Should lots of new housing be built in the interest of affordability? California says no, Florida says yes. Should homeless people be allowed to turn public spaces into tent cities? California says yes, Florida says no. Should public elementary schools teach critical race theory? California says yes, Florida says no. Should gas be $4 a gallon? California says yes, Florida says no. Should biological males be allowed to dominate girls sports? Florida says no. California not only says yes, but it is trolling Florida by forbidding its employees to take state-funded trips to Florida, as well as 16 other states.
California fancies itself imposing its cultural values on other states and tackling global warming independently; Florida has a more modest view of what a state government does. People are voting on all of this with their U-Hauls. California s population in 2020 shrank for the first time ever, by 180,000 people, whereas Florida had the second-highest increase in population, after Texas.
During the pandemic, California introduced some of the harshest lockdown measures in the country, crashing its economy, while Florida was among the first states to begin reopening, way back in May 2020, and has been almost entirely open since September. Disney World reopened in July 2020; Disneyland reopened at the end of April 2021. One survey found that Florida had the second-fewest coronavirus restrictions; California ranked 45th by the same measure.
