NO SECOND THOUGHTS FOR THE RELIGIOUSLY COMMITTED – AT 9:27 A.M. ET:  Urban expert Fred Siegel, writing for Manhattan Institute's superb City Journal, compares the behavior of most of America Tuesday night with...New York and California.  Remember those guys?  Used to be part of the United States:

...another division is likely to compete for center stage in the next two years: the split between, on one side, California and New York—two states, deeply in debt, whose wealthy are beneficiaries of the global economy—and, on the other, the solvent states of the American interior that will be asked to bail them out. This geographic division will also pit the heartland’s middle class and working class against the well-to-do of New York and California and their political allies in the public-sector unions.

While most of America turned toward the Republicans in this election, Democrats strengthened their hold on California and New York...

...New York and California lead the country in middle-class—often white—outmigration. That has produced a vicious circle in which the very wealthy, the urban poor, and the public-sector unions who define the Democratic coalition create a high-taxing, heavily regulated polity that drives business and the upwardly mobile to the exits.

And that's exactly what's happening here in New York.  You see it every day.

This sets up what could be an ugly fight in which a Tea Party–inflected national Republican Party, encouraged by its strength in the interior states, forces California and New York—now heavily dependent on federal subsidies—to reduce their spending sharply. The coastal giants would no doubt respond by threatening defaults, which could affect the credit standing of the entire country, since many of the bonds are held by foreign investors. The upshot would likely be a high-stakes conflict about free trade, globalization, social class, race, illegal immigration, and public-sector unionism.

COMMENT:  Nice prospect, huh?  We sit here in New York and watch the stock market soar, crazy salaries paid to "bankers," and yet see one store after another close on Main Street.  And we wonder how long this fantasyland can keep operating.

Now, what happens when California and New York go to the feds for help?  They will run directly into a Republican House.

When he signed the civil rights bills of 1964 into law, Lyndon Johnson said it would mean the Democratic Party would lose the South, but that it had to be done.  When the GOP stands up to the coastal bullies, its leaders will know they'll be writing off New York and California for decades...but it will have to be done.  Let's see who blinks.

November 5, 2010