With the cost of housing in the Bay area and SoCal, $200K isn't that much different from $45K in a place with moderate home prices.
I think a lot of problems in California come from 60 years of poor transportation planning and runaway sprawl. Locals fight tooth and nail to contain population density because it means degradation of infrastructure, especially road congestion.
OK, we need clarification here.
If this article is claiming that an income of 45K in California put one in the middle class then I have to say "hold it right there".
NO WAY!
Next, $200K does not put you in the upper class in Cal, it puts you in the mildly upper middle class.
Why do I say such things? Because the terms lower, upper and middle class refer to degrees of power and differing culture, not money. I am pretty sure they were coined to reflect that.
Upper class means I have NO MONEY WORRIES about ANYTHING and I have a ton of political influence as an individual.
Middle class means I have no money worries if everything goes right and if I band together with other middle classers I have a fair degree of political power.
Lower class means I constantly worry about money AND I have no effective political power because the two other classes can decide whether voter ID laws should be enacted.
So, this article is based on nonsense.
6
Mr. Douthat is probably correct to an extent, but doesn't hazard a prediction for the social model the US will follow. Will Trumpism successfully social engineer us back to the earlier times of definitive white privilege and clean coal power? Will modernists be forced to succumb and kiss the ring of regression, atavism? Assuming the world won't go along, would US internationalists and company revamp and pack up for better climes and conditions. Would the Norwegians bring their talent? Are the literati in the fly over capable of running the show? My bet is Trumpians despise success and success of color but, actually, the more clever of them see revenue to be taxed into the plains; Trumpism needs us.
From Hanoi, Vietnam
Thank you, Mr. Douthat. You make a lot of interesting points. And by the way--ardent Raymond Chandler fan though I am--I've never been in California. Sigh.
But--like Dr. King so many years ago--"I have a dream." Smaller, more manageable than Dr. King's mighty vision. I am not the man he was. Sigh.
CAN WE ALL START TALKING TO ONE ANOTHER?
And let me begin by saying--I am SICK of the word "liberal." They feature, of course, in the title of your piece. The LIBERALS want to do this. The LIBERALS are exulting because of thus-and-such. LIBERALS here--LIBERALS there.
And--to a lesser extent-the same is true of CONSERVATIVES. Only nowadays we have ALT-CONSERVATIVES. Oh dear.
I have heard it said: we need two political parties. One somewhat to the LEFT of center. One somewhat to the RIGHT of center.
We aren't there right now. Mr. Douthat, I have a grudge against ONE of our two parties--for embittering, inflaming political discourse in our country. It started a long time ago. During the Clinton years. Maybe you catch my drift.
I would contend, sir, that our greatest presidents took the middle ground. Lincoln and FDR--regularly assailed by BOTH wings of their respective parties. During times, no less, of exhausting and intense crisis. They held firm. They brought us through. Thank God!
But it seems there IS no middle nowadays, Mr. Douthat.
Whose fault is that?
And--can we FIND it again?
You tell me.
10
Mr Douhat,
Respectfully, we Liberals always dream for a better world-more equality, less misogyny, less xenophobia, less gun violence etc etc etc. If California is how you see our progress, I can accept that and not without pride. California is mostly IMO opinion a fairer place than Texas or many other places where Conservatives are moving their dreams forward. I will accept the Liberal/progressive dream with all its flaws. And I will work to remove the flaws.
The Conservative dream (your dream) is parked in the
White House and only a few conservatives (not you)
have stood up the utter complete failure of this dream.
Perhaps, it might be a good idea to clean up your own
dream before you put our dream down.
Don't step on my dream if you can't live up the failure of yours.
7
I am not completely sure how most people define liberal ad conservative.
I tend to think of liberals as being open to new ideas, and conservatives as people who take religious mythology seriously.
6
27% of children in California are white, non-hispanic.
So California will be interesting lab experiment--leading the nation into its minority-majority future.
My question is will different immigrant groups continue to self-segregate, further deepening ethnic cleavages, or will you see a nice big mix of middle class Californians of all colors? I really hope we don't end up completely balkanized by ethnicity.
4
Douthat discusses a critical and groteque feature of America's liberal bastions: They are locales comprising the very rich and the very poor.
Liberal strongholds like New York and San Francisco are our Banana Republics. San Francisco, which likes to imagine itself as something scaling the heights of Humanism and all that fluffy egalitarian lying nonsense, is overflowing with THRONGS OF HOMELESS PEOPLE.
There is an enormous chasm between liberal ideology and the lives liberals lead. They claim to believe in fairness and equality, but their environs are as ridden by class conflict as Fritz Lang's "Metropolis."
90 percent of the people walking down 8th Avenue in NYC purport to be liberal, and 99 percent of those liberals ignore homeless people each and every day.
These liberals like to imagine that their cities are blessed and, like the essay's title says, "Golden."
However the rich liberals are blind and deaf to the suffering in their midst. And things are so bad in NYC that I know a guy, working in Duane Reades, who shares a one bedroom apartment in Queens with 20 other single men. And the liberal lights who shop in the Duane Reade's where he works know none of this.
I have a prophecy: It is possible that NY and San Fran, and other elite congolmmerations of the spoiled and insufferabe, will witness civil disturbances and tumult ala 1968 or 1848. And after the poor throw rocks in the windows of park avenue homes, the denizens of Park Avenue will vote GOP.
5
Another one of Douthat's daily detachment from reality.
Fear mongering about single-party systems that he and fellow Republicans have no problem with if it's a Red state. And denying the fact that states that have been solidly Red for decades are among the worst economies, crowd the bottom of lists for rankings of health, education, unemployment, and environmental health.
Douthat claims California is no longer the proving ground for the American Dream. California is less than 2/3 the size of Texas, and less than 1/4 the size of Alaska. Both these red states gush with black gold, which is practically a fountain of money, and yet California would still rank as the 6th largest economy of countries in world.
California is the nation's leader in technology, agriculture, aerospace, and even entertainment. Yet, Douthat would ask us all to convert to the Red American Dream of guns, oil, mining, and steel.
And now he's even blaming California for Trump.
Why the Times continues to publish this man's lies, distortions, and deflections from the truth is perplexing. Even posted as opinion - it's a good time to point out that lies are not valid opinions - giving national exposure to such indecency and rewarding them monetarily for it is what is destroying democracy, education, and any hope for a united America. The truth is, people like Douthat do not want the United States to be united.
5
I have not noticed an exodus of people from California. Seems like it is getting very crowded. Indeed I wouldn't mind if a few million people would seek greener pastures elsewhere.
2
Couldn't solidly progressive California voters cancel out the proposition(s) lowering property taxes by now?
Don't call any economy successful until you have seen it handle budgets and debt. California owes two-fifths of a trillion so far.
Maybe the mining of asteroids will see Californians reaping the rewards.
1
California is a very prosperous state and it contributes far more revenues to the national government and more business revenues to the domestic economy than any red state, including Texas.
8
Toronto Ontario Canada is considered one of three best cities in the world in which to live. It defines what today's liberal think of as as good as it gets but it does have problems.
What a liberal city looks like is not homogeneous politically, socially, or economically. Good schools, good healthcare for all , and the opportunity to reach for one's goals defines Toronto and electing a conservative mayor with liberal Federal and provincial government is people participating in democracy.
the GOP declared war on liberal democracy for political purposes back in 1964 after the civil rights act. Democracy requires well meaning governing and opposition parties something that America lost decades ago.
8
I'm struggling to directly associate, as Douthat does, "liberalism" with some of the ills of California. Where's the correlation?
A liberal, in my view, is someone who is informed, intelligent and compassionate.
How that creates dire consequences is something only the so-called conservatives can ramble on about without actually saying anything.
6
Huh? Onc again Douthat writes from the hip, his very own. CA is not exclusively Liberal (whatever that means). CA also has staunch Conservative roots. Remember that old hippie Ronald Reagan? Richard Nixon?
5
California has turned into a liberal's version of Brazil.
You either have a maid or are a maid, nothing in between.
Now the rest of the country is following.
The Brazilification of America is a very real thing.
We are a second world country quickly turning into a third world one.
9
Interesting. I had a long conversation today with a friend, and well known person, and we discussed both sides of the question that Douthat is raising here. His point was that the Democratic Party wants precisely what Douthat decries -- the thinking is that Kamala Harris following in the footsteps of Obama would be promoting it. I argued what Douthat said was the fatal flaw. The petit bourgeoisie is not moving to Hungary. They will still vote. Somewhere. We will see how this develops. But there is already lots of empirical evidence, and here he mentions cost of living, that it will not work out well. I would just ask a lot of readers of this paper, and the editors who will approve or not approve this comment, given your level of education, set aside the technological gimmicks, is your standard of living today, taking into account the absurd cost of living in many key cities in America, better than what you experienced, when you grew up? Because it's very, and I mean very, easy to argue that again, in many key cities, New York, D.C., obviously many parts of California, that it is not. So what has been achieved?
1
Fear not, Ross... the California ex-pats can always move to Indiana, the alt right version of California. Not a liberal to be seen, from Ft. Wayne to Evansville, except for me.
3
So far I have only been able to look up Mickey Kaus who is described as a contrarian liberal (is that the same as a conservative?) and Michael Anton, a former National Security assistant advisor who was forced out by Bolton, but was allowed to come back to the White House just yesterday as an advisor in the kitchen for the State Dinner. Kind of a comedown for the latter!
The state has long been redistributionist nuts...
They elected and re-elected a purported Republican governor...
His view of things:
"I need your clothes, boots and your motorcycle"
He didn't even bother to say please...
Have the video to prove it...
In his defense - he did confiscate a shotgun...
2
My guess is we're going to find out just how stable a liberal national super regime is going to turn out. Cause it's coming post Trump.
3
Even the Los Angeles Times calls its city's homeless problem a "national disgrace." So much for California being Shangri-La.
1
One thing Ross fails to mention is why the Republican party collapsed in CA.
It was because about 20 years ago Pete Wilson made a huge issue out of illegal immigration -- race baiting. It infuriated and mobilized the Hispanic population of CA. Many became citizens finally so they could vote against Republicans.
Now, where I have seen that recently?
9
“California rehearses the future.” Both the good like social liberalism. And the bad: the high externalities of a poor K-12 system and income inequality. As a lifelong Californian who has lived from south to north, the US will be more like coastal states. The GOP should dump Trump to combat the blue wave about the crush its inept ways.
Wealthy democrats in my area oppose low income housing in their communities because those folks use more services than they pay for in taxes. The alternative is that we segregate the poor in ghettos. We need more government pressure on communities to integrate with the less fortunate.
2
Pretty muddle headed piece. Much better is the Judis article you link to, which comes to a more cogent political conclusion, as relevant for California as it is for the country at large.
Judis writes " . . There is no need, in short, for Democrats to choose between appealing to white workers and courting people of color. By making a strong and effective case for economic justice, they can do both at the same time."
This is as true in California as it is New York, and yes it is an implicit indictment of the ruling order everywhere in this country. The Democrats did not win California, the Republicans lost it because they were such clueless reactionaries they didn't understand until too late that times had changed. The change was driven as much by younger people's revulsion at Republican idiocy, as it was driven by Latino rage at Republican racism.
The Democrats, as you have written previously are in the middle of a civil war over the direction of the Party and while it is true that at the moment the Democratic neo-liberals, allied to big media, tech and the "New Economy" elites are in ascendance, the Democrats will end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory if the elites end up winning this struggle. At the moment, it is only opposition to Trump that holds the Democrats together.
After Trump, the Republicans as the Party of Reagan are likely doomed. However I would not be completely to surprised to see your neo-con comrades realign with the Neo-liberal Dems.
1
If you're familiar with the Missouri Ozarks you know Ross' analysis rings true. It's full of white, Republican ex-Californians who sold their Cali real estate and moved to the lake and low mountain country where they could buy a real nice home and still have tons of money left over to live on.
1
Wrong, statistically . Most CA people of any longevity STAY. For us, there are no alternate to weather, variety, beauty, diversity.
3
Regardless of Mr. Douthat's analysis and rejection of The Golden State, the worst Blue State is a far better place - In Every Way - than the best Red State.
Why is that?
3
Ross
Heed that political extremism of any kind overlooks the multiple needs of humanity. Just as Democrats were upset by the conservative backlash in voting for Trump, so will they be upset by the blue surge. When, oh when, do we opt for a balance of ideas like in abortion, allowing it to those who want it or need it but allowing those who do not, to not have it. To argue for all or nothing is to overlook the pluralism of ideas and values this nation has been famous for protecting and encouraging.
1
In other words, Republicans will win becuse a minority of voters can control the electoral college and the Senate, with enough voter suppression and gerrymandering, can keep control the House. And given their hatred, we can assume we will never have a liberal majority on SCOTUS.
How lob do you think the majority will accept rule by a crackpot minority?
2
Mr.Douthat may not support Trump, but despite being raised in LA, he shares Trump's hatred of California and "elite liberals", whatever that is supposed to mean.
The California education system was destroyed by Prop 13, a right wing conservative anti-tax victory over the Golden State. California's mental institutions were closed by conservative demi-god Ronald Reagan, ergo, countless crazy homeless people on the streets.
The roots of California's most severe problems stem not from the efforts of "liberals" but from the enormous political power that the right wing conservatives have abused whenever fate gave them the opportunity to do so.
If Mr. Douthat wants to focus on one-party states, then America would be a better place to start.
2
I'd add to Ross's list of California intellectuals the names of Benjamin Schwarz and Trump's immigration expert Stephen Miller.
Schwarz's long essay in "The Atlantic" in 2009 on "California Dreamers" has been quite influential on the small number of Californian thinkers attempting to move beyond tired partisan orthodoxies:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/07/california-dreamers...
You always need a divided government. But republican party does not have any solutions to all the problems we face. Republican party is only for whiteness. I wish a good solid republican party to emerge because that is not only good for California but as a country also.
Today I had to visit a medical center to have an injured leg examined. Since I believe cars are evil, I took my bike, despite my leg injury. I rode on a magnificent bike path along the ocean for about five miles, then turned inland along a river bike path for another ten miles till I reached the facility. I shared the bike path with all kinds of people, blacks, browns, crooks and straights. Then I returned home along that magnificent path. Can you imagine a more exhilarating way to visit your doctor? Whatever problems people like Ross might think California has, all in all, it’s a pretty mellow place.
Here's the problem with your article. It assumes that liberal voters take a GOP-style view of power - they want to seize it at all costs and will use power to bludgeon their opponents into submission.
Look, I'm basically a Communist, idealistically, but I'm moreso a pragmatist. I care far more about making human lives better than I care about implementing anything dogmatic. Communism, like anarchy, would be awesome, if everyone agreed and behaved. But they don't, so let's build something that works.
Most educated "liberal elites" think like this - honestly, the ones I know do, anyway. I love conservative views and ideas that aren't antithetical to improving human lives. They might come from a different ideological underpinning but the real world is always there as a proving ground.
What most of us don't abide is adherence to ideas that have proven to be broken and ineffective, y'know, like tax cuts for the uber rich in a booming but lopsided economy. I don't believe people are inherently evil. I don't believe in tribalism.
American conservatism, unfortunately, is currently stupid. It is utterly bankrupt of ideas that advance human social potential. I am not saying this lightly or gleefully. We need smart, idealistic conservative ideas now more than ever.
But in the absence, I will take California any day.
