So, it finally happened. New York City has been home for Sean Hannity for as long as I have listened to/followed him. He helped me get through college and parts of the Obama administration. I enjoyed hearing him on the radio. His show typically followed Rush Limbaugh (RIP). He always had the same monologue as Rush, and similar guests that would appear. Sean knows his talking points and like most I know in the GOP, he rehearses them well. Sean, in my opinion, never spoke bad of his hometown. He even bragged about owning a hybrid Chevy Tahoe and how happy he was. Well that all changed this week. Check out his monologue to start his show.
The Fox News host first made the announcement on his radio show Tuesday, noting that he was “broadcasting now from my new home in the free state of Florida.”
“If anybody is listening to this program for any length of time, been threatening now to do this for quite a while, but we are now beginning our first broadcast of my new home, and that is in the free state of Florida. I am out. I am done. I’m finished. New York, New York, goodbye. Florida, Florida, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. But it’s great to be here,” Hannity said.
Sean Hannity announces move from New York to ‘free state of Florida’
“And finally, for the first time that I can think of in my adult life, I actually have representatives in the state that I’m living in that share my values. I have a governor by the name of Ron DeSantis and Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Rick Scott. So I’m feeling a lot better about it,” Hannity said.
He added, “And I’m not going to go through the whys, the how comes, because it’s obvious this migration out of the blue states with high taxes, burdensome regulation, high crime, horrible school districts is real. And if anything, I’m probably late and behind the curve and many others have made the move beforehand.”
I must ask the question…. ”What changed Sean?”
New York as a whole and specifically New York City are not conservative. I would even argue not close to having Republican ideals, except maybe the very sparsely populated far north up-state parts. It hasn’t been that way for my entire adult lifetime. Liberal policies are not new here. It has always been a far-left cesspool. Maybe only second to the California Bay Area.
I honestly never remember him threatening to leave New York. To me he always seemed happy and content there. Keep in mind he was always Fox News number 1 or 2 biggest star on both radio and television. His shows are a ratings bonanza so Fox would have definitely paid top money to keep him around. Why would he stay in New York? Again, I will mention he bought the hybrid Tahoe. If it was so bad, I think he could afford to pack up and move anytime. Again, he has a very highly rated national radio program, and a huge TV following.
Regarding his last paragraph about a blue state exodus, this has been going on for years. Heck Limbaugh left New York over two decades before. My question is this, what states are really getting redder? Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado have trended away from the GOP, not towards it. (This is thanks in large part to California immigrants that think they are conservative but are not changing the demographics of these states.) My point is who is leaving these blue states? His comments about crime are fine, but has Sean been made aware of Tallahassee and Miami? Sure, the schools will be better than New York but who cares? Hannity’s children are adults. One has graduated college and the other will shortly. Has he studied the insurance crisis in Florida? It is much the same as in California but due to hurricanes not wildfires. My point is, sometimes you trade one set of problems for another. Burdensome regulation isn’t just in blue states. Again, Sean does a good job staying on the talking points script of taxes, regulations, crime, bad schools, and freedom.
His last comments about being late to the party sum up his entire existence in my opinion. Sean strikes me as the type who infests the CA GOP and CRA. They love to speak about how conservative they are, espouse conservative ideals, yet in every single election these folks pick the most liberal Republican candidate. McCain, Romney, even the folks backing Jeb Bush, it’s crazy. He was even worse on the Speaker of the House for the GOP over the years. He loved John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and fawned all over Kevin McCarthy. All three have something in common, they love regurgitating talking points just like Sean does. I know no one who shares the views of any of those 3. None are conservative. They all sum up the GOP in a way Sean loves, get elected, then re-elected, go on talk shows and tell folks how conservative you are, then after being re-elected again, tell us how we must work with the other side. Lather, rinse, repeat. Folks like Sean Hannity love this playbook.
Hannity is in trouble because he is alone. Rush Limbaugh died. Fox ratings are way down. McCarthy was ousted as Speaker, and it appears the GOP found a real conservative to replace him. So, to stay relevant he moved to Florida. Oh, by the way, Hannity has owned the Florida house since 2018 and split from his wife in 2020. Seems this move is about more than crime and high taxes.
It’s sad to watch but Hannity is just a microcosm of the GOP’s branding issues. This move reeks of desperation to stay in the news. Maybe it took years of liberal GOP and leftist Democrats ruling the roost to get this to occur or perhaps all his bravado is a smokescreen for more personal reasons.
The Chief