TRUMP
The old guard is legitimately terrified. In America Buzzwords win elections and sell products. They know this because they forcibly changed our culture to make it so. Yet they did not think their actions through. The buzzword for the last 15-25 years in the US was JOBS. Trump said that magic word, and won. The blue wall of the midwest fell down.
Now suddenly, they are looking at a 2018 and a 2020 where the republicans could gain enough state positions and congressional positions to rewrite the constitution however they see fit. An amendment that defines marriage as a religious union between men and women? DONE. There are only two genders, xx and xy? Done. Immigration is hyper restricted to the best and brightest? DONE.
Whatever they want to do, they will be poised to do it in the next 2-4 years unless the democrats stop losing. So now they have pushed their big, liberal, heavy hitting tech companies to spend THEIR money and expand into two of America's biggest shit hole cites because they NEED those electoral college votes.
You know something is going on when they are having to spend money and acknowledge the little people.
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Sullysq ago
Easier explanation would be a pending gentrification. Areas like these have had Democrats in power so long that they've been taxed into oblivion and have a massive and growing available work force desperate for any pay at all. With nowhere for the political pendulum to swing but right, future governors willing to promise companies anything to bring them into the state, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and state funded job training makes these areas ripe for massive profits through labor cost and tax savings. Contrarily you have corporate white flight from the increasingly taxed and restrictive silicon valley.
These companies are simply "flipping houses" just as they did in the beginning of the tech boom in California when California offered immense financial incentives to set up shop there.
An example of the lengths states will go to attract these companies away from silicon valley is Iowa's $208M bid to attract Apple. And in return Apple is only offering 50 jobs. The Iowa governor and state legislature think it's a good idea to force the citizenry to essentially pay $40,160,000 so that one person can have a job at Apple. You can bet some decision makers are getting a big bonus this year. And Iowa is nowhere near as desperate as Michigan.
RoBatten ago
Things in Seattle are getting too fucked up even for them . . .