3
Wanna know which states have poorer K-12 educational systems than California, according to a U.S News and World Report study? How about Arizona, Nevada and Louisiana? You know, the "red" states that Mr. Douthit it tells us all those disaffected California Republicans have moved to to escape the misery of living in California. Where are teachers currently walking out and striking or threatening to do so, due to low salaries and lack of support by state legislatures of public education? California? Nope, try Kentucky and Arizona, both red states.
4
Why do east coasters never want to acknowledge the lure and success of California? While it is true that lower middle class families struggle in LA, that is not true for a large number of very nice communities around LA and in Orange County. Think Valencia, Chatsworth, Fullerton and parts of San Gabriel Valley. Yes taxes are high but we are so much more compassionate a people and state and we create jobs in Silicon Valley, Silicon Beach and the entertainment industry, rather than steal them from other states with budget busting tax incentives like Texas, Alabama and Tennessee. And all you need to do is look to Kansas to see how a fully Republican agenda fails the state and its people.
5
I've had enough. My admiration for RD's excellent writing style and intriguing position at the liberal NYT is waning in the light of his insistence on tracing all dysfunction and decay in the body politic to the left. He seems to be saying, for example, that the belligerence and hatefulness expressed by Trump voters can be traced to the fact that liberal technocrats in Silicon Valley have bought up all the good real estate. The truth is, Trump won landslides in Republican primaries around the country; he was nominated by the Republican party to be their candidate for president; he has received unqualified support from religious conservatives like Mr Douthat, despite the utterly dissolute lifestyle Trump openly leads and that Mr. Douthat so often condemns. He also recently suggested that Trump got taken seriously in the first place because of the decision on the part of cynical media elites to create a show like The Apprentice. But Trump would never, ever have been taken seriously as a political candidate were it not for the incessant Republican celebration of the business man as hero. And the fact that we now have a president is openly at war with his own government is the logical conclusion of Ronald Reagan's statement that "government is the problem" and not the solution to any problems.
As I see it, Republicans will do, in Trump's loathsome words concerning Kirsten Gillibrand, "literally anything" for a tax cut. Do not blame Obama and Nancy Pelosi for Trump.
4
If you compare the heavily populated parts of California with either the lightly populated areas or with most middle of the country areas the most noticeable factor is how often people have or will move. The Republicans and Democrats who voted for Trump prefer to live in one place. The more people move the more likely they are open to change and less worried about what the future holds.
I am a 58 year California resident, no not a native and never will be. When I moved here in 1960, the sky was the limit. I was a 19 year old farm girl from Connecticut with a hight school plus education and a good eye.
When I travel and folks ask where I am from, my answer is always, California. They know it as much as they know USA.
In taking stock after 58 years: I own a hotel, restaurant and brewery in the Napa Valley with my son who was educated in the California university system at Davis. My daughter, also educated in the university system, is a successful retailer in a neighboring community. My grands have been afforded a good education, some taking advantage, some declining. We are a thriving family unit with much accolade to California.
I live a in a very expensive, prospering community. However, with a 35 minute commute there is housing that is very affordable. The commute is glorious. This is a part of California that never meets the eye. Lake County. Best air in the state and the best viewing of the stars due to no industry.
It's not that there is no opportunity left in California, it's not knowing where to look.
7
One huge point RD is missing is that the income inequality that the entire country, including California is experiencing is considered by most economists as a necessary, or even desirable effect of conservative economic policies. To blame inequality on liberal economic policies is nonsensical. Indeed though there are certainly other downsides to them, the vast majority of liberal economic policies tend equalize the benefits of a strong economy among the classes.
Todays global economy will naturally tend to push the rewards of economic growth to a smaller and smaller class of capitalist owners. High income inequality is a natural effect of the Laissez faire economics of the right wing, magnified by technology, globalism and other trends today. Republican policies, such as low taxes on corporations and the rich, weakening or destroying trade unions, completely unfettered free trade, the emphasis on banking and finance and giving wall street free range along with the ethos of increasing shareholder value at the expense of employees, etc etc have all been the driving cause of income inequality.
Liberal policies such as strong unions, strong worker protections, higher taxes on the rich, more financial regulation, better healthcare etc all tend to help grow the middle class at the expense of the rich. These liberal policies also come with a price of course, such as generally lower economic growth, less rich people, etc... but push greater income equality.
9
Ca. has a net growth in immigration. Those moving out are most likely going to less populated areas, and most likely to retire. It is still a land of opportunity.
I would like to see a healthy two party system. But the current Republican party doesn't deserve to be one of them. It is controlled by would be aristocrats and those willing top buy power. It capitalizes on Racism and fear to win elections. It has no plan to govern but instead blames government for our problems and has no plan to solve major problems.
3
I usually find your columns informed and interesting but not this one about California. Most of your assumptions are simply wrong, especially the ones about education. My children are products of the public school system and the UC system and they can hold their own against anyone! A visit to California does not make you an expert on living here, Ross.
2
Douthat wants to score points by pointing out that liberalism's idealistic reach to help the downtrodden is exceeded or contradicted by its grasp on class privilege in California. Yes, yes, just like any person with an ideal, the California liberal can strive for a less class based society, or embrace class privilege directly without idealism, as Republicans do.
Douthat of course has no interest in the poor whatsoever. He is being petty. However, he is a Christian, so perhaps that religion may convince some of us to go further left. For that I am grateful for this article.
5
In response to Tom Q : No need to travel to Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Louisiana
A trip of Mr. Douthat, from NYC where he's posted to Syracuse NY , will allow Mr. Doughtat to discover economic misery a mere 195.36 miles away.
5
As a Canadian, I am somewhat puzzled by the critique of the California liberal elite in Douthat's column. Is he accusing liberals of being hypocritical for not investing in the government programs needed to address inequality - schools, daycare, healthcare, parks, city zoning bylaws, etc.? In other words, not being liberal enough? Or, is he suggesting they have not been conservative enough? That California's poverty and outward migration can be attributed to too much government investment and redistribution?
9
Well stated, Ross.
The comparison of California to a feudal economy is very apt. The Golden State is a very distended pyramid - at the top 1% are the lords and ladies (super rich rentiers, upper-upper class techno and film industry execs, successful entrepreneurs surfing on the global economy), vassals at 9%-19% (knowledge workers for the 1%), and then the lowly serfs for 80%-90% (immigrants and low paid service workers). Most of our knowledge based economic centers - NYC, Boston, DC, etc. on the coasts are similarly distended.
This whole pyramid is unsustainable. We need a massive revolution with re-distribution of wealth and better job prospects for the serfs. Or, we need about 50% of the population be killed off or die in some plague. Or both.
Change is brewing. Its just a matter of when and how wrenching for the elites, the middle and the peons it will be.
3
"Since the 1990s new Californians are disproportionately likely to make around $200,000 a year"
These new Californians presumably don't include the millions of undocumented aliens whose incomes hover close to the federal poverty level and whose accommodations many would call squalid.
One of the great contradictions of the California political elite is that while they champion environmentalism, open space preservation and natural resource management they simultaneously sanction unsustainable human population growth, much of it fueled by unauthorized mass migration from the developing world. You really can't have your cake and eat it too.
5
I agree with Mr. Douthat in what Democrats think they are what they actually do. Here in Charlotte the solidly blue city government can barely bring itself to make token efforts at affordable housing, and it's because its residents can't stomach poorer people living among the wealthy.
3
Who might your great grandparents have displaced when they moved out to California, Ross? California might not have been so populated, but nor was it some wild country. The historical irony about this "demographic anxiety," which seems to be the new euphemism for racism, is that California had brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking people long before folks like Ross's great grandparents came along. But apparently, some of the descendants of folks like Ross's great-grans feel the place is rightfully, exclusively theirs.
Again, Ross continues to beat the dead horse that liberal tolerance for different races and culture created the rise white supremacy. "If you had only been a little tiny bit more white supremacist, you wouldn't have so much white supremacism now!" Thanks for the advice, Ross. But no thanks. You have your principles, like giving tax cuts to the rich or Baron Von Romney's natural right to govern as a member of the American aristrocracy. We have ours here in California. It's not paradise here, but this state fortunately does not believe in throwing immigrants and minorities under the bus to please those with...uh..."demographic anxiety."
8
"there is nothing in the present G.O.P. worth appropriating or imitating or triangulating toward"
I agree!
5
Poor Mr. Douthat. Trying so hard to throw shade on the Golden State. I know I would rather live in California than Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, Kansas, or any other bastion of conservative “success”. But really, Oregon is horrible. You would hate it, Mr. Douthat - it is one of the least churched states in the union! A bastion of godless atheism. Or maybe a bastion of many godded pantheism? So beware of Oregon! Stay away, stay away!
10
With due apologies to the noted cellist, America is now passing through the Yo-yo Age, a process in which the political pendulum swings wildly between one major party and then back to the other. Why? Because to date neither party has been able to conceive of, let alone execute, a coherent program for fixing the nation's problems. So an episode of dismal failure by party A leads quickly to the resurgence of party B, and the cycle repeats itself -- and will continue to repeat itself until one of the parties, or an emergent third force, finally comes up with a workable program.
Unfortunately this cycle is at risk of becoming more extreme and vindictive with each successive futile swing of the pendulum. The problems keep getting worse; cynicism about the viability of democratic government increases; the ugliness of political life drives sane people out; the scoundrels and opportunists who remain in the game have no goal other than looting the store as quickly and completely as possible before it finally fails. All this, of course, in the name of God and the flag.
Can this destructive loop be broken? Maybe. Despite their many problems, the Democrats are clearly the more sane of the two parties, and the younger generation understands this. Indeed, the primary Republican project now seems to be the fervent exploration of the outer limits of lunacy. And two cheers for Donald Trump! His utter lack of redeeming qualities is uniting a fragmented population. But will it be enough?
9
Ross - that chip on your shoulder is so heavy, its forcing you to stare at the ground. Do tell about the upward mobility of the heartland. Oh - and while there, let's compare California - where universal healthcare is the debate - vs lets say the conservatives experiment in Kansas where they have plundered to make the wealthy more wealthy, or Oklahoma where they (ironically) now have an earthquake problem of their own making. I'll let that sink in for a minute to lighten your load. California is flawed/imperfect/ and the liberal elite can be endlessly arrogant. But tell us, who is closer to the values you espouse? California's healthcare and clean air for all, or the GOP's endless lower taxes on the wealthy at all costs? You should have stopped by while you were here - I could have helped knock that thing off your shoulder so you could see the horizon.
13
Ah, but this is the capitalism conservatives worship. People from humble beginnings pull themselves up by their bootstraps (or just inherit money) and having a choice of where to live, pick someplace warm and sunny.
Then, companies locate in California because people with scarce skills want to live in a nice place. They pay high wages. This in turn pushes out those lazy "takers" (aka the middle class) the Republicans like to grouse about. If you're not rich, you're a loser and the president likes winners.
So, except for high taxes and fairly generous social services, it's a conservative's utopia. Does California have outsized clout, politically? Well maybe, but when a couple fellas like the Koch brothers want one thing and millions of Californians want something else, I say go with the majority.
8
What a load of malarkey.
California models for us the way to protecting our environment, respecting workers, building inclusive communities, and investing in the future.
Those "Trumpian" folks that leave apparently want white-only communities, bad schools, private prisons, polluted air and water, no minimum wage, and no health care security. That is, after all, what they will get in Republican states.
California is responsible, progressive, forward-thinking, thoughtful, and prosperous. It shall always be so as long as Democrats run the state. Look to Texas if you want to see Republican paradise: high - very high - poverty rates, very poor schools, no or little access to health care, abonimably low wages, no or little collective bargaining to keep workers safe, and racism uber ales.
Go back to the South or whatever other right wing place you come from to cry, Ross. Those who live in California, or aspire to, know how awesome that state is.
10
You can blame tax cutting Republicans for California's woes today. In 1978, Prop 13 capped property taxes. Localities, realizing republicans did not believe in paying for local services as evidenced by the Jarvis proposition, proceeded to front load fees needed to provide required government services onto builders and developers who passed them along to the home buyer.
Since the home buyer was, essentially, paying up front for years and years of what would be local taxes, the price of homes skyrocketed pricing the middle class out of the market.
Warren Buffet once said he paid more in property taxes on his $500K home in Omaha than his $5 million mansion in California.
California is where it is today because conservatives in the Reagan era (of that state) were drinking the free lunch kool aid that became a national obsession among conservatives nationwide when Reagan went to Washington in 1981.
And the conservative belief that they should not have to pay for government has led to THREE failed attempts at tax cuts that have given us a $20 trillion debt and trillion dollar deficits going forward as far as the eye could see.
10
The American Dream that California seeks lies in these words:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. . . "
The Republicans vision of the American Dream is an Oligarchy consisting of the 1%.
Yes, management of the people, by the Oligarchs, and for the Oligarchs.
Fortunately for the Republicans, to many of the people fall in line.
1
One party rule, no matter who, always leads to bad governance. Indeed it could be argued that Californian's are highly irresponsible to hand a political monopoly to one party.
4
Perhaps it is more irresponsible of the California Republicans to refuse to move in the direction needed to make themselves more acceptable to their own voters and constituents. Californians aren't buying what they are selling. Politicians can't change their customers so they have to change their product!
1
What about Texas?
Thirty four states are under one party rule. Twenty six are controlled by Republicans. Are any of them paradise on earth? All states have problems and I am not sure the ones we have here than Oklahoma, only different.
Republicans used to be plentiful in California. Regan came from here, so did Nixon. California is very diverse and pretty moderate, equally moderate Republicans would do well here. Instead, starting with race baiting in the 1990s the party has continually shifted to the right. In the process, they have managed to alienate just about everyone who is not radically right wing including moderate Republicans. The last Republican convention was headlined by Steve Bannon. I am middle-aged, white and a small business owner. I should be in the center of their demographic, but the people they run for office seem crazy while the Dems are just annoying.
10
California has never been "Liberalism's Golden Dream." As much as Douthat needs to have an imaginary bogeyman to scare little children with.
California is conservatism's hubris hoisted on its own petard.
Liberals didn't have to win California. Conservatives lost it by fumbling every time they had the ball. They tried to auction it off to race-baiting, anti-tax, pro-corporate special interests, which provoked powerful buyer's remorse each time GOP held the statehouse.
Schwarzenegger, George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Reagan conspired to turn California into Alabama West with Proposition 13, a foreshadowing of Trump's "tax cut", which shifted property taxes from corporations to new homeowners, capping local taxes to cripple schools and local services. Then they pushed an initiative banning affirmative action and before that helped giant agribiz fight Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers. They ran a vicious campaign to impeach the State Supreme Court Chief Justice, Rose Bird, notable for its Ad Hominen misogyny and later a recall campaign against Grey Davis, which brought us the Republican on steroids, Ahnuld the Terminator.
Like Trump nationally, state Republicans brought a decade of chaos and incompetence that drove voters into Democratic ranks. Republicans did their R&D on divide and conquer with Reagan in California.
The GOP blueprint for Trump began here, with a B movie and TV presenter Ronnie Reagan.
That's how California became a Republican nightmare.
