As conservative states wage total culture war, college-educated workers—physicians, teachers, professors, and more—are packing their bags.
On Memorial Day weekend in 2022, Kate Arnold and her wife, Caroline Flint, flew from Oklahoma City to Cabo San Lucas for a little R&R. They had five kids, the youngest of them five-year-old twin girls, and demanding jobs as obstetrician-gynecologists. The stresses of all this were mounting. That they were a gay married couple living in a red, socially conservative state was the least of it. Caroline was born in Tulsa, spent much of her childhood in Oklahoma, and was educated at the University of Oklahoma. She cast her first presidential vote for George W. Bush. Kate, the more political of the two, was from Northern California and a lifelong Democrat. But her mother was born in Oklahoma City, and she felt at home there; she’d even given some thought to running for the state legislature.
Kate and Caroline flew down with the twins and their 16-year-old daughter. It […]
This trend is part of the law of natural consequences. It’s a hard law but very effective at teaching through pain and discomfort. I suspect, however, that the right will not sit idle. They will do what they have done in the past and open schools which support their ideology who will train physicians and other professionals. It’s a difficult process but not impossible. There are examples such as Liberty University, or possible Baptist affiliated colleges will adapt. Generating medical professionals is a decade long process, and I suspect this is the road they will take.