美国国家公共电台 NPR Texas Becoming A Magnet For Conservatives Fleeing Liberal States Like California

 

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

Out in California where some conservatives are getting tired of feeling like outsiders. Their dream - to live among like-minded neighbors in Republican-leaning places. As NPR's Vanessa Romo reports, some are choosing Texas.

VANESSA ROMO, BYLINE¹: What's a man supposed to do when the place he's lived his entire life starts to feel strange and unfamiliar²?

TIM STOKES: I grew up out in the county here in Sacramento. And we had pigs and chickens and geese and all that stuff.

ROMO: That is no longer the Sacramento Tim Stokes and his family live in. The Sacramento of today, he says, is all cookie cutter suburbs, sad excuses for backyards and interminable make-you-want-to-punch-a-fist-through-the-windshield kind of traffic. That's why he's starting to look at his home through the eyes of a potential buyer.

STOKES: I have to sell my house. In order to do that, I have to repaint the house and make some alterations³, you know, redo the kitchen and whatnot.

ROMO: Stokes, his three kids, his pregnant wife, Chris, and their two hundred-pound Mastiffs are following a wave of Californians making a move southeast to Texas. In fact, by some estimates, there will be another 20 million people living there by 2050. For Stokes, it's not just the cheaper real estate prices that are calling.

STOKES: It's honestly, it's everything. The politics in Sacramento, in general, have made it to where the middle-class hardworking American is - it's unaffordable to stay here. And it's the simple fact that I'm trying to raise a family.

ROMO: Stokes, who's 36 and a Republican, says he's a regular voter and that makes it worse. He voted against a long list of issues he's staunchly against - a hike in gas taxes, marijuana legalization, prison reforms. And they all passed. And it's left him feeling thwarted⁴ and outnumbered and why he wants to move. Enter Paul Chabot.

PAUL CHABOT: Our primary job is to help families living in more blue states relocate to red states.

ROMO: Chabot's idea - more of a business plan, actually - is to create conservative Republican enclaves, where everyone shares the same values. And he's done it himself. Just a few months ago, Chabot was living in San Bernardino, Calif., except he had just endured a second failed run for Congress. After the defeat, he concluded that his home state is controlled by what he says is an ultra-far-left ideology⁵.

CHABOT: And that left ideology in California are largely your wealthy, liberal coastal⁶ elites⁷. But when you get to the inland part of the states - the Inland Empire, the Central Valley - these are areas where you have people that are living largely impoverished⁸ and forgotten.

ROMO: In a way, what Chabot is offering by connecting families with realtors on the buying and selling ends, helping⁹ them move and taking a commission for it - it's like he's offering them a time machine.

CHABOT: I jokingly say North Texas out here reminds me of Orange County California in the 1980s.

ROMO: When pushed to consider if there are any downsides to what he's doing - encouraging people to stick with their own kind, discouraging them from having neighbors with different points of view - Chabot says what he's after can be explained as a...

CHABOT: Strong sense of community, where you feel really good about the people that are around you because they somehow - you just mentally connect with what it is that they want.

ROMO: But George Fuller completely disagrees. He's the mayor of McKinney, Texas, where Chabot now lives, has his company and is luring¹⁰ people to move. Fuller, who is also a conservative Republican, says at its core, the desire to self-segregate can be dangerous.

GEORGE FULLER: Instead of trying to put together pockets of like-minded, I would think energy is better spent trying to figure out how to live and exist together and find productive solutions forward versus¹¹ insulating yourself from different thoughts, different ideologies¹².

ROMO: While Chabot is building a theoretical panacea¹³, Fuller is building a bricks and mortar¹⁴ version. He's a real estate developer. And he argues conservatives as well as liberals are swarming¹⁵ to the state and that tide can't be reversed in Texas. Just look at the presidential election turnout - 43 percent of Texans voted for Hillary Clinton. Vanessa Romo, NPR News, Washington.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

3 alterations   

n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变

参考例句：

• Any alterations should be written in neatly to the left side. 改动部分应书写清晰，插在正文的左侧。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code. 基因突变是指DNA 密码的改变。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 thwarted   

阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过

参考例句：

• The guards thwarted his attempt to escape from prison. 警卫阻扰了他越狱的企图。
• Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the rain. 我们的野餐计划因雨受挫。

5 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。

6 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

7 elites   

精华( elite的名词复数 )； 精锐； 上层集团； （统称）掌权人物

参考例句：

• The elites are by their nature a factor contributing to underdevelopment. 这些上层人物天生是助长欠发达的因素。
• Elites always detest gifted and nimble outsiders. 社会名流对天赋聪明、多才多艺的局外人一向嫌恶。

8 impoverished   

adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化

参考例句：

• the impoverished areas of the city 这个城市的贫民区
• They were impoverished by a prolonged spell of unemployment. 他们因长期失业而一贫如洗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

10 luring   

吸引，引诱（lure的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Cheese is very good for luring a mouse into a trap. 奶酪是引诱老鼠上钩的极好的东西。
• Her training warned her of peril and of the wrong, subtle, mysterious, luring. 她的教养警告她：有危险，要出错儿，这是微妙、神秘而又诱人的。

11 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

12 ideologies   

n.思想（体系）( ideology的名词复数 )；思想意识；意识形态；观念形态

参考例句：

• There is no fundamental diversity between the two ideologies. 这两种思想意识之间并没有根本的分歧。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Radical ideologies require to contrast to their own goodness the wickedness of some other system. 凡是过激的意识形态，都需要有另外一个丑恶的制度作对比，才能衬托出自己的善良。 来自辞典例句

13 panacea   

n.万灵药；治百病的灵药

参考例句：

• Western aid may help but will not be a panacea. 西方援助可能会有所帮助，但并非灵丹妙药。
• There's no single panacea for the country's economic ills. 国家经济弊病百出,并无万灵药可以医治。

14 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

15 swarming   

密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去

参考例句：

• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。
• The beach is swarming with bathers. 海滩满是海水浴的人。