16
Your grandfather and my grandfather came west, mine from Dust Bowl Oklahoma, yours, from elsewhere, I gather. Your grandfather settled in Santa Monica, which, even then, was not quite the working, middle class town you describe. Mine settled in the Inland Empire, where my family remained. The chasm that exists today, however, between these two regions, is very real, as you say. But to lay it at the feet of the Democrats is pretty silly, I think. Any more than you can lay the opioid problem at the feet of the Republicans. Broader forces are at work, and have been since the explosion in housing prices, which began in Los Angeles in the early 70s. It is this that has driven the deepening divide. Those who could afford to buy in those days could double their money in just a few years. Then they could move to better neighborhoods and repeat the process. While those who once could afford to buy in areas like Santa Monica now had to go out to the Valley. Then, the Valley got too expensive, pushing those folks even farther out. That is what got us where we are. As for the Texeira predictions, I think that's bunk. I remember reading Kareem Abdul Jabbar's autobiography in the 80s, and how he thought Reagan wasn't such a bad guy, because he gave Kareem a big tax break. As for the old, white racists, Kareem said, they would all die off soon. Well, Kareem was wrong; they just got replaced by another generation of once-liberal, now conservative voters. Texeira is just wrong.
2
Capitalism, not the Democratic Party, is destroying California with it's "some's good, more's better, too much is just about enough" values. There is no moderating force to counter the gentrification and income disparity that necessarily results. The Republican Party is no less committed to capitalism and if anything is even less inclined to regulate the rapacious greed at the heart of our economic system. Capitalism has failed to scale up successfully from the post WWII decades when single income families could enjoy a solid middle class lifestyle. Capitalists monopolize politics at every level and in every ideology. The result is what we are now experiencing as a nation. Arguments of political hegemony are just a distraction from the death throes of western capitalism, a rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic.
3
Capitalism is what made America the world's top magnet for i mmigration for two centuries. Meanwhile, progressivism as seen in California has never been economically sustainable.
The period when the holders of California's debt give up on their loans being repaid may be this century's most notable time.
2
Three major factors should not be overlooked: population density, desirability of the place, and the need to maintain order amidst the overcrowding. I am a fourth-generation Californian, born and raised in Palo Alto, lived 27 years in San Francisco. If the cost of living is high in California and is driving people out (as occurred with me), don't look to red or blue political orientations to explain what's going on. Look instead to the desirability of the place, overcrowding, and the need for order. For the last 100 years, people have wanted to live in California, especially along the coast, because it's beautify and the climate is mild. Ross, your dad had a good thing in Santa Monica, but it wasn't destined to last. There's nobody (or political party) to blame for this. Millions moved to California, and the desirability of the place has driven costs through the roof. If the place now is run by Democrats, that has a lot to do with the fact that places with high population densities (such as California) need strong governments to maintain order. That costs money (high taxes). Republicans, being the party of less government, can't deliver what people need in high-density places. "California is coming" may occur with regard to the rest of the country if, over time, the rest of the nation becomes more densely populated. This is bound to happen. High population densities require strong governments to maintain order. That's the reason why the nation's future probably will be bluer.
4
May I also add that California's problems have been aggravated by Proposition 13 which severely restricted the ability to increase property taxes on real estate despite increasing values. The result has been that property has become a sinkhole for tax avoidance while also discouraging middle class housing accessible to middle class jobs.
11
It is remarkable that Douthat can write a whole column on California and never note that the election of a Republican celebrity as governor led to a severe and illegal budget deficit. Eight years ago it was often said that the state was simply ungovernable. And then Jerry Brown, who the Right used to deride as "Governor Moonbeam" was returned to the office he had left so many decades ago. By making tough choices and sometimes making everyone unhappy, he brought the budget into balance and made the state the most productive in the nation. And so now we see another Republican celebrity, same show in fact, and he is running the country into a one trillion dollar deficit. And then of course we will have to find some Democrat like Bill Clinton to come in and clean up the mess. I imagine by then Douthat will write amnesiac columns longing for the fiscal responsibility of Trump and Ryan.
12
This column is misleading on a couple of major points. First, the vision/version of liberalism cited by Mr. Douthat is only one such vision/version. Mr. Douthat knows this, I think, but it's his favorite axe to grind with liberalism, so he reduces liberalism to this version, in effect creating a straw man. Secondly, with the minor exception of the course correction of the Obama years, since 1980 the economic policies of the Republican party have been ascendant (the Clinton years are no exception). The consolidation of wealth in the hands of the few is a direct result of these policies; this is the conservative legacy, which transcends individual states. Mr. Douthat presents his argument as if California were an island unto itself, somehow isolated from these larger currents. While I applaud Mr. Douthat's efforts to focus on growing inequality, he is refusing to accept intellectual and moral responsibility for how conservative ideology has helped to create this state of affairs.
10
I am afraid that RD is correct: California is a microcosm of a major weakness in the NATIONAL Democratic party. Too many of my friends took great comfort in the the recent statistical analyses showing that Trump rose to power as a result of racial and cultural anxiety NOT economic anxiety. As I read the methodology of those studies, I became less and less convinced.
The Democrats have failed to deliver the goods to the lower reaches of the middle class and to the striving poor. Mitigating factors--such as GOP obstruction--played a role, but the Democrats must find a to reach out to this crucial demographic, for they are the ethical center of our party, not simply a variable in an electoral equation.
It may be the case that racial and cultural anxiety pushed Trump into a position of power he doesn't deserve, but Democrats mustn't be lazy. Would this cultural phenomenon have played out in the same way if we had retained a constant focus on the working class (of whatever race) and the poor but striving? Would Trump be in the White House if we had managed to make "working class" a multi-racial term? I think not.
6
Norman, I don't think you go back far enough to judge the failure of Democrats - and I don't mean you have to go back to Voltaire. I don't think you are looking objectively enough at GOP obstruction, especially since the Lee Atwater days, and particularly since the failure of Republican's Contract with America in the 90's. The history of human progress has always shown that cultural, scientific and social improvements just happen to flourish in a liberal setting, not perfect but always a step forward, usually followed by a conservative reaction that unfetters the more harmful aspects of industry and business, the greed and destruction. I'll keep my liberal card for now.
6
Ross, what Democrats want is a functioning GOP party, NOT the one currently held hostage by America's own version of extremism. A functioning two, or multi, party system is the cornerstone of a government which represents all of its citizens. Since the GOP has gone so far off the deep end, it might take a blue wave to urge some of the more reasonable on that side to compromise. Further, you know as well as the rest of us do, the GOP secured power through nefarious means which include propaganda machines, gerrymandering, and misleading their voters to believe they need to vote GOP to live up to their christian ideals.
9
There is no democratic magic in having more than one political party.
A party that represents the working class and serves its interests will suffice to fight for prosperity for 99% of the people.
Other working class oriented parties with different strategies would be welcome as well.
But there is no value to the people at all in capitalist parties. They offer no welcome alternatives to working people.
As usual, Mr Douthat offers up a rebuttal of a world he doesn't agree with, by defining it in ways that set up the perfect strawman for his arguments.
And, as usual, Mr. Douthat offer no new ideas, solutions, or innovations that might help those of us who are less partisan than he get along better.
3
Uh, earth to Ross, the alternative to the gig economy doesn't have to be Trumpism. It could be Bernie-ism, or something like it.
4
Ross, I hope you read and interact with comments the way the other Times authors do.
I think you have a problem with cause and effect.
1. In this very newspaper there have been articles about the U.S. elite universities, public and private, that enroll the highest number of low income kids. The best elite public university for having the most income diversity in its students: THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
2. Another article in this newspaper (NYTIMES) reported on universities- elite or not- that do the most to increase incomes. That which universities raise the incomes (10-20 years later) of those students who were very poor at the start of college. THE CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY SYTEM was very high on the list.
3. Incomes in CA have gone up because we have a great education system.
4. Incomes have gone up because we have great jobs and have been the leader in good job growth.
5. Numbers of Republicans have gone down because there is a clear correlation between educational level and political party affiliation. Climate Change is real, Evolution is real, etc. etc. etc.
6. Our state functions now because we got rid of gerrymandering and now have a more functioning democracy- the rest of the US should follow our lead.
7. Our state functions because we VOTED to INCREASE THE TAX RATE ON EVERYONE WITH INCOMES OVER $200,000.
8. Why are there more people here who voted to tax themselves more?
Because we believe in the value of Education, health care for all AND Democracy.
14
Hmmm... I'm not sure you can call being concerned about "ethnic displacement" anything but racist. So, sure, be concerned about "socioeconomic" displacement, and sure, maybe it can be the case the people are concerned about socioeconomic displacement AND angry that people of color are increasing in numbers, but PLEASE please please don't IMPLY that a "concern" about "ethic displacement" is anything but racist, just because money might have something to do with it, too. It's time we stopped apologizing for people who harbor racial animus just because their economic fortunes are lesser.
3
Ross, to use your terms, shall we speak of Conservative hegemony in Washington?
DC shows the depth of self-regard that motivates the Right. From the President to doctrinaire Justices to a cynical and traitorous Congress, Washington offers reason enough for rational states to foster Liberal majorities in defense.
What, in Liberal politics, compares with Trump The Incomparable, Pruitt, the world's greediest political suckling, or the looming disaster at FCC, and on and on?
Your Conservative/Evangelical axis of pretend morality invites extreme responses if for no reason than to ensure the longevity of a country they all have grown to despise.
I understand such a situation keeps you in your comfort zone, but even you must see it as an apocalyptic development in a nation founded by men who were not able to imagine a government so focused on economic greed, heedles of their fellow citizens, and a diabolical facility at undermining every founders' strategy for preserving the state.
While we're discussing things that even you, sequestered in your cave on the farthest Right, must admit are more than a little untoward, let's agree that California Democrats came to power largely because the Republicans, as they do, oversaw and endorsed murderous behavior by corporations and instead of finding remedies turned the tables and used the ensuing tragedies to replace an acting governor with a hapless movie star. A strategy which brought us your hero/nemesis, Trump.
2
Yes, California does suffer from income and racial inequality, rampant NIMBYism and poorly performing schools. Of course the Dems have only had complete control for a few years and Republican policies would make all of those things worse, so I don't think Mr. Douthat has a real strong point.
2
Having lived in CA for 22 years, I do not find the cost of living (other than housing) to be at all exorbitant. And if you discount the high number of undocumented migrant workers, the level of poverty drops dramatically.
4
For Republicans the "golden dream" is that only those with the gold are permitted to dream.
6
Ross Douthat's view reflects a failure to understand that the giant in the room is no longer an elephant, but is a robot. California is only slightly ahead in an increasing trend rolling around the world. At stake is the ability to work in a world in which not only the assembly-line, but middle management is being automated at a rate driven by Moore's Law (computer power doubles and its costs fall by half every eighteen months, or so). This rate of change exceeds our capacity to educate for new work and our society offers no way to afford such education. Today's stopgap is the Job Shop where hopeful workers call in every day. We are fast becoming the "Big Banana Republic in the North". Traditional Republicans have no conceptual tools to deal with this issue. Traditional Democrats fall back on yesterday's economic solutions, now marginally useful. This isn't "Greetings from California..."; it is "Hello" from your friendly robot (wafted by a slight odor from increasingly polluted atmosphere). Welcome to Global Change.
2
Look at a map of U.S. States that seceded from the Union during the American civil war, as well as States that were on the margin. There is a convincing correlation with the electoral votes that placed Mr. Trump in the Oval Office.
America is still working through one of its original sins (slavery) and the prejudices that enabled the Jim Crow south and the oppression that required the civil rights movement. Hopefully, president Trump is a death rattle from which enlightened civilization can move on.
6
Douthat deplores one party domination in California, which, whether he likes it or not, is still a product of one party capturing a majority of the vote. By contrast, elsewhere, America is slipping into rule of the majority by a minority. A minority of American has now elected the president for the second time in recent years, this time despite a very substantial failure to capture the majority vote. Due to the constitutional idiosyncrasy of allocation of senate seats, a minority of Americans elected a majority of the current senate. The House of Representatives slipped into minority domination through gerrymandering, voter suppression and gutting of the Voter Rights Act. Minority domination in the senate thwarted a majority’s nominee to the Supreme Court in favor of an appointment by a minority president and a minority senate. That will be compounded by a gradual minority leaning shift in the federal judiciary as a minority president and minority senate fill vacancies with members of the Federalist Society and political hacks. Douthat laments the consequences of true democratic rule by popular election in California (albeit brought about by non-white, non-Harvard, non-snobs that Douthat doesn’t like) while cheering on minority rule elsewhere by a bankrupt party with no social or economic policy other than “you’re on your own”, “keep America white” and maintain power by any means, whether by money, corruption, or chicanery . That’s Douthat’s vision for America.
3
Before you kick California too hard, lets look at the example of Kansas as a Republican one party state. The state was near collapse economically, before it was forced to acknowledge that its tax cut driven administration was bankrupting it.
Lets consider too that by almost every measure of social health - divorce, children out of wedlock, splintered families, church attendance, drug abuse, domestic violence, drop out rates and unemployment - the conservative, largely rural portions of our country are in worse shape than the nation as a whole.
There is little to nothing suggesting that Republican, harshly conservative government holds any key to success or social wealth.
12
Ross Douthat reflects a failure to understand that the giant in the room is not an elephant, but a robot. California is slightly ahead in an increasing trend around the world. At stake is the ability to work when not only the assembly-line, but middle management is being automated at a rate driven by Moore's Law (computer power doubles and its costs fall by half every eighteen months, or so). This rate of change exceeds our capacity to educate for new work and our society offers no way to afford such education. Today's stopgap is the Job Shop where hopeful workers call in every day. We are fast becoming the "Big Banana Republic in the North". Traditional Republicans have no conceptual tools to deal with this issue. Traditional Democrats fall back on yesterday's economic solutions, now marginally useful. This isn't "Greetings from California..."; it is "Hello" from your friendly robot (wafted by a slight odor from increasingly polluted atmosphere). Welcome to Global Change.
A good essay. I had realized that as poorly educated and less skilled (so that they make less than a quarter the income of those replacing them) bigots leave California, they strengthen Trump and his party in red states. I had not thought through how this would not work on a national basis, because the bigots would not go to another country.
I am enough older than Douthat that I remember when there were many more Republicans elected in California and other blue states. In New England there were Republicans in high office who were just as liberal on most issues as most Democrats. Even in red areas like the Midwest there were some Republicans of stature who loved the Constitution and promoted civil rights. The party (and Douthat is not entirely innocent) successfully disposed of such people. If the Republicans in California ran such people for office, more would be elected. Here in an overwhelmingly Democratic county in Indiana, I want us to have a Republican as County Commissioner and two on the County Council, and others who are capable and morally qualified in other local offices. But the local party usually runs inferior people for these posts.
2
Let me suggest something that runs against what Douthat argues: it's not liberalism that's causing California's problems - they're caused (in part) by conservatism in the rest of the country.
I moved to California in the 90's not because CA was in an educational crisis, but because of its top-notch universities. I stayed in part because it's a safe, comfortable place for middle class minorities, and in part because the investment in education has spawned many well-paying jobs. This is a significant draw for many people.
That up-side comes with a significant drawback. It's true that we're an unequal state. Housing costs are astronomical, and while Silicone Valley produces millionaires daily, the Central Valley's farm workers suffer the depravations as they do in the rest of the country.
California, for better or worse, has come to be seen as the land of opportunity, in no small part because of its liberal governance. It can't absorb everyone, though, so it has become a haven for those with lots of money and certain high-demand skills. If the rest of the country were bluer, more supportive of education, more respectful of minorities, then fewer people would want to live here, and more would be able to afford it.
