Readers may recall Thomas Frank’s curious book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, in which he wondered why working class people in the red states of “flyover” country voted Republican, presuming that Republicans favored the rich and not the working class. Why are they voting against their (presumed) economic self-interest? Somehow no liberal ever seems to ask What’s the Matter with the Upper West Side?, where rich liberals vote for the party that wants to raise their taxes.
It all seems a quaint relic of the pre-Trump era. It has slowly dawned even on Thomas Frank that many Americans rate other principles, such as national identity, against narrow self-interest. Tocqueville, among others, would have recognized it as “self-interest rightly understood.”
This is prologue to noting the map below of business startups by state since 2019, produced by the lefty Center for American Progress. It’s main point is that entrepreneurialism is thriving in America, though I think the subtle point may be to throw some shade on flyover red states like Arkansas, though it is clear that startups in many red states appear to be robust.
But notice that startups are tepid in coastal California, even though that is where Silicon Valley and Hollywood (California’s two leading industries today) are located.
But the real shocker is Washington state. The home of Microsoft, Amazon, and other high tech moonshots of the left generation is notably lagging. What’s the matter with Washington?
I wonder if this guy has something to do with it:
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.