What Sean Hannity’s Move From New York To Florida Says About America

It’s funny how people will turn anything into a political cudgel, no matter how petty or childish. Earlier this month, Sean Hannity announced he was leaving New York and moving to Florida. Several of my conservative friends — yes, I have them; I keep them around as a barren source of amusement (I kid, of course) — cheered the news because, well, you know: New York = blue = bad. Florida = red = good.

It would be easy to disassemble that viewpoint, the myth that red states are better or cheaper to live in than blue ones. But Hannity’s move speaks to an issue that deserves far more attention, something that’s been endemic in America for 40 years, a threat far greater than any single policy, program or platform: our population’s continual sorting of itself into communities of conformity.

It’s readily visible in our election cycles. In the quarter-century after World War II, election results in most counties became more closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. Throughout America, friends, neighbors and co-workers of different stripes and values could engage in vigorous, ongoing dialogue (the operative word being “ongoing”). Together they talked about forging some sense of national unity out of their genuine concerns. By 1976, the average margin of victory in the 50 states was 10 percentage points; in 27 states, it was less than 7 percentage points. In that presidential election year, Gerald Ford, a Republican, won the entire West Coast and most of New England, and he almost won New York.

But in the quarter-century that followed, a cultural and political migration ensued , balkanizing the nation into little more than political ghettos. The number of counties where one party or another enjoyed landslide majorities