9
Democrats give lip service to reducing income inequality but in practice do not do it. Republicans let the market (as manipulated by those with the power to manipulate it) decide income and wealth distribution. They believe that the market will build an information-age and automation-age middle class or it wont, and whatever happens as various individuals and groups compete (oligarchy, probably, or a Russian-style kleptocracy) is what should happen.
What non-California can do is to milk California's wealth so that non-California can enjoy lower taxes, and ultimately bring California down to its level. Red America has answers, too, the answers of resentment, white pride, and the individual-level solution of getting in on the latest scam by becoming a made man in the entourage of someone with an angle. If the country cannot be California, it will have to strive for West Virginia or Alabama.
Our technology has brought us to a point where answers lie outside the box. We are close to the disaster of developing a schmoo.
Since conservatives believe in enhancing or gently modifying what is in the box, they are doomed to pickle in their own helplessness and become increasingly bitter.
1
Confusingly, the forces of political illiberalism are the forces of economic liberalism. The economic liberal streak in the Democratic Party hurts it’s electoral chances.
I live in California. I love our clean air and water. I love the fact that we are not gerrymandered and that citizens have no restrictions placed on our ability to vote. I love our sanctuary cities and our frequent, well attended political rallies, protests and demonstrations.
Yes. We have problems, housing, particularly, but I have faith that our politicians mean to fix that. My friend, whose main issue is housing for the the poor and homeless is running for city council and she has a good chance of winning because this is the Bay Area of California, home of Nancy Pelosi, Kamela Harris.
And yes, malignant capitalism is a problem here as it is in the US, this continent and the world. The good thing is that California, liberal bastion, is well placed to fight it.
11
Ross Douthat's view and the divergent views in many of the comments reflect a failure to understand that the giant in the room is no longer an elephant, but is a robot. California, by being a leader in technology, appears to be different - but is only slightly ahead in an increasing trend rolling in a wave around the world. At stake is the ability to work and prosper in a world in which not only assembly-line work, but work up through middle management is being automated at a rate driven by Moore's Law (computer power doubles and its costs fall by half every eighteen months, or so). This rate of change presently exceeds our capacity to educate for new work and our society offers no way to afford such education by displaced workers. Today's stopgap is the Job Shop where hopeful workers call in every day. We are fast becoming the "Big Banana Republic in the North". Traditional Republicans have no conceptual tools to deal with this issue. Traditional Democrats fall back on yesterday's economic solutions, now only marginally useful. This isn't "Greetings from California..."; it is a mechanical "Hello" from your friendly robot (wafted by a slight odor from an increasingly polluted atmosphere). Welcome to Global Change.
We keep hearing how not only CA but also NY, NJ, and CT and basically any blue state are in some kind of death spiral. Yet all of these places still have increasing populations. NY/NJ/CT rank in the bottom 5 in gun violence and top in education; the reverse is true of the Southern states.
Perhaps Mr. Douthat on his next visit can find one of these Californians, who like so many of us East Coast elites no one can find, have decamped from NY and LA for the benefits of 4 day school weeks in Kansas or decades old textbooks of Oklahoma. Who have left the Hamptons and Santa Barbara for the Gulf Coast or a West Virginia cabin after one too many a tax or transgender bathroom accommodation.
That, or he can admit those who can stay, because the Coasts, Chicagoland, the big cities across the country are the engines of the economy and have more culture in a block than many blocks of counties in flyover country have. I'm glad to pay higher COL to live in one of the greatest states.
7
Yes, California should strive to be more like Mississippi. Lower taxes--kids don't need to learn, people don't need health care, and income inequality is just fine.
And who needs all of that technology? All it's doing is putting honest but less educated people out of jobs.
Why all the complaints about Mississippi's infant mortality rate? At least they did all they could to prevent them from being aborted.
And why should everyone's vote count equally? Why, indeed, should everyone be allowed to vote? I think only people I agree with should be allowed to vote.
Yup--if California were more like Mississippi, they wouldn't have worry about housing costs or overpopulation.
13
Mr D bemoans the fact that his grandfather's house has been demolished, and there's nothing wrong with that, but talking about Santa Monica as some middle class haven recently gone wrong, but I'm guessing, since Mr D is approaching forty that when his father was growing up would be sixty or more years back. When I moved to California in 1978 his image of Santa Monica had passed. House prices had risen to a position in the second rung below Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Bel Air, as I found when house hunting myself.
Which explains why LA, a sprawling metropolis expand year by year. And those "reasonable" housing costs require you to live further and further from S M. That the "supplementaL" poverty level puts CA on top (with Florida, not a one-party state!) is unsurprising, bearing in mind the large number of immigrants, tending to be low in the economic scale.
"completely terrible at figuring how to build an information-age middle class." As is, sadly the entire US!
(which is why Trump won Penn, Wis and Mich)
To imagine that California's so-called "upper class-service class-underclass hierarchy," is unique is misguided. Does Mississippi, etc have a booming Middle-Class? Actually do they excel anywhere?
5
I have two college classmates/friends whose parents came to California from Oklahoma during and just after the Dust Bowl years. Both are the first in their families to go to college and both are now physicians. I have another college classmate/friend whose family has lived in Riverside Co. for over two hundred years. He is now an attorney.
One European ancestry, one African ancestry, one Hispanic ancestry. I suspect California is unique only in that the same scenario is being repeated today. Different origins, possibly different religions, same results.
This is what used to "Make America Great"...
4
• California’s state government is flush with cash. The state’s income tax revenue has continued to far exceed both projections and last year’s totals. In the current fiscal year taxes have totaled over $82 billion, nearly $4 billion ahead of projections and over $9 billion ahead of this point last year. [San Francisco Chronicle]
So, how does this compare to those republican, lower taxes and decrease services states? Lower taxes and then more revenue? No, again we see this is a big myth.
5
I love New York (so long as I can afford it), but I wouldn’t want the whole country to be like it—and neither would they. The same could be said of every state in the union. That’s what the country was founded on.
From the prospective of someone who in the 1960's and 70's (because of a long historic and ingrained White racial animus against Hispanics-I'm mixed race- as well as a giant social-economic divide between the have and have nots ) couldn't catch a break in the then very Red State of Colorado; and who, right out of H/S, high tailed to Cali , I can attest that there are worse places to try and seek your fortune then California- If you have the vision, the drive, the open mindedness , are willing to work and think you have something to offer.
But hey, Mr Douthat, I've also lived in Idaho (after putting myself through college by working two jobs, and earning three degrees and becoming a licensed physiotherapist ) and it was, after 17 years in Cali, like I stepped back into time; complete with the racial animus and the intractable and institutionalized divide between the have and have nots- that even Colorado (by then) had long out grown or abandoned.
So to me, Mr Douthat, my ongoing nightmare (which God help us seems to have, in fact, come true) has been not that the US would become more like California, No, that it would become more like Idaho.
3
The GOP made itself irrelevant in California by pursuing the politics of resentment and deeply and consistently alienating the growing voter demographics over a long period of time. Before that, they seemed very hard to beat. The national GOP is repeating the California GOP's mistake, and voters will not soon forget it. They make explicit appeals to one race and the desire of some voters to retain a privileged position in society based on their white identity. Equally important, the GOP has seriously damaged its relationship with the business community, and with many of the highly educated white folks who work in that community.
Finally, the GOP is offering nothing that appeals to people under 40. They have become the party of older people who yell back at political shows on TV after Jeopardy and a few beers.
Finally, no one need worry seriously that the rest of the US will turn have either the amazing economic success nor the problems that attend that success, because those things are based on industries and economic conditions that can't be replicated nationwide.
5
So left-dominated California is a shining example of widely-shared prosperity, rock-solid public finances, income equality, affordability and opportunity for everyone, in other words, the shining city on the hill that leftists want to offer as an example to the whole of America, so we can all eventually share a Socialist future ?
Remember the old saying: socialism works just fine as long as it still can borrow money from somewhere else.
5
Actually, California and Texas have had very similar levels of state and local debt per capita, but California has a much higher per capita GDP than Texas ($67K vs 57K). So Texas is neither more prosperous nor better financially managed than California.
6
People keep predicting a democratic take over of national politics in the future. To me that would mean a democratic majority in the House of Representatives, a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and a democratic President.
Political observers say that the democrats have a chance of taking back the House in 2018 and the democrats might win the Presidency in 2020. But a filibuster proof Senate in no where on the horizon.
Something which limits the democrats is the issue of race and cultural issues. In many red states in the south and mid west, the most important consideration for a good many voters is how the candidate relates to the voters ideas about race, abortion, guns, same-sex marriage, etc. This situation makes it impossible for many democratic candidates to get the support of many white men and some white women that is needed to win in many red states.
Franklin Roosevelt could win huge majorities because he could be progressive but still largely silent on the race issue. He could unite economic progressives, labor leaders, intellectuals, and conservative southern democrats. I don't know of anyone today who could do that.
I am disappointed that the issue of race stills plays such a large part in our politics and I am sure that many people from the North and big cities don't think that it does. But as someone who grew up in and has always lived in the south I can see the effects of racism on a daily basis.
1
Trump is a vulgar bigoted narcissist. That is a fact. Polls show that 85% of Republicans support Trump. What kind of person would support a vulgar bigoted narcissist? It tells you all you need to know about people today who identify themselves as Republicans. They are either ignorant of the truth or they prefer to be associated with vulgar bigoted people. Unless we get a surprise and a sudden awakening the Republican party is about to go over the edge and disappear.
4
Some Republicans in California are a little different than the anti-climate science versions we hear from in other states. They also like clean air and water and have seen the difference in the air quality over 3 decades of environmental regulations. Most Republicans here on the coast don't want to look at oil rigs from the balcony of their ocean front property either.
4
But social inequality is the expected result of conservative ideology that can be summarized as "if you're poor it's your own damned fault". So, sounds like the Cali Douthat describes is a conservative paradise.
2
The simple fact is that income redistribution works, and it is absolutely necessary. To the degree that rent-seeking billionaires control our economy and our government, and set up an economic system that vastly favors them, we will continue to have major problems.
An economic system with single payer healthcare, a $15 per hour minimum wage, and robust investment in education and public infrastructure would be much more equitable. It would also be more successful economically and grow more quickly because people who are now destitute or barely scraping by would have more money for more consumption. There are only so many Gulfstreams that a billionaire will buy.
What is standing in the way of this? Republicans doing the bidding of billionaires, Democrats too cautious to tell the truth, and voters too stupid to vote in their own self-interest. And ultimately the billionaires who have bought the government so that they can die with the biggest number next to their names, to hell with the millions of souls who will have to lose Medicare and Social Security to fund it.
4
Did Douthat just say no one goes to California anymore, it’s too crowded?
5
A fine example of hubristic confabulation Mr. Douthat. Now, would the debacle in Kansas be Conservativism's Golden Dream?
6
There's that old joke about the guy inching along with his nose to the rug. His wife asks him, "what are you doing?" "Looking for that contact lens." "Why are you in the living room when you lost it in the kitchen?" "Because the light is better in here."
Welcome to the Times Op Eds.
When someone makes a living as a political commentator, it's useful to make the whole galaxy a political construct. But it isn't. Ross Douthat's thinking goes all the way from his politics to Claremont and Peter Thiel, because the light's better there. But the real changes aren't there. California's example is setting the nation's direction in energy, transportation, corporate policies, IT...and the real locomotive is the private sector, the prime example being the amusing annoyance of every city that could use the $5 billion infusion from Amazon's new HQ and will decline because they don't like gays.
National politics lags the changes that California leads in all these other areas. And seriously, Ross, if you're saying that out-migration is evidence of California's failures, reconsider. Those insufferable liberals you detest so eloquently don't turn into Republicans when they move to Tennessee and Texas. They vote blue.
4
Douthat is supposed to be conservative voice at the otherwise liberal NYT ? "There is nothing in the present G.O.P. worth appropriating or imitating or triangulating toward ..." Keep in mind that he says this while one of the most popular Dems is an avowed socialist.
I concede that Trump is scapegoating immigrants and foreigners to ease the pain in the rust belt - parts of which have been depressed since the manufacturing decline in the 1970's. But, at least Trump listens to these blue collar Americans - which is more than Democrats appear willing to do. (See Hillary telling coal miners from WV that she'll take their jobs.) But is Trump's scapegoating immigrants really so different from liberals scapegoating the rich ?
As far as the Californication of America, I tend to doubt it. Douthat already conceded that the purification of middle class whites out of CA can't be replicated on a national scale. Liberals speak broadly about the growing minority presence in America. But it's a a misnomer. Blacks remain at about 13% of the US. The increase is almost entirely coming from Hispanics - who live disproportionately in just a few states - CA, FL, TX, NM and NV. That's not going to change the GOP inroads in the rust belt.
Lastly, as Douthat points out, CA is no longer the American dream. Just a few years ago, CA was paying its bills with IOU's. Public unions have run amok. High inequality. Expensive housing. If that's the future of America, we're all in trouble.
6
California was paying its bills with IOUs a few years ago because it still had enough Republicans in the legislature to turn the passage of the state budget into a circus. They did this for many years. Without a budget, the state couldn't pay people. For some reason, the Republicans thought this was a great way to handle the state's finances. The voters did not agree and decided to get rid of the clowns causing all the problems. Now things function quite smoothly.
4
"A fully ascendant liberalism would have co-opt or crush groups that in California politics simply diminished or disappeared."
Unfortunately, many NYT readers nodded with approval while reading that sentence.
2
Mr. Douthat, please clarify to me how things in California would be so much better under Republican one party rule...
2
Is RD suddenly understanding the appeal of Trump? President Trump may be crude but he fights for American citizens and not illegal immigrants. He offers real jobs and not minimum wage crumbs. It may be soothing to Liberals to label President Trump “deeply unpopular” but expect 4 more years.
4
Facts from a long- time resident:
1) coastal cities have a high cost of living - not just CA.
2) not all Californians make $200,000/year - you need to look beyond Santa Monica.
3) CA has many Uber/ wealthy Republican enclaves - you can’t equate wealth and politics.
4) Californians move when they cannot afford to retire there.
5) The good news is that they take their liberal values to conservative states.
2
I didn't recognize any of the conservative names you mentioned other than Peter Thiel, a gay man with dual American and German citizenship who made a fortune as a venture capitalist in this country but has already purchased property in New Zealand and applied for citizenship there. Not exactly the type you conservative Catholics and especially the alt-right like to claim other than that he is very rich. But does he in any way espouse those qualities you seem to prefer? But, like Trump, he does use his money to sue and financially punish anyone who criticizes him.
3
California became a predominantly Democratic enclave not because of "liberals", but because the California GOP became partisan-obstructionist to the point the State couldn't function. It was pragmatism, not "socialism" that eliminated gerrymandering and restored enough taxation to balance the budget each year without brinkmanship. Sure there's growing income inequality and an untenable housing shortage in the cities. But California is adapting to the 21st century tech-driven economy as well as any other state. And a lot better, than many.
California does have vast rural areas where Trump-profle constituents tend to congregate. But unlike, say Texas, they don't dominate the electorate. Mainly because the old GOP stronghold suburbs have been deserted by the new GOP and forced to turn to a coalition with centrists.
4
My question to Mr. Douthat:
Where is the successful counter-California. Where is the happy, egalitarian conservative utopia that stands as a beacon that we mis-guided liberal Californians should aspire to emulate?
