JOEL KOTKIN: Why the South is Winning. “For much of America’s history, the South has been a laggard, a poor region weighed down by intense racism and reactionary politics, lacking both industry and newcomers, foreign or domestic, to imbue it with dynamism and energy. But that’s changing — big time. Far from singing romantic paeans to Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s president, or celebrating his (blessedly) ‘lost cause,’ the South increasingly embraces the very attitudes and policies that once made the North dominant. . . . Overall, the southeast quadrant of the country is now the most dominant economic region, and since 2018 has produced almost all the country’s population growth and half its new jobs, according to the Texas Stock Exchange.”