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Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by chrisco255 on Monday November 05, 2018 @03:47PM (#18385825)
Ft. Worth, right next door, is not though. I don't see this happening, by the way. Abbott is up by 15-20 points in the polls this year. And Texas is just different, culturally, than these other states.

You can have your LGBTQ anti-discrimination and TX still remain red, BTW. They're not mutually exclusive.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by jimjansen on Monday November 05, 2018 @04:29PM (#18386155)
So Amazon should only be allowed to have large offices in Blue states? What dangerous thinking.
Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by untog on Monday November 05, 2018 @05:16PM (#18386490)
Not really, just the definition of "pro-business" is changing. It used to be that all you needed to do was slash a few taxes and you were a pro-business state. These days businesses are looking to be located in areas where their employees will feel safe and welcomed, which excludes states that fight against gay marriage, for example.

I don't really see the argument that businesses choosing location based on taxes is fine but choosing based on employee life satisfaction is a crisis.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by yourbandsucks on Monday November 05, 2018 @06:19PM (#18386897)
Choosing based on culture wars is buying into the bullshit. Gay marriage, for example, is federally protected.

We need to fix the culture divide in this country. Let's work from places where we agree rather than searching for disagreement. Lots of states are near the tipping point if we could only speak to each other honestly.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by spookthesunset on Monday November 05, 2018 @06:43PM (#18387025)
> Choosing based on culture wars is buying into the bullshit.

It is absolutely not bullshit. I would flat out refuse to relocate to a red state. In the high tech industry, I'm not alone. Setting up shop in a deep red state is not a good way to attract world class talent from across the globe.

> Gay marriage, for example, is federally protected.

Small comfort when you are gay and wish to find a safe place to hang out for a drink and hook up... Small comfort when you are an ethnic minority waiting for a bus....

> We need to fix the culture divide in this country

In my opinion this is not gonna happen any time soon. The divide is almost to the bone. It is a fundamental divide that can't be solved with mere empathy or compromise. There is no empathy to be had and no common point for compromise.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by yourbandsucks on Monday November 05, 2018 @06:46PM (#18387040)
You wouldn't move to a purple state and vote blue?

You can only tolerate an environment where absolutely everybody agrees with you?

You know where this goes, right? Let's pack all the liberals into 1/5 districts and give the rest to 60/40 conservative majorities. Great job everyone, at least nobody (rich) compromised their values.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by jimjansen on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @11:45AM (#18392607)
>In my opinion this is not gonna happen any time soon.

Certainly not when there's so many people like you with bizarre black and white visions of the world.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by bobthepanda on Monday November 05, 2018 @07:20PM (#18387251)
Homophobia didn't end with gay marriage. Sexuality is not a federally protected class in housing, employment, services, etc. What good is the fancy new headquarters and the six figure job if you can just get evicted on a moment's notice because of your sexuality, or if you can just get your face bashed in at the bar on a night out with your friends? http://www.keranews.org/post/how-texas-does-or-doesnt-deal-l...

If you're an employer, a great way to pre-emptively shoot yourself in the foot is to make yourself unattractive to employees and shrink your hiring pool in such a tight labor market.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by yourbandsucks on Monday November 05, 2018 @07:25PM (#18387275)
Homophobia went from the mainstream view to a tiny fringe in 20 years. Even Trump isn't homophobic. And even California is home to a fringe.

What's the end game for "I refuse to deal with those people"? Permanent 60 R senators?

If you wouldn't live there, who should?

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by bobthepanda on Monday November 05, 2018 @08:05PM (#18387494)
> Even Trump isn't homophobic.

This is a bunch of malarkey. For a person who's supposedly not homophobic, he's appointed a lot of homophobic judges, has a homophobic Attorney General, is gutting a lot of executive orders and regulations on homophobia in the workplace, etc. And this is before we get into anything transgender. https://www.advocate.com/politics/2017/11/09/trumps-14-most-...

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by yourbandsucks on Monday November 05, 2018 @08:08PM (#18387508)
Way to miss the point.
Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by r00fus on Monday November 05, 2018 @08:11PM (#18387521)
> These days businesses are looking to be located in areas where their employees will feel safe and welcomed, which excludes states that fight against gay marriage, for example.