4
No place is perfect. As a Californian for 54 of my 70 years, and for the last 45, I have lived across our great state, from Imperial Beach on the Mexican border to Sacramento, with stints in areas all around the L.A. Basin and one of the reddest bastions in the nation, not just here--SE Kern County, which has Bakersfield as its county seat and Kevin McCarthy as its Congressman.
We have serious problems. But we also have leaders who do not seek solutions by demonizing and punishing the "other"--the poor, minorities, the otherwise dispossessed. It would be great to get our middle class back, but our ills in that regard are mirrored worldwide. Given technology and globalization, which are essentially irreversible, the gap between rich and poor will continue to grow, along with a burgeoning, insupportable human population.
With all of its ills, I would live nowhere else except perhaps Hawai'i, though the heat and humidity there have grown too great for me to bear at my age. (Another marvelous state the right hates, even more diverse than California, with many of the same problems, too, but a far more humane approach to them by many of its leaders.)
There is a nastiness in right wingers matched only by their hypocrisy as to their values. The Abomination on Pennsylvania Avenue is punishing our upper middle class for rejecting him, an example of that, but we will persevere. I will die here soon, proud more that I was a Californian than that I was American. That is truly sad.
6
I am a Californian and I'll be the first one to say CA has many problems and some of that could be blamed on the unchecked one party power. I wish for CA to have a viable GOP. RD's analysis on how we got here is flawed in several ways. One, Democrats did not drive the GOP out of power. GOP shot itself in the foot by making naked racial appeals to win over middle-class whites but failed to deliver on the economics. Two, RD seems to suggest that if the $45,000 a year white family had not bolted, somehow CA would be more equal. As some other readers have suggested there are plenty of people in CA that fit this economic status, but they happen to not be white. So, can I suggest that the CA GOP stop with the racial animosity and start appealing to these people? They may be surprised. Three, RD underestimates the role racial anxiety played in the white exodus. This racial anxiety, I have come to learn, permeates all economic strata is insidious and multi-pronged. I live in a minority-majority city with excellent schools where the average house price is well over a $1 mil but it is more racially segregated than my native AL. There are plenty of whites that can afford to live here in Cupertino, and many of them live in neighboring cities but choose not to because this is an "immigrant" town. This is not a good sign. Racial and ethnic resentment and anxiety are easily exploited by both parties and gets them off the hook on solving real problems that affects all of us.
85
In my opinion, you are missing a very important aspect of what has happened in California that makes it a model for the nation. We Californians have learned to do more than just live with our linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity. We embrace it. Your article mentions Ron Unz as an example of Trumpism in action in CA. In 1998, Unz sponsored Proposition 227 that banned bilingual education in K-12 public schools. The ballot initiative with a 61% Yes vs. 39% No vote. In November 2016, Proposition 58 rescinded the ban on bilingual education and reinstated multilingual education with a 73% Yes vs. 26% No vote. This dramatic shift in voters' endorsement of multilingualism reflects recognition of the global economic advantage of promoting multicultural skills to foster cooperation and communication across culturally diverse communities and international borders. Trumpism's white nationalism and anti-immigrant divisiveness no longer gain traction as an approach for achieving prosperity and quality of life in California. The nation should pay attention to the state’s success with its changing demographics.
3
Though I lack the data and studies at the ready to support this thesis, I think quite a few of California's middle class are leaving for smaller, more affordable, but still liberal, urban enclaves in other states. Some of these states are largely Republican, but the arrival of liberal California expats might change this.
The liberal/conservative divide largely parallels the urban/rural (or at least suburban) divide. The exodus from California, assuming it's of the magnitude that Mr. Douthat suggests, includes large numbers of middle class professionals--teachers, nurses, police officers--who largely got priced out of our cities and nearby suburbs. But, they're taking their politics with them.
2
I would move to CA in a second - if I could afford a place to live. My wife and I are solidly in the middle class and chances are we will stay somewhere above the middle income, no matter what happens with the economy or where we live. With that said, California, New York, Washington, Hawaii, Florida, Massachusetts and many other beautiful American states are becoming unaffordable to everyone except people who have a lot of money or have an inside track on land ownership. The California sun, beaches and mountains are a limited resource - full stop. This has nothing to do with "liberalism". While beautiful places may well be "liberal" in their politics, that has nothing to do with anything. The root problem is too many people wanting a slice of very limited resources.
3
I think in some sense, California is a victim of its own success. Like NYC as well, more and more successful businesses are entrenched there, and with limited supply of housing and other resources, prices skyrocket. The barrier to entry is high.
One problem is that it's not liberal enough in the ways that matter. Not in the social posturing kind of way, but in the pay-for-local-services kind of way. Pay property tax, improve infrastructure/public transport, resist NIMBYism, etc.
But even with all of that, which I think will make a huge difference, I think there's probably only so much capacity to the SF bay area (for example). No place can have unlimited influx.
1
This essay glosses over the recent history of California's population shifts. The outmigration of working and middle class residents started in the 1980s when the manufacturing arm of the defense industry moved to cheaper locations or simply folded with end of the Cold War. Other manufacturing jobs also disappeared at the same time. Post WWII, millions of California residents depended on the defense industry for their well paid middle class jobs. When the jobs ended, people moved.
The income disparity in the wealthy parts of California are indeed stark, but I wonder how we reverse this trend. We desperately need more housing and better paying working class jobs. Building more housing is tricky in earthquake country where the only viable option is high rise. The homeless population grows as rents rise to astronomical levels.
The issues we confront are complicated and not easy to sort into partisan cause and effect analysis. We need thoughtful political leadership from both parties - unfortunately the Republican Party has been taken over by kooks and fringe politicians who seem to thrive in other parts of the country.
2
As a Californian, I find Douthat's description of my home state reasonably accurate. However, I could not disagree more over who is to blame. What makes California different is that it is booming while most of the country, other than a few, mostly coastal, urban enclaves, is in a depression. To me, our economy resembles 1926-28, when agriculture was declining but nobody noticed because the stock market was booming.
What we need is government support for efforts to make a fairer and more widely distributed economy:
1. agricultural reform in favor of more family- and earth-friendly farming;
2. rebuilding our infrastructure to make it desirable again to have industry distributed throughout the country; and
3. reinvigorated public education to make our sons and daughters competitive in the new job market.
However, the very states who need these programs most are dominated by Republicans whose sole unifying issue is tax cuts. Yes, I agree there may be problems with the programs of liberals, and there is lively debate in the California Democratic Party about the very issues Douthat raised. However, conservatives have offered absolutely nothing to solve our problems but old ideas that have not worked for fifty years. If you have solutions, Douthat, tell us. Otherwise stop carping about liberals, because at least we are trying to improve the world.
2
I often disagree with Ross on a great many issues, but his diagnosis of the Democrats’ California problem is spot on. I make the distinction between Democrats and liberals here since many California Dems are shockingly illiberal. In one of the recent columns by Thomas Edsall, one commenter confessed to being a registered Democrat who switches to being a Republican as soon as any sort of economic reform is proposed. This sort of secret economic conservatism is embedded like a tick in the Californian Democratic party, and it is the single largest obstacle to liberal political progress nationwide. It is a problem, that if not dealt with honestly, will cripple Democrats and liberals in perpeuity.
2
The problems of California are the same in many other states. North Carolina has VERY similar problems. OUR government is completely under republican control. Housing is ridiculously expensive, wages are ridiculously low, taxes on business are low, taxes on citizens are high and our education system is at the bottom of the pile. So....conservative government fails and liberal government fails. Perhaps, in the not-too-distant future, we can try creating government that works to benefit ALL of the people equally. The rich could pay taxes, the poor could pay taxes and all of us could have a government that understands its' purpose is to serve the common good.
2
I am living the California story.
As a life long Californian living in Los Angeles, with a household income of $125K, my wife and I (no kids) can only rent an apartment and take a very modest vacation once a year such as a road trip or camping. Much of our income goes to rent. We figure we have about 2 - 3 more years before we are simply priced out of our rent controlled apartment.
We have one, 12 year old car. We rarely eat at restaurants or go to movies or other entertainment because it's simply too expensive. My commute of 7 miles takes 45 minutes each way. Our neighborhood is diverse enough to feel cosmopolitan, but not enough to feel alienating. We are a stone's throw from West Hollywood, the beating heart of the bluest state.
But because I work for the state, I am waiting for a very nice pension when I retire, assuming California doesn't go bankrupt by then. Much like how much of our income goes to rent, much of California's taxes go to public employees' pensions such as mine. But touch pensions, or point to the strangehold which public employee's unions have on the state's coffers, and you "hate working people."
To fill the hole, California's Democrats keep increasing taxes, which pushes tax paying employers and middle class families out. So the Democrats just increase taxes further to make up the difference.
America, welcome to the California dream.
3
That's rich! Blame California's liberals for decades of economic damage done to the entire nation by Republicans. A few months ago the so-called conservatives (actually radicals) in the national legislature oversaw the largest re-distribution of wealth from the bottom 99% to the top 1% in the country's history. The so-called conservatives in the national legislature and cabinet are openly intent on taking away people's access to healthcare and the education that allows economic mobility for the non-wealthy. The so-called conservatives nationally have been at war with the unions that created the middle class since the New Deal and in recent decades they've succeeded in tearing them apart. California is one of the few states that mitigates the damage that policies like conservative Kansas's create. Naturally, the beneficiaries of this national conservative largess want to live in California and that naturally drives up prices. But if we had a more 'liberal' (read Eisenhower-era) attitude nationally about taxation of the very rich and of corporations and also of sponsoring government services to allow for greater mobility of the lower and middle class, then many more of the people who'd prefer to stay in California would be able to. Blaming California's liberal policies for the Republican-led wealth disparity in the country is beyond disingenuous.
4
"urging national Democrats to seek the kind of final victory they’ve won in California"
Well, no, no thinking person thinks the Democrats have a final victory in California: the only people who seriously contemplate a permanent ascendancy of one party are those who think they can stop the democratic process when their party is at an upswing. That's almost uniformly Republicans, who work hard at diminishing the effects of majority rule with gerrymandering, poleaxing voting rights, removing the very idea of facts and truth, and going all in on a winner take all ethic more suited to civil war than a functioning republic.
That said, what Mr. Douthat is predicting is that the current Republican party will disappear, leaving disparate Democratic factions to fight it out in elections.....which isn't troubling to the people who are small d democrats. I'm entirely in favor of elections being fought over something resembling issues and not the tribal antipathies that the Republican party has decided is going to be the hill it dies on.
5
I'm a liberal who just moved from a very blue state to one that is pink. The main reason was to just be in a more wooded area with a lot of trails. But in the back of my mind, I also understood my vote would be worth a lot more there than in the blue state, so it was in the pink state that I mainly looked for housing.
Liberals - the ones I know, anyway - tend to want to be around other liberals. I had a few somewhat incredulous friends ask me why I would want to live somewhere with so many Trump signs. As long as we have the Electoral College to determine the winner of presidential elections, that mindset is going to lose more elections. I want to not see Trump signs because they're no longer there, not because I refuse to look.
6
Great Douthat article. I live in California and am constantly shocked by the rising levels of economic polarization: tent cities in parks, RV colonies on neighborhood streets compared to shoreline palaces. Yet Douthat--aware of PC sensitivities perhaps--understates the role of massive legal and illegal immigration in driving economic polarization and ethnic demographic change that has transformed California into a Third World society. I also disagree with him that this model won't spread: it already has. Texas, already beset by huge inequality levels and demographic transformation, will likely turn "blue" if not in 2020, then shortly thereafter. And, then, whither the Republican Party?
5
Unlike Ross, I don’t believe that “California, here we come” is “quite plausible” at all. What I believe is that we will continue to sunder as a society on the basic tenet of liberalism’s true golden dream that a healthy society must forever labor to redistribute production so that all live some at some (Orwellian) 1984-ish level of gray, basic, Denmark-like, undistinguished sufficiency (except for the liberal elites, of course, who live in gated communities every bit as exclusive as those of conservative elites) – regardless of any effort expended to achieve that sufficiency. To them, it’s a human right to live from the sweat of others, who must be enslaved to pay for all of it.
Now, that’s an ideologically extreme expression of “liberalism’s golden dream”, but its extremeness seeks to frame the basic polarity of view, which is formidable. And beyond formidable, both sides have immense constituencies in America, and the opposed view isn’t about to just die off with its aging exponents and leave the field to the unchained, potted liberati. The crowds that attend Trump rallies deploy young, middle-aged and old faces in healthy abundance and variety, while hyper-liberal crowds tend to consist disproportionately of the very young and the less-than-pale, the least reliable cohorts of voters, and the young of any complexion will predictably move right, at least to some extent, as they age – and start questioning why THEIR lives ARE so gray and undistinguished.
2
However, as I get down to the end of Ross’s offering today, I find that I enjoyed his column immensely. It turned out to be a politically-incorrect rant against the offensive certainties of the left, that have so abysmally failed, in California and everywhere else in Amurka, to inspire the kind of self-sufficiency required to lift so many out of grayness to the better-than-basic-sufficiency that, increasingly, fewer and fewer live.
And I so love political incorrectness, particularly in the New York Times where it can be SO rare (except, perhaps, in my own comments).
4
I suppose the writer is right (how can I contest, anyway??) about the West Coast Straussians. If the ideological base of the Trumpism was established (or heavily borrowed from) or has been consistently supported by Straussians, the Trump-populism side may be said as practical trivializations of the Straussian ideals. ** The first generation of Straussians, (who had been directly taught by Strauss or had known in person Strauss) were in general well bred scholars having academically or financially fortunate backgrounds. ** The second and third generations (whose mentors were the first or second generations; respectively) are financially more diverse and some are quite opportunists by adapting themselves very well to today’s academic and other environments in related competitions. ** One of the most geniuses, who, as a young man, drove around with Strauss does not engage himself with the current affairs, (as far as I know). The course of conservatism *would* be changed or rectified, *if* some of the first generation take a serious move.
The reverse, in a thoroughly Democratic State
From Thomas Edsall
"Conversly, in the struggling Syracuse metropolitan area (Clinton 53.9 percent, Trump 40.1 percent), families moving in between 2005 and 2016 had median household incomes of $35,219 — $7,229 less than the median income of the families moving out of the region, $42,448."
Thomas B. Edsall , 6 days ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/opinion/democrats-gentrification-citi...
Syracuse in a downward spiral of every increasing property taxes leveled on an ever poorer population to support every higher social service costs. No school rates higher than 3 out of 10.
Located just 124 miles west of Albany, Capital of NYS, it is a illustrative example that it is the coastal educated elite - beneficiary of globalization - versus the those who saw the jobs move to Mexico and China .
NOT Democrats vs Republicans.
------------------------------
7
A long way of saying a stable democracy needs a strong middle class. Well good grief, why have GOP policies strained or gutted so many of the mechanisms that enabled the post-War middle?
4
Let's please not pretend for a moment that the Democrats' economic policy has been fundamentally different from the Republicans since the Clinton administration. The only difference is the Democrats are more willing to throw some safety net bones to the drowning middle class. There is nobody in power actually looking to save or improve the plight of middle class America.
2
And let's not pretend it was any other camp or party but the Dems and labor who implemented 40 years of New Deal policies that brought civilized standards of living to the lower middle class, or that it was any other camp or party but the GOP and 'libertarians" who brought their fetish for "deregulation" and gutting government support to bear on the American economy. We can criticize Clintonian triangulation, but Reagan and the GOP implemented a self-defeating race to the bottom that made a reinvigorated New Deal extremely difficult.
Mr. Douthat, you should visit North Carolina, where the Republican Party has taken over the state completely, despite the fact that our citizens are pretty much evenly divided politically. These Republicans have held power for about a decade and have greatly diminished a once excellent school system that Democrats under Jim Hunt had worked for years to establish. They have castigated teachers and taken away benefits plus no more pay for graduate work, no more longevity bonuses, and very few college students working toward degrees in education. I retired in 2009 after 36 years. At that time, things were just beginning to go south. I am not partisan and think a two-party system is important to our government, maybe even a three-party system. I don't like party takeovers any more than you do but apparently Republicans have taken over quite a few states. What do you think about that?
2
The California problems described by Mr. Douthat are ones created largely and fed by the economic policies of his right wing friends. America may indeed become more like California, but not for reasons the columnist cites. California's prosperity relative to the rest of the country is precisely what is increasing inequalities, skewed by regressive tax, housing and land use policies. California's prosperity combined with more socialistic economic policies would indeed make it more the Shangri-La we imagine.
1
"... and in the annoying way of pundit-travelers let me make some observations about this vision of a liberal-dominated future."
Thank you for your frankness, Ross.
"Well-educated professionals" cannot also be middle class? As I see it, two markers of the middle class are (a) they value education and (b) they wish to become upper class. By comparison, one marker of the lower class is the "call to order" (who are you to think you're better than we are?) whenever a member strives to better themselves, and one marker of the upper class is that they believe they are innately superior to everybody else.
3
California has plenty of conservative elected officials but the average voters are centrists neither liberal nor conservative, favoring both liberal and conservative sides of important issues. But the dominance of right wing pseudo conservative reactionaries of the Republican Party makes centrist politics look like liberal politics. California underfunds public institutions and limits constraints upon destructive business practices no better than most states and the safety net is so full of holes that most of it’s homeless were residents before they ends up on the streets (although the mild weather and extensive populated regions are magnets to homeless across the country).
1
There are no utopias, and there will never be any utopias
The state has grown from 15 million to nearly 40 million residents since 1960, when I was 8. Ross, your return flight will (safely) pass an incoming plane bringing more new residents to California.
Our three 30-something, middle-class kids all live in the immediate San Francisco Bay Area. One is a photographer, another a carpenter. They both own their own homes. The third, a hospital social worker, will likely also own a home in the next few years. This despite home prices.
We gripe about the cost of living here. That’s mostly centered around: 1) crazy student loan debt burdens; (the kids) 2) how each year health coverage costs more and offers less. (my wife and me.)
Single-payer, cradle-to-grave healthcare combined with tax-funded cradle-to-grave (lifetime) education would seem to address those two complaints. Only one party champions these reforms.
5
Ross Douthat is apparently under the impression that the GOP agenda seeks to reduce inequality. Who, exactly, is dreaming???
6
So are you saying that the losers left California? And now they are Trump supporters so I guess they are still losers wanting to "make America great again"? Reagan, Wilson, and the Arnold did a lot of what turned California deep blue, like the skies you mention (which would be dirty yellow if the Trump EPA had been in charge).
One thing you neglected to observe was that the housing market that probably drives a lot of people out of state has nothing to do with California politics. International investors are using California real estate to park their often unearned money here, like Vancouver and Seattle. Blame unfettered capitalism, Mr. Douthat, not the Democrats.
4
Thanks for the drive-by deep thinking about California, Ross.
You have discovered that California has problems. Congratulations!
But here's the difference between California and so much of red America: we Californians *know* we have problems and are arguing and thinking about them, and struggling in our political system to try to ameliorate them. We're trying to fight traffic congestion in Los Angeles (and taxing ourselves more to deal with it); we see ourselves as contributing to climate change and pass laws to do our part in fighting it; we see low density and skyrocketing housing costs as connected and have a furious debate about what we should do about it.
I'll take that over the knee-jerk/blame liberal forces approach of many people on the other side any day.
And, by the way, when Republicans in California decide to give up their blinkered and ideological views on critical issues, I would love to see them play an important role in helping make California a great place for *all* its residents to live.
5
"Turn left and go as far as you can, then turn right and get as high as you can." Still good advice from the Wavy Gravy.
2
As a Santa Monican somewhat guiltily enjoying the fruits of success in this gorgeous state, I pronounce Douthat's article makes sobering sense. I don't see any fixes to the very real issues he cites -- excepting that all we here can do is keep at our dream-inflected ideals, hypocritical to some degree that they are. At least we recognize that Hispanic people can make a real and upwardly mobile contribution as they settle in, raise families who do deal with the inequities and thoroughly enrich the food and other cultural elements.
I love it when a tourist comes to California for a week or so and tells us what California is, because they toured Malibu.
Thanks, we know what we've got, both good and bad.
The problem of a disappearing middle class is not restricted to California.
4
I am struck at how people of all opinions ignore history. Inequality has existed since the first strong dominator declared himself king and ended up the richest, most powerful member of a tribe. The relatively modern radical idea that all deserve certain rights is anathema to the Republicans in power. Hating immigrants is old hat.
The middle class that both right and left agree is disappearing was created by New Deal experimentation involving the so called "rights" of man. Plus the US had little economic competition after WW II. Automation, cheap foreign labor, competition, the drive for profit, right wing policy- enemies of the middle class worker.
Douthat says Dems are not as nice to the working class. He said in the 90's they imitated Reagan (hero) to succeed. He says that if CA liberal approaches became national, the future would be more ugly and unstable, more easily undone or "overthrown".
What hurts people more, policies that favor the rich always, hurt the environment, give away national land to business, allows horrible chemicals to be used, that represses votes, etc., or words? What is uglier and more unstable than NOW, with Republicans in power and vicious right wing media? And the sell out to deregulation by Bill C. really worked out well, just ask the middle class people that lost everything in 2008. Our taxes saved the bankers and auto-makers.
All facts and statistics debunk the right's constant lies (Krugman) But liberals are always a drag, right Ross?
2
Ross delivers yet another soft screed on the disasters of liberalism and its triumph.
Who among the many fly over Americans that this is pitched to could possibly want the rigidly stratified California dream he describes? Still, as others have pointed out who would want the rigidly stratified rich/poor evangelized, 10% tithe to the church and we will take care of all the charity needed to the deserving, please, gated community America increasingly growing in poorly educated red America?
There are serious difficulties in both visions, but Ross never seems to ask what America would look like had the tax cuts and rapacious shifting of fiscal benefits that have been part of the Republican governance since Reagan.
Ross, whaddya think?
The conservative Californian diaspora is a hodge podge of blue collar benefactors of liberal largesse, greedy small businessmen & techie libertarians looking for lifestyle upgrades, a compliant peasantry & comfort among their fellows.
The one overriding factor they've got to realize is...they've got nothing to teach us. Oregon will remain liberal for a long time to come.
1
Sorry Ross, but making pregnancy "crisis centers" be up front and honest about their agenda instead of deceiving poor, pregnant women does NOT amount to "kicking social conservatives while they are down." Although living in Kansas, believe me, I would jump at the chance.
3
When I think of the evils of Socialism---these are the images I remember...
--Dilapidated boats, arriving on the beaches of Florida--as Cubans flee Castro.
--Desperate citizens--swimming the river, crawling under barbed wire, then running to escape machine gun bullets in East Germany. (Who shoots their citizens to keep them from leaving?).
--That satellite photo--taken at night--of the Korean Peninsula--showing the differences between North and South. The North--settled in darkness, the South, glowing with life.
And if there were cameras there to capture it--we would see the U-Hauls and Ryder Trucks, as Americans flee blue states--in search of affordable housing, real jobs, and low taxes.
The lesson in all this? Capitalism creates freedom and economic prosperity. Socialism destroys it. People don't flee FROM capitalism--they flee TO it.
The states gaining population are red states. Those losing population (like California and Vermont--where I live) are blue states.
Migration can be a good thing--unless all you can see is the migrant's backs.
43
When I think of people who do not know the difference between socialism and Marxist Leninism I think of those who mislabel themselves conservatives.
When I think of socialism I think of my Canadian brothers and the beauty of Vancouver. Like Seattle but clean.
81
Your claim about states gaining or losing population is false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_pop...
There are only a few states that have lost population since 2010: IL, VT, WV. That's it. All other states are still growing.
It is true that the top 10 are dominated by more republican-leaning states, though several of them are ambiguous: WA and CO in particular. As for the disposition of the fastest growing state (TX) ... that remains to be seen.
Some of the migration is caused, as you note, by housing costs, but this is more a function of existing established development in the northeast vs. more open land in other parts of the country than it is based on political decisions. It just costs more to buy a house in the northeast, for many of the same reasons that it costs more in SF or NYC or Chicago.
Finally, you seem unable to differentiate what this article is about (California as a potential model for US politics as a whole) and some stuff about socialism, which is not in effect in CA or any state in the union, and never has been.
29
Socialism is not the same as despotism, the latter conditions creating the emigration to freer climes. People are not fleeing from socialist Denmark, Norway, France, etc. Also, California's population is growing, not shrinking. Facts please.
43
A realization is growing in me that there is a certain tone-deafness or lack of awareness of effects of "liberal" solutions on public sector employees, retail clerks, everyone who might previously have been labeled middle class or lower middle class.
Our city council and we the voters keep increasing property taxes and sales taxes to tackle homelessness, provide preschool, and do other worthy things. I vote for those things, but as homelessness increases, in part because rent keeps going up, I feel caught in the middle. As a college instructor who goes years with no raise or even a cost of living increase, it's a problem when rent goes up by 9 or 10 percent every year. As McMansions go up in my neighborhood and housing costs soar, people with families increasingly leave Seattle.
I look at what Republicans do for the lower middle class and middle class and shudder. I look at what the liberals in Seattle are doing to those who lack big paychecks and I shudder.
Wealth is all around us. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Boeing... and yet, so many of us are sinking in the city we've lived in for years. Is it any wonder so many people don't bother to vote any more? No worries here - I'll keep voting against Republicans, for it could be worse.........
5
Liberal states have better incomes, better social programs and less debts. Conservatives states the opposite. So, no reason to go further. Just look at the numbers and see what system seems to provide the most benefits to its citizens.
Yes , there are poverty problems, homeless problems and others . However California recognizes these and attempts to solve them rather then ignore them.
Would you rather be poor in Mississippi, , Alabama, West Virginia, Kentucky or California? Would you have a better chance of getting an eduction in any of those states then California? No, compare California to any other state and then choose where you would want to live.
5
Perhaps the Democrats could capture some of those out-migrant votes by making their lives easier. They've been displaced by the cost of housing.
You can't have it both ways: low wage inflation and increasing house prices equals displacement.
Meanwhile, in the places where those out migrants end up, the local people resent Californians coming in and displacing them.
See the pattern here? It's all about "not enough housing", or "too many people". There is no substitute for "enough", and when the Democrats come up with a plan to create enough, they might sweep to power even if it hurts large landlords and the mortgage industry.
1
Somehow all the states that seem to be worthwhile living in have been led mostly by liberal politicians. Education, top notch research, entrepreneurial success, innovation, good healthcare, usable public spaces, spaces for intellectual activity such as museums, concert halls have been the hallmarks of states like California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. Please visit Alabama and Mississippi, and try to understand what went wrong there. Liberalism is what makes the world for those who are not the most fortunate worthwhile living. For the wealthy, healthy, and people who are born with a silver spoon it probably matters less, but, without liberalism the less fortunate are pretty doomed and they will be even more so going forward given where the inequality in income, wealth and education is leading us.
14
Douthat is omitting out some key factors in the decline of the Republican Party in California. Proposition 187, which prefigured Trump's appeal to the forces of racism and nativism latent in the Republican base, passed as a ballot initiative, but is widely credited with causing a backlash that has contributed to the seemingly permanent ascendance of Democratic rule in the state. Less well known and understood, I believe, is Republican Governor Pete Wilson's deregulation of the California energy market (AB 1890). While the resulting energy crisis hit during the tenure of Democrat Gray Davis, it was clear to thinking people that Wilson's legislation had been written in conjunction with industry advocates who then used the language of the bill to rob California taxpayers of billions of dollars, extorted under the threat of blackouts. Republican legislative animus, incompetence, and malfeasance have been bigger factors in the rise of the Democrats in California, and these factors can be seen playing out on the national stage in the Trump administration, seemingly with every headline.
4
Mr Douthat,
Somehow all the states that seem to be worthwhile living in this country in have been led mostly by liberal politicians. Education, top notch research, entrepreneurial success, innovation, good healthcare, usable public spaces, spaces for intellectual activity such as museums, concert halls have been the hallmarks of states like California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. Please visit Alabama and Mississippi and think what went wrong there. Liberalism is what makes the world for those who are not the most fortunate worthwhile living for. For the wealthy, healthy, and people who are born with a silver spoon it probably matters it probably matters less but without liberalism the less fortunate are pretty doomed and thy will be even more so going forward given where the inequality in income, wealth and education is leading us.
3
For the most part, the states with the highest degree of inequality are red states run by conservatives. It is the Republican policies that cause higher inequality. Iowa can't even pay state income tax refunds because it doesn't have the money for a 2nd year running and it is the policies of Republicans that have caused this situation.
7
Ross nails the Cali style of liberalism perfectly. The state serendipitously grew an industry in media, software and high-tech manufacturing. These industries spin off cash and the subsequent taxes that support all manner of Cali experiments. As places like Silicon Valley and SF increasingly alienate the engineer-elite, they will re-locate to other places: Texas; Toronto; Seattle. Cali'e version of socialism is a perfect model of 10% of the population completely subsidizing the remaining 90% of the residents... until - of course - it doesn't.
3
California has many flaws no doubt. Housing is its weakest point. But it invests serious money in the healthcare and education of its citizens. The Cal State system is the largest in the US and also available at very low cost for families making under $70K.
This article would be much better if it described a state doing much better that California but was dominated by Republicans. Texas comes to mind but its health and education stats are a complete contrast to california. Texas maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the US and there is a systematic policy of underfunding health care and social services for the poor.
5
Health care and education are very important -- but meaningless, if you are homeless and living on the street because the cheapest apartments cost $2000 a month. If you spent 100% of your income on housing....you can't afford health care OR education.
2
There needn't be "one party rule" in any American state. Both parties simply need to avoid the sort of extremism that the GOP presently embraces. Perhaps both parties should consider a return to the concept of elected "representatives" who try to represent the people who elected them rather than a money-fueled system that favors the contributors rather than the citizens.
6
Democrats taking over the nation? Ha.
The biggest threat right now is the looney tunes ugliness of the far right trying ever harder and digging ever deeper to keep people continually upset, finding ever more radical ways to bring down the great success of the American experiment. Couple that Trump, a man who is utterly lost at sea in a job he didn't want in the first place and worrying about dominance by Democrats recedes to the far horizon.
Nonetheless, what dream do the Dems have for the country and is it logical to say California is the testing ground? Having just returned from there myself (I didn't see Ross on any of the beaches or, for that matter, anywhere) I don't think there is any national analogy.
California has some of the worst poverty in the nation. Some of the poor were attracted by the warmer weather, some where attracted by the benefits offered the poor and homeless, some just went west and got stuck, failure itself and drugs as their anchors.
