I was in Oregon for two Sabbaths in September of 2001. I loved it — so beautiful and clean!
Kevin MacDonald moved to Oregon in 2014.
* Whites are pouring into Oregon — we’re the most moved-to state for something like six years now. They’re moving here to live around other White people in beautiful and diverse environs with an exciting big city. But they can’t admit that to themselves or say it out loud because that would make them racist, so they mouth pro-Diversity platitudes and vote Democrat to assuage cognitive dissonance and prove they’re not racist.
I can’t imagine Whites in Eugene or the Portland metro area ever admitting they chose Oregon because they heart White people.
* Bend has a lot of home equity refugees. They cashed out their home in California for an absurd price and bought something cheaper in Bend, which is quite nice. There’s also a good population of successful older people from the West side who bought a second or retirement home. The younger people are mostly outdoorsy types who are willing to live in poverty if there’s a view, and there is.
Lots of people in Oregon have an RV to take advantage of the outstanding state park system.
The downstate and East side outside of Bend still has a lot of native Oregonians, who are a good lot and astonishingly polite and friendly. But they’re also a small population compared to Portland, so swinging that 10% is a tall order. The Southern Oregon timber counties got nuked by the spotted owl 20 years ago and their economies still haven’t recovered. (I think the Josephine County sheriff’s office only has 8 hours of coverage a day.) There’s also a significant illegal immigrant population in some Willamette Valley farming areas.
* I relocated my U.S. residence to Oregon a couple of years ago.
It has all the benefits of an SWPL state, basically life here is like wearing pajamas all day, it is an eloi like existence.
But somehow, they are totally cool with gun rights and hunting. You wouldn’t believe the citizenship/residency verification for a DL, make any red state proud but they aren’t allowed to do it like a blue state. And the roads are great with very little traffic. Superlative sandwich makers too.
Maybe they will secede.
Frankly, it is much like a deer hunter state, demographically, shorn of dysfunctional rust belt cities and associated cultural heritage. If they are still part of the union, Oregon would be the likeliest west coast state to flip to Trump in 2020. Probably not worth the effort due to few EV, but it is definitely doable by a home grown brigade once Trump demonstrates that virtuous people can like him too.
* Yes, we’ve seen the hipster element in Portlandia, etc, but it is increasingly attracting deer country types as well. Most prominently in retirees, it is a haven for them, a throwback to Pleasantville.
Lots of lower middle class, lower class whites migrating out this way. This is less noticed than the Portlandia smart and sexy set, of course, same class as the media, but if anything, it is a greater trend IMO, at least because it is going unnoticed.
Like that Trump is going to win thing I told you guys about endlessly for months. Maybe now thats over I’ll start on Cascadia/Great Basin/Mountain West. Lots going on out here.
Anyhow, I talk to people. Surprising how many times the kid behind the counter in some out of the way town just moved to Oregon from anywhere and you can guess that anywhere is often Deer Hunter country even if the guy isn’t Ukrainian even if he looks like he could be.
There is an astonishing lack of southern Europeans out here, when you think about it.
Bend, Oregon and various places over the Cascades are running riot with growth and with the RV set and up as a significant component. They aren’t all California liberals over there, I’d say they are the distinct minority.
What, never heard of Bend, Oregon? Well, I never had either, but it is an interesting story although uninteresting to MSM. No guys with dreadlocks and skirts like Portlandia. But phenomenal growth.
And of course, all the Dems, it is Bernie country. I talk to these people, as one might imagine.
I have, even in the worst days of whatever the hysteria du jour was, get the Bernie Bros to respect why I supported Trump.
Because it was the same reason they supported Bernie – corrupt rigged system in the end that isn’t delivering the goods for the masses of Americans.
And then I’d tell them that I’d certainly vote for Bernie if the race came to Bernie vs. any GOPe other than Trump just as certainly as I’d vote for Trump over anyone the DNC would push reflexively and that the only honorable race possible was Bernie vs. Trump.
They’d invariably get it. They want a wrecking ball too and they only thing holding them back from Trump is peer pressure that is counter to reality due to all the propaganda during the campaign. So that cognitive dissonance will crumble eventually.
Trump can win these guys over and if anything Trump understands, it is having the cool people on your side, you don’t think he is going to target the rising youth class, the urban hipsters?
He only lost Oregon by 10%. IMO, the way sentiment was turning against Hillary, a few more days Oregon would have flipped if along with that there was some targeted effort to flip the state. It is a place that hates government corruption and non-fair deals. Very utopian and that is how Trump thinks, he is always talking about how beautiful everything is going to be and he really would like to have a society that is as placid, untroubled, productive, and healthy as Oregon is now for its residents.
It really is a very good match after we bury all the hatchets.
* Bend is high desert with only 12 inches of rain per year (and 24 inches of snow), but plenty of water coming down from the Cascade Mountains. It’s probably a really good climate for northerners who like having a little winter (but not too much) and who don’t like Florida-type summers.
* I’ve also noticed that while nearly all of the young people in Willamette Valley go along with the prevailing ethos, there is lots about it that bothers them although it is hard for them to articulate or express. However, I can, and it is the neo-puritanism of PC that is preventing them from having all the fun young people are supposed to have and they know it, know they are getting cheated.
You can lead people into it. One of the easiest ways to identify this is find a really hot girl. Beauty is not exalted here, lookism, all that. So the girls who like to indulge that urge feel acute social pressure to keep things toned down and they do not like it.
Talk to one of them sometime in Portland or Eugene and ask them about the implicit dress code in their town if you want an earful. Giving them the opportunity to give form to their inchoate resentments is good for them, helps them focus and understand.
* This is the sort of research I could really get behind.
* Oregon’s interior is a vibrant playground for social darwinism, When a hipster tells me of his plan to move to Oregon, I always say, “You should! it’s great!”
* The DL verification is strict because vehicle registration is so cheap. Out-of-staters were registering their vehicles in Oregon to dodge California taxes.
A good summary of politics in Oregon. It’s run by Portland, and the rest of the state is irrelevant. Portland is conventional left. Alas, a lot of local political idiosyncrasies have been wiped out in the last few decades and have been replaced by a homogenized and uniform national politics. (Well, maybe except for Louisiana.)