This. Gay marriage is a good litmus test if you're a minority of any kind trying not to get discriminated against or shot.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by kodablah on Monday November 05, 2018 @04:36PM (#18386213)
> Abbott is up by 15-20 points in the polls this year

Careful making suppositions about politics based on a winner's party. Often it matters about the opponent strengths (or lack of). This is the same party-assumption failure people make about national elections.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by thebradbain on Monday November 05, 2018 @03:53PM (#18385864)
Fort Worth is the largest non-Democratic city in all of the US, yes, but if you also look at every election you can see it too is turning bluer and bluer.

Also, the government race is not a good indicator. Lupe Valdez has made mistake after mistake in her campaign — I’m liberal, and even I wasn’t enthusiastic about voting for her. She’s doing so bad that she’s polling less than the percentage of registered Democrats there are in the state.

For change, look at the Beto polls — he’s not favored to win, but he’ll come within 5 points. That’s huge considering Cruz previously won by +21. Furthermore, in the 2016 election Texas was only +9 Trump — that’s less than conventional swing states such as Ohio.

Hillary did better in Texas than any Democrat since Reagan. Also, Texas last had a Blue governor in 1994. Texas hasn’t always been red — only for the past two decades — and it won’t stay red forever.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by thaumasiotes on Monday November 05, 2018 @04:24PM (#18386105)
> Texas last had a Blue governor in 1994. Texas hasn’t always been red — only for the past two decades — and it won’t stay red forever.

California last had a Republican governor in 2011, but people will look at you funny if you try to cite that as evidence that California wasn't dyed-in-the-wool Blue at the time.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by thebradbain on Monday November 05, 2018 @05:46PM (#18386712)
That's a fair critique. I think my main point wasn't made clear by my comment: all states – even those we consider as Blue as California or as Red as Texas – won't necessarily stay their current color forever.

To discount any state as unchanging is doing a disservice to all US Citizens: public opinion changes, demographics change, politics change, and people change.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by dragonwriter on Monday November 05, 2018 @05:53PM (#18386753)
Just to illustrate that point, California was a Republican presidential stronghold up through 20 (EDIT: typo, 30) years ago; they won the state in every Presidential election through that year except 1964 starting with 1952.
Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by saghm on Monday November 05, 2018 @05:53PM (#18386750)
Similarly, Massachusetts currently has a Republican governor, and it's certainly not a red state
Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by jeffbax on Monday November 05, 2018 @09:28PM (#18387851)
Who surprisingly has the highest approval rating in the country, even higher than Warren.
Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by saghm on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @09:11PM (#18396653)
From my experience living in Massachusetts, it's not all that surprising! There are plenty of Republicans in Massachusetts who are successful politically; they just tend not to be as conservative as Republicans from other parts of the country.
Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by yourbandsucks on Monday November 05, 2018 @04:07PM (#18385992)
Nobody knows their history, they're just chasing the quick dopamine fix.

Which state did the only President to pass a civil rights bill since the civil war come from? And he passed 3 of them! 3-0 vs the field.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by stevenwoo on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @03:07PM (#18394463)
Voter suppression is surprisingly open, there were two cases just this morning of poll workers verbally abusing black voters in Austin and Houston to discourage them from voting. The generation raised with segregation has a few decades left to influence things. Also Texas might be the hardest place in the United States to register for new voters - so even demographic changes could take decades to work there way through.
Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by akhilcacharya on Monday November 05, 2018 @05:08PM (#18386426)
>Hillary did better in Texas than any Democrat since Reagan. Also, Texas last had a Blue governor in 1994. Texas hasn’t always been red — only for the past two decades — and it won’t stay red forever.

In terms of margins she did better than any Democrat since Bill. Bill had a 3 point and 5 point loss respectively thanks to Ross Perot.

Re:Amazon Plans to Split HQ2 Evenly Between Two Cities by chrisco255 on Monday November 05, 2018 @04:52PM (#18386312)
We'll see how the Beto-Cruz vote turns out. Still think it will be closer to +10 for Cruz. Trump was a pretty unconventional R candidate. A lot of establishment Republicans (which are stronger in TX than elsewhere) were unenthused about Trump.