There is no California model for the rest of the nation, unless one takes compassion for the poor combined with a willingness to try something, anything, toward making progress. Uniquely rich from technology, agriculture, aerospace and other industries, California provides an example only for itself. It successes and failures can't be exported.
Republicans will fade because they have no apparent solutions to anything other than stepping aside and hoping the magic of markets will solve every problem.
7
California is largely a victim of its own success. Despite the gloom and doom predictions of liberal policies as job killers, the state's economy is strong. The primary problem has been that housing and infrastructure growth simply haven't kept up.
I'm sure other states would love to lure away businesses, and many have and are trying to do so. However it is important to realize that many of the workers they would be trying to bring in as well don't share conservative social values. Most support marriage equality, realize the value of immigration, and support a strong safety net. Not only that, but having a strong arts and entertainment scene is important.
Supply-side economics is a bust. I think more and more Americans are finally realizing that. People are becoming less concerned about what others do in their bedrooms, while realizing the incredible lack of morality in boardrooms is what is really harming the nation.
The problems that California faces are not insurmountable. And they are problems that others would be grateful to have.
14
Some of Ross' micro-observations are spot-on. A long-time solid middle class Los Angeles African-American neighborhood (Leimert Park) is now clearly in the undeniable early process of gentrification due to two new major train lines. The one-time sleepy frumpy beach town of Santa Monica is a wealthy burg of Beverly Hills extremity. Downtown Los Angeles is redeveloping at a dizzying pace. This change has scattered the city's hardcore homeless population from the former skid row across the city's often-affluent inner suburbs. The house I purchased near the end of my professional career is located in one of those newly-affluent inner suburbs previously known for its immigrant working class character.
Ross fails to observe the Europeanization of residential patterns. Wealth is moving into the center and poverty to the outskirts. Part of this is simple maturation of the state's cities. The originally-cheap 20th Century automobile-based transportation system is in an inevitable and permanent decline. Uber and Lyft are bandaids.
40 million strong California is moving toward a more European model. The footprint of its outdated 20th Century suburban infrastructure will have to yield to space for agriculture, nature and actual people. Medical coverage will have to go to single payer or another comparable European model. Housing will have to be recognized as a basic human right. When the Republicans develop ideas for this reality they will revive.
8
I wonder how true is the assertion that the dominance of liberalism in California is due to the exodus of people and their return to red states.
This presupposes that this internal emigrants were conservatives whose absence engrosses the rans of liberals. Also, how many "liberals" are leaving California to go to other liberal states like Oregon and Washington. It is also interesting that Douthat had to resort to the fact that California has a high cost of living in order to point out a negative of that society.
5
Washington is a liberal state because of Seattle and the cities on the I-5 corridor. Many California conservatives have moved to eastern Washington and North Idaho. The effects can be seen in ridiculously inflated home prices and a Republicsn party that skews far right.
3
As usual you left out the most important factor in the political upheaval in California......the abolition of gerrymandering.This was done during the Schwarzenegger administration when a bipartisan group ,consisting of non-politicians, developed a plan for defining voting districts which actually represented the electorate.If the same thing ever happens in Texas Ross....there goes your political neighborhood as well as the representatives of many of the states which are now considered "red."You also fail to mention that many of those middle class citizens who are "fleeing" the state for economic reasons are people of color who also vote.Lastly we have the good old days of Pete Wilson and the Republican dominated state legislature.During this time we had the Enron debacle,the filling of prisons with drug abuses,3 strikes,the dismantling of the mental health system(which is why we have so many homeless) and finally the near destruction of the UC system and the public schools in our state.It has taken we democrats a long time to reverse those trends.And please.....don't use that phony poverty rate statistic.As I recall in 2008 you and your conservative friends liked to call California a "failed state."This failed state may yet become "Liberalism's Golden Dream".
22
Whew! A very bitter column from a conservative who has struggled and failed to find reasons to diss California.
Imagine - a small house built perhaps 90 years ago has been torn down and replaced by bigger homes. The horror!
His mistake is his implicit claim that all the people who formerly lived in houses like that have been forced to leave the state.
In fact, most have moved up the economic ladder and live in even fancier houses closer to the ocean.
Some chose not to get more education, learn new skills, move to jobs in the new economy and those may have left the state. However, most left the Douthat mindset, not the state.
Douthat stokes the resentment of the left behind, while being himself one of the upwardly mobile. He is the counterexample to his own article, but does not seem to realize it.
Ironic but typical.
21
When you have an influx of others (Latinos, Asians, LGBTQ, etc.) and they work to make the society more inclusive, it's going to chase away bigots, the people who can only live around those who are white, Christian, heterosexual, corporately oriented, male dominated, suit wearing. To California: good choice, good riddance.
12
Ross sets a high bar for the success of liberalism in California: total prosperity and equality, the eradication of poverty and homelessness. You have to travel to conservative paradises like Kansas and Mississippi if you want that.
16
It’s amazing to me that people can believe in good faith that liberalism, with its morally bankrupt and failed ideas, is the path forward anyway.
5
Yes, all this republican winning is wearing me out too!
2
At some point, Ross, you are going to have to come up with some actual ideas about what to do. "Not what liberals want to do" is not sufficient. "Everyone convert to Catholicism" is not sufficient.
6
Wealthy people who can afford to live in Malibu won't move to Waco, but ...
"Sure, they're going to abandon Malibu so they can move to Waco."
Many Californians -- people who used to think of themselves as "middle class" -- ask themselves today:
"Can I still afford to live in Malibu, or should I move to Waco?"
THAT'S the issue in California. You simply "assume your conclusion" when you say that wealthy people will continue to live in Malibu.
1
So Ross -- if you're so troubled by inequality in California, notwithstanding your party affiliation, can it be assumed you support vast transfers of wealth at the national level?
And what is it exactly you propose California's liberals should undertake? The policy prescriptions which you, as a Republican, have been fighting all your adult pundit life?
5
Ross, you've got some EMPIRICAL PROBLEMS.
Yes, California SHOULD have much higher levels of inequality for several reasons:
1) it is LARGE (land and population) and
2) it has two of the world's greatest centers of wealth creation
3) It is one of the epicenters of immigration
Now, if one statistically CONTROLS for these sorts of things (and others), I don't think California will look so bad. By contrast, there is no excuse for inequality in Mississippi or Alabama except structural racism and poor politics -- no major urban centers, moderate/small size, no major wealth generation. So, in those places, the POLITICS is driving the inequality. In places like New York/Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, one is bound to have extensive inequality but due to economic and demographic reasons.
5
America is a big family of states. None get so unfairly characterized as California and Texas. We should celebrate the individuality of our states. Alabama! Massachusetts! Wyoming! These places, arbitrarily defined by state lines, are the muscles, bones and nerves of our body republic, and to a degree the people who are there want to be. The U.S. is blessed by these vast variations, and we should stop snarling about our differences.
4
My view of CA is even harsher than Ross Douthat's. Heck, I see the state as one big dystopia. But not, as Ross might think, because of the ascendance of the liberal project, but rather because the state and its voters (and the nation and its voters) haven't been liberal enough.
First, there are the state's legendary housing costs, the result of years of nimbyism, a refusal to change zoning laws for greater density, and a continuing fixation on auto-centric suburban development, leading to bidding wars where people have to pour ever-expanding portions of their income into mortgages. Combine this with the legendary traffic jams, the result of years of nimbyism (that word again), a commitment to keep freeways free, and an unwillingness to invest in subway lines that have the kind of right-of-way that those freeways have. And just look at CA's inability to build its sorely needed high-speed rail.
Then there's the state's love affair with undocumented workers and Silicon Valley's love affair with the H-1B visa system, both sources of cheap and captive labor that either drive down wages for the American-born labor pool or drive it out entirely.
And let's not forget that CA doesn't exist in a vacuum. The sorting out of have and have-not states and regions has been going on for decades thanks to policies at the federal level, a combination of the GOP's trickle-up, deficit-exploding tax cuts and the hollowing out of our manufacturing base thanks in part to globalization.
6
In Douthat's mind, politics is responsible for ALL economic and social outcomes.
Thus, it is liberalism, not the high tech industry, that is responsible for wage disparity in CA. Or maybe the high cost of living is just because CA is a victim of its own success? You know, supply and demand?
How easy it is for conservatives to imply that government SHOULD do something about the economic situation in America, as long as they can use it as a cudgel.
Of course, when liberals claim a state government should take action to right some sort of wrong, conservatives rant about the nanny state, taxes, government overreach.
Funny how that works.
8
Yes, Santa Monica has become an enclave of the wealthy. But you fail to give any historical context. Do you actually think that California hasn't been touched by the egregious policies of Ronald Reagan? The 80s, and Reagan, began a shift away from liberal policies that have landed us in this entrenched Gilded Age. Forty years of Republican rule -- Clinton and Obama were part of it to some extent -- created the wage inequity we now have. You also failed to mention all of the ways California has resisted and fought back in the last 40 years against Republican policies. History moves in waves. FDR to Jimmy Carter was a liberal wave. Reagan to Trump, a conservative, big-business wave. Perhaps after Trump, the entire country can wake up from the long slumber that has been so destructive to our all states.
13
A nice analysis of a true dilemma. On the modest earnings of a medical house officer in the mid-1970s in San Francisco I enjoyed a nice flat with a view of the Bay and savored the distinct and multiflavored neighborhoods of the City. Now at the end of my career I could not begin to afford that apartment, nor would I care to. In the wake of the tech revolution San Francisco, still physically beautiful, is culturally destroyed, at least to my taste. Those near the bottom of the economic ladder face a virtually impossible challenge, and the worst parts of town look slowly but progressively more like the third world.
This level of inequality seems unsustainable and even volatile. I do not know the solution, but it cannot come from the Republican Party, which has now fully embraced the politics of hatred embodied by Donald Trump.
6
Thank you, Dr. Williams. I'm a Bay Area native who moved to the city in 1976. Sometime in the mid-1990s I noticed a shift in the people who were moving to SF from those who had been moving there because they loved the "groovy vibe" to newcomers moving there to make money. As it turns out, this was the beginning of the transformation of the Bay Area into Silicon Valley, which seemed to completely subscribe to the Gordon Gekko ethos of Greed is Good. And so, Live and Let Live has morphed into To the Victor Goes the Spoils, and I can no longer afford to live in the place that had always been my home. I miss SF something fierce.
3
I go to Southern California every winter for a few months to enjoy myself immensely. It is an exhilarating environment! I am 86 years old but feel fortywhen I walk the beaches and yet can see the mountains behind me and see and hear the magnificent Pacific in front of me.
Despite the above, there is a deficiency that California cannot undue for the country. It only has two Senators to represent over 30 million potential Democrats in the future. Meanwhile, the rest of the country will remain with its more or less disadvantageous geographical conditions including some very small States with their two Senators representation get much smaller groups of voters than the Golden State. This state of affairs will provide opportunities for Republicans to continue to surprise liberals by maintaining political control over large areas of the country long after California has shed its last Republican voter. Sunshine and beaches do not Trump everything.
5
Very, very fine essay, Ross. I've lived in SOCAL and in the Bay Area. That doesn't make me an expert, let alone clairvoyant, on California politics, but the old adage, "California leads the nation" has some truth to it.
But there is trouble in River City. As one Liberal high school relation of mine commented about her and her husband's life in San Francisco right now, "Things aren't so nice." Even though they own a place, the housing crisis bugs even those who are comfortably settled, making them less comfortably settled.
When I was there 15 years ago, the growth waxed unabated. It was noted that some people were moving out, but, as you write, Ross, it was noted that more Latinos were moving in, or formed a larger population increase.
Now to politics: the trouble in River City is trouble in paradise. So how is one to correct the problems? With conservative policies? While some of the problems today might be blamed on liberal policies, they will be fixed with liberal policies; adaptive politics is effective politics.
Some techies might not want to build more housing, becoming de facto conservatives, but San Jose is going to have to build up. Sure, I long for the NYC days as quaintly painted in the movie "Life with Father", where you take your horse and buggy down to Wall Street. But unmanageable horse traffic gave us the subway.
So maybe California needs to look to New York for its next idea. But a conservative Californian won't do that.
1
Mr. Douthat, show us the policies implemented by the Republican party of late that are help to create affordable housing, close the wage gap, provide better access to better jobs and a living wage for the average worker, aid in access to higher education, fix the roads, improve transportation, and help clean up the air. How is your party creating policies that help the middle and working class of all races, creeds, colors in the states where Republucan politics and ideologies dominate? Prove Republicanism is better for all Americans instead of using California and the Democrats as your go-to scapegoat.
7
I'm decidedly middle class, and I'll admit I resent the fact that the relentless upward pressure on housing prices where I live means my property taxes now consume ten percent of my income, which has been flat for eight years. So in that respect I guess I have something in common with whatever proportion of the Trump electorate is actually motivated by economic anxiety. Where we part company is on that ethnic or cultural front. Far from being put off or feeling somehow "displaced" by the African, Hispanic, Indian, East Asian, Middle Eastern and other non-Good-Old-Fashioned Whitebread Midwesterners that make up an increasing segment of the population around here, I welcome them and the skills, different perspectives, and unfamiliar lifestyles they bring with them. They make my life immeasurably richer, and they're one reason I'm not going anywhere. If I wanted Mayberry RFD or even the all-white suburb I grew up in I could probably find it on TV.
8
What we the people (not the 1%) are looking for is a government that is smart and fair; by extension, an electorate that is smart and fair. So that together, we grow economically in an environmentally sustained way, we use our resources and wealth equitably so everybody has a fair chance based on their own effort, we respect and accommodate each other's values and cultures, etc. This is the vision of a country and people I have and it has absolutely nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism. It is "peopleism".
In gist, we take responsibility to help ourselves; and we take responsibility to NOT hurt others.
But that is not our current political discourse, is it? We get hung up on different ism and policies and what others should or shouldn't do, and we lose sight of the country. We get hung up on trees we fail the forest.
Whatever the failing of the liberals, I honestly do not understand how any reasonable person can honestly look at the Republicans in government and say they are working for the good of the people.
Because of our allegiance to free speech, we would not want to shut down Fox News, and people like Alex Jones or Rush Limbaugh. But can an honest person reasonably say they contribute constructively to political discourses that bring us to a place of better self understanding, therefore better self government?
Whatever our philosophy or ideology is, it is suppose to bring us happiness. But I suppose we all have abused spouse syndrome, trapped.
5
As a "qualified user" of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator I will NOT pigeon hole anyone, but the "Big 5" confirm that the TJs are probably statistically lower on Agreeableness and Openness than the FPs. Our brothers and sisters with these traits are not bad nor will they be dying anytime soon. They are different, and the kids of their kids will always be. What will happen is a shifting of the scales. For instance I pass for conservative in my native France, but here I pass for a raging liberal. I do agree that the scales are shifting and that trump is the last crick before our head turns forward.
2
If you list states by Gini index which measures inequality (the higher it is, the more inequality), because of a 3-way tie at number 40, there are 12 states ranked 40 or higher. These are the states with the most inequality.
7 are red - Georgia, Mississippi,Tennessee,Texas, Alabama,
Florida, & Louisiana
5 are blue - California, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
New York, & District of Columbia
4
Interesting information, Mr. Carlap...
It would appear to this observer that five of the "red" states that you list have competitive political environments. Progress toward the "liberal" ideal has been regularly interrupted by the political process, and "responsibility" would be somewhat diluted. The inequality is still unacceptable, but responsibility for it may not be clear cut.
