comfortable lifestyle defined by fashionable restaurants and leisure time at the country club.
Undoubtedly, Simon is to be commended for his humility in seeking to understand and assimilate into Southern culture, which he seems to have done far more than many similar transplants. And very much do I appreciate his call to action for Southerners tempted to retreat further into the countryside in the face of aggressive, godless progressive. One of my favorite parts of the book is his citation of an unknown author: “The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love.”
Nevertheless, despite its interesting storytelling, American Refugees in its focus on politics, even at a local level for too long ignored to our nation’s detriment, seems incomplete, and even myopic. For in truth America will not be saved only by conservative policies (though that will certainly help), but by a conversion of hearts that must, in the end, originate in a revival of fervent faith that transforms not just electoral maps, but lives. That will require quite a bit more sacrifice and suffering than what Simon is selling. If America, and the South, are to survive we’ll need less sushi, and more sackcloth and ashes.
