The leftist tide is turning in California. By Edward Ring.
California’s role in influencing the future of the country is unparalleled. In addition to its economic and demographic weight, California remains the epicenter of America’s media and entertainment industry, as well as its high-tech industry. Even if several American states defy the momentum of California’s political class, laws governing California frequently end up becoming federal policy.
The abyss is coming for us all, and its epicenter is in California. …
Demographics are the key:
California’s population by ethnicity is roughly 40 percent Hispanic, 35 percent non-Hispanic white, 15 percent Asian, 5 percent black, and 5 percent multi-racial. Among Californians under 20 years of age, non-Hispanic whites are now less than 22 percent of the population.
Any effort to change political culture in California might benefit by first recognizing that the hardest bloc of big government supporters to convert are its diminishing cohort of white liberals. Living by the millions in inherited homes and thus not liable for either a mortgage or significant property taxes, they are exempt from the worst consequences of California’s failing institutions. For California’s financially secure white progressives, the rising cost of essentials is an inconvenience rather than an existential threat. They live in upscale neighborhoods where the public schools have better teachers and more resources, or, equally likely, they don’t have any school age children. And they are concentrated in areas where crime rates are low.
California’s white voters support progressive Democrats because they don’t suffer the consequences of progressive Democratic policy failures. It’s much easier to believe the abstract Democratic mantras about climate change and systemic racism when more tangible challenges don’t exist. That’s the reality for millions of white progressives in California.
Write them off. …
The future:
The future opportunity for the Right in California today are Asians and Hispanics who are increasingly receptive to three primary messages:
- Policies that create scarcity and high prices are by design, and only benefit crony capitalists.
- Public education at all grade levels in California is failing.
- Punishing crime deters crime.
With respect to scarcity and the cost of living, and also with respect to rescuing public education, deregulation to encourage competition is the answer. …
Two misconceptions have driven unsuccessful efforts to change the political culture in California. First, that the primary political concern of nonwhites, primarily Hispanics, are social issues such as pro-life sentiments, and second, that more generally, nonwhites favor bigger government. Neither of these assumptions is true. …
While their consistent support for Democrats might imply a big government bias, all it really indicates is that Democrats have made more alluring promises to nonwhites, while successfully stigmatizing Republicans as racist. Those promises have not been kept, and as the Democratic mantra of equity ascends into the stratosphere of absurdities, accusations of racism are wearing thin.
The most urgent concerns for non-white voters in California … are to live in a state with an affordable cost of living, good schools, and safe streets. Consequently, efforts to realign California should target Asians and Hispanics and should emphasize pro-abundance policies, school choice, and support for law enforcement. …
The past:
Democrats in California are the party of big business, tech companies, environmentalist extremists, and government unions. Their self-serving policies have made the state unaffordable, punitively hostile to small businesses and independent contractors, with a public school system that’s a joke and huge swaths of its urban neighborhoods that are now crime-infested no-go zones.
Nobody who is victimized by this reality is happy with it, and if they are offered credible alternatives, they will dump the Democratic incumbents who created this mess.
So goes California, so goes the US then the rest of the West. Perhaps California has reached peak woke.