It would also appear that all five of the "blue" states do not, and have been subject to single-party, liberal rule for almost half of a century.
Some responsibility for the conditions in those states falls on the ruling political elite, does it not?
Or are you suggesting since their goals are noble that their failures are somewhat excusable?
1
Mr Qwl - Care to name the "five of the "red" states that you list (that) have competitive political environments."
Er, Remind me how many of the recent governors of California, Massachusetts, & Connecticut have been Republicans. How many recent governors of Georgia, Mississippi,Texas, Alabama, & Florida, have been Democrats. I think the most most recent one was Childes of Florida elected in 1990.
And you miss my point which is that the inequality in a state is affected by factor outside the state such as the policies of the federal government which affect states in different ways, e.g. the new Republican tax law.
Douthat implies that California's high degree of inequality is attributable to its liberal politics. This is becoming a meme on the right, based primarily on faulty analysis and cherry-picked data. Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana are also among the top ten states with the greatest income inequality. What does that say about conservative state politics?
6
So, please tell us, what responsibility for the conditions within California attend to one-party rule in California for the better part of six decades?
Is this the "we didn't do it" excuse again?
2
The upshot is that neither Dems nor Reps are helping the middle class. Reps also hurt poor and working class people, while the Dems do less harm to them, unless it comes to who gets to go to their local public school. When will Democrats propose real changes, such as ending property-tax-based school funding? Perhaps never, if California is a model. Nimbyism is alive and well there, protecting the Democratic upper class against the Democratic lower class. Thus our political system wobbles (nationally) or becomes frozen (state by state). Here's to Bernie and socialism.
1
Naive much?
"And what is the Republican reaction to our problems of inequality? More tax cuts for the wealthy and more cuts to education ... "
You may be right about "tax cuts for the wealthy" but, if so, that will be only because wealthy people pay nearly all of the taxes. For the most recent year available (2016), the top 1% of taxpayers paid 40% of federal income taxes, and the top 5% paid 60% of them. The bottom half -- the bottom 50% -- paid only 2.75% of federal income taxes. Obviously, even reducing the tax rate of the bottom 50% to zero wouldn't make a huge dent in federal income tax revenues.
1
Ross I think that you describe what has happened in most large urban cities. We can thank the Republicans for that. Republicans fight a higher minimum wage. They fight better education and tuition free college. They fight universal health care. They have destroyed the middle class. We can thank them for moving us toward a society of haves and have nots with few in the middle.
14
California may be under one-party Democratic rule, but that doesn't necessarily mean its government is as liberal as you might expect - it just means that all the Republicans run as Democrats instead, encouraged by a permissive party establishment that doesn't care about candidates' policies as long as they can bring in the money. That's why, even though California is a solidly blue state, it's dominated by conservative-leaning Dems like Feinstein who often come down well to the right of the California electorate.
The same is true in other Democratic bastions, like New York. One-party domination just leads to the party losing interest in policy and instead focusing on building a powerful political machine that'll always deliver victory to the Dem with the most connections - regardless of that Dem's policy positions.
3
There are many out there who criticize that NYtimes hired all of Politico for reporting- such as the very inadequate Maggie Habberman. You are no longer the paper of record- and we all know that Your editor Dean B- cheered when Trump won because it is good for the business of the NYTimes- How many others have you banned from commenting?
3
What is great about being part of "group think" ? Do Democrats really believe that being a humanitarian is what the party espouses ? Listen to the rhetoric, it is weighted in antipathy and fear rather then solutions..Look around at the homeless camps, where are the Democratic advocates? Besides the now weaker unions, the very uneven educational results, the ethnic group identity creates separation not unity, those intolerant of anyone's opinion not in harmony with the thru line are ridiculed. This does not make for true inclusiveness... if a party is supposed to support "average citizens" then produce results that reflect this belief. The republicans never claimed to help with any of these issues and frankly are not even professing communication in that direction. So in my opinion if a Democratic wave is going to sweep the country, then focus on a game plan to lift people from poverty, create a welfare system that connects the dots instead of complicated and inefficient layers of meetings, diversify skill training, react faster to changes in work force needs, get the drift? Plan big picture.....streamline the action plan and offer actual solutions, not creating more division.
2
Most responsible "conservatives" are more than interested in hearing about effective policies and workable solutions from any party willing to put them forward.
As long as the Democrats hew to the anti-Trump meme, they will not convince the very people that they need to win elections to vote in their favor.
Come on, my liberal friends...let's hear some sensible, achievable ideas from you...
And let's here them before the November elections...
We might just actually vote for you.
1
I somehow picked up the idea reading the news over the years that hard right California Republicans, during the time between the Proposition 13 property tax revolt and Governor Pete Wilson, managed to get enough restrictions on taxing and spending into the California Constitution through ballot initiatives so as to make it difficult to govern California without one party rule.
If my memory and my interpretation of the news from California is correct then that would also be a relevant part of your story.
Trying to stop property tax increases from pricing people out of their homes is good. Going further and making it difficult to govern California absent one party rule is bad. At the national level in Congress, trying to stop the process whereby “earmarks” served to grease the wheels of compromise with taxpayer dollars sounds good; but going further and making Congress dysfunctional was bad.
That said I’d feel better about California liberals if they’d allow more high density apartment buildings to be built within walking distance of many urban transit stops.
ROFL Ross. You’ve written a sci-fi dystopia that might sell better than your slanted pedantic books. But it’s largely fiction, naturally glossing over white racism, while ignoring comparables like Idaho, Mississippi and Kansas. As my mother used to quote: two men looked out from iron bars. One saw mud, the other saw stars.
1
My oldest son, daughter-in-law and one-year-old grandson live in LA, CA. We visit them regularly. So I guess you can say that I fly from the liberal progressive East Coast to the liberal Progressive West Coast and I like that. A lot. I am not a Bernie-Bot or a wacky liberal technocrat, but I do feel strongly that the world would be a better place if we just accept the fact that liberal-progressives believe that we can do better and that government can be a force to do that. So that being said we need to VOTE in record numbers on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. Get off your butt people and remember that elections do have consequences. Lets us not be like the residents of Sun City, AZ who just elected a woman who will most likely decimate THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE, just when they will need it most. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. It almost makes me laugh, but it is way too sad.
4
California still looks rather inviting at this point, despite the problems...certainly more so than the red-state hell represented by states that have gone over completely to modern "conservatism", and destroyed their economies, their educational systems, and in general the lives of their people.
Of course if the Republicans ever decide to do a makeover, to get rid of their current horrifying ethos, to stop appealing to (let's face it) Nazis, Confederates, and practically every other organization and mindset dedicated to pure evil, they might stand a chance of becoming part of the conversation again. But most certainly not now, in the age of Trump, not among people of good will, not among people with a conscience...
2
it is if the radical right and the radical left continue to push their opinions down our throats. I am mpore concerned with the right at this point as they seem to think they have a mandate when in fact they are a minority & extremists, and like many in power, corrupt beyond measure.
their hypocrisy is breathtaking
2
So blame Liberals for globalization and the financial and digital revolution that has created so much wealth? Regulatory land use practices that benefit the poor and middle-class are unpopular, and a drop in the bucket compared to broader global forces that shape our economy.
1
Once again, the Liberal Utopia works only for the ultra-wealthy. Try to live in San-Fran on an average salary. Good luck.
2
Far from being a harbinger of the future, California becomes more like a Venus Fly Trap, at first an alluring fantasy of what the future can be, but ultimately preventing its inhabitants from reaching a perceived utopia.
There are hints that the Chinese colonized California in the 1400s.....only to disappear into the local Indin tribes due to Bureaucratic Palace Eunuch Intrigue back in the Forbidden City....then in late 1700s, the Spanish arrived bringing a Catholic vision of utopia..involving enslavement of the locals. By 1849, gold was discovered, an American style free=for-all unsued....the promise of making everyman a rich man..that didnt "pan out". Instead, California transformed into the land of Industrial Giants, Railroad Tycoons, Oil Tycoons, Banking Tycoons, Newspaper Tycoons, Movie Tycoons, and now Internet Tycoons.....all holding an Iron Grip on Power while hypnotizing the masses with dreams of freedom! security! health! bikini blondes! stardom! etc!.....
The Middle Class enjoyed about 40 years of success in California....roughly 1940 to 1980..during which time the locals voted republican for Earl Warren, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and the like..the return to normal Dictatorial Rule began in the 60s, as elitists formented "revolution" which became institutionalized. California's Golden Goose was finally killed with the ascendancy of Texan George Bush...and now California returns to being a hideous monster, which deludes the observer as a beautiful creature.
California or Kansas, Ross? You pick.
5
What's wrong with Kansas? US News ranked KS higher than California on it's Best States ranking 2018. Brownback was removed, we reinstituted our taxes after trying something and it not working out. No one is ashamed, it was an experiment. Our pension funds are still fine and our Johnson County cities routinely rank among the best places to raise a family in the country. Kansas is not a caricature. Step outside of your Manichean world sometime.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings
3
While there is a shrinking middle class in California, the fact is that there is a shrinking middle class across the USA. You can't pretend that this is unique to California or Democratic policies.
What makes the shrinking middle class so different in California is that while working class jobs are being lost, in many areas, higher paying professional and technical jobs have increased leading to increased income inequality. But what should be done? Encourage Apple, Qualcom, Google and Facebook to leave the state? Kill the Golden Goose?
I'm from an old California family. My mother's side came across the US on covered wagons and my father's people settled from Mexico when California was a Spanish territory. I can be nostalgic for the past but I love and am proud of what the state has become.
The California of my youth was conservative and the seeds of many of the state's biggest problems were planted in those days. It is only in the past eight years that liberal leadership has had a supermajority in the state house and most of that time has been spent digging us out of the financial ditch we were in at the time. It is too early to have a final verdict on whether or not the liberal wave will achieve the lasting improvements that everyone in California wants to see.
If we are successful in taming our big problems of homelessness, income inequality, education underfunding and water shortages you can bet other states will follow.
6
The CA Democratic Party does deserve substantial credit.
Over the past several decades, several CA laws have been adopted to require a 2/3 legislative vote to make changes (to increase taxes, for example).
A few years back, the Democrats hit this 2/3 threshold in CA. Yet they haven't abused their power. They've expressed reluctance to increase taxes, for example (at least openly -- subtle tax increases have occurred, and enforcement seems to have been stepped up considerably). It may be that they simply wanted to avoid the "tax and spend" moniker but, whatever, the explanation, they haven't abused their unquestioned power to raise taxes (at least openly) with their 2/3 control of the state legislature.
1
Sour grapes. Ross is much more interesting when he's writing about Catholicism than when he's making like Don Quixote on liberalism
1
California is moving Eastward at a fairly rapid pace. As a resident of Arizona, we are one of the states which harbors so many of those folks who are "fleeing" California.
Our past two Governors, both GOP, like to make mention of that often.
Yet when they come here, they set up shop much the same way they did in the Golden State.
Our cities are becoming gentrified, housing prices are climbing and the middle class is disappearing, just to name a few.
But business is booming. New companies are moving in, high paying jobs are being created and the tax base is expanding.
In fact, Phoenix now lives with the moniker, "Little L-A".
As Arizona creeps closer to flipping from Red to Blue, the movement is gaining steam not because it makes life worse here but because the improvements are obvious.
It's become apparent in Arizona that while "Californification" is not a panacea and without issues, it's much better than the alternative.
1
As many have commented, the income inequality described here is not unique to California. My home, Birmingham, Alabama, has some of the nation's richest neighborhoods within fifteen minutes of the nation's poorest, and the divide politically and socially between rich and poor is magnified by racial and political divides. All of this has been the deliberate product of white "haves" for centuries, and they have used conservative/Republican policies to get there. There is little safety net; public schools are woeful, except in wealthier areas (but even then not up to the standards of top American jurisdictions); and businesses that locate in the state are chasing tax incentives, low wages, and friendly regulatory regimes, which means the jobs created (while better than nothing) are not building more prosperity. Seems to me the problem is universal: greed.
Maybe they are all "neoliberals," Regan-Clinton democrats in Cal. Because the growing Democratic wave has nothing to do with them. It was their policies, the Regan Republican policies with the help of neoliberal Democrats that decimated the middle class. This Gilded Age is not the child of what could be considered Democratic policies, even if it has erupted in full force in one of the most beautiful places to live. The question is will these super affluent California Democrats pay taxes? Because that is what is coming, Bernie and all. But isn't it in California where the talk about the living wage? Maybe they don't have it yet, but that is what is coming.
Why do political commentators and pundits always assume the future will be like the past?
Is it not an intellectual mistake to assume that the generations of tomorrow will vote in the same manner and pattern as those of today?
Projecting today's political biases, prejudices, and ideological divisions onto those in the future, in the same manner that they exist today, shows that many make the mistake of thinking politics exists in a vacuum; that what exists today will be around tomorrow.
The election of Trump shows that this manner and fashion of thinking is wrong.
Looking back 20 years ago with the available data back then, who would have said that he would be elected today with the demographics that put him in power?
I am sure those who would have looked at the data back then would have said, that the numbers available and then projected forward, would have projected a democratic win for this point in time.
Predicting the future is tricky business.
I mean, who 20 years ago wrote that by this time, modernism would be usurped by the postmodern, and that Western liberal democracy would be replaced with illiberalism?
1
Glad you were able to enjoy the beauty of California, thanks to conservationists who were interested in preserving it. With Scott Pruitt heading the EPA "California Dreaming" is all we may be able to do in the rest of the country thanks to all the deregulation he has hastily undertaken in the name of big business interests.
As for this liberal's "golden dream" - not much to fear from me. All I have ever wanted was what our liberal forefathers seem to have had in mind. I want liberty and justice for all. As a progressive I want equality and a decent standard of living for all citizens with access to health care at a reasonable price. I want the racism, misogyny, xenophobia, religious prejudice, and homophobia to stop (guess that is redundant with wanting equality for all). I want education to be a priority and decisions about climate to be science-based and not faith-based. The New Deal was the bane of conservatives, because it worked toward trying to accomplish most of these goals (conservatives aren't big on sharing the wealth).
It has always confounded me that as a Christian Mr. Douthat you abjure (to use one of your words) what is just basic human decency. There can be a place at the table for everyone without displacing anyone by making a bigger table.
3
Ross Douthat should have visited other southern California communities besides Santa Monica. If he had gone to the San Gabriel Valley, the San Fernando Valley, Riverside or San Bernardino, he would have found millions of middle class families. Then he would have had to downsize his conclusions: maybe improving public transportation is the secret sauce to keeping the California dream golden.
4
I wouldn't rule it out:
"What’s next? Predicting a Hillary victory?"
Particular races in 2018 have actual candidates, and so the Democratic Party probably will pick up many seats in both houses of Congress.
But how about 2020? Still far off, but the DP shows no sign of coming up with a strong replacement for any of the old war horses (Biden, Sanders, Clinton). If the 2020 election were held today, the Republicans have their candidate -- Trump -- but who, exactly, would the Democrats run? Cory Booker? Kamala Harris? Elizabeth Warren? Am I overlooking anyone?
"Under one-party liberal rule, California is presently as unequal as a Central American republic,...."
It always happens. RD makes an inane statement suggesting that the Democrats CAUSED economic inequality, as if Reagan/Bush/Trump policies never existed. Or a GOP congress played no role since 1981.
Consequently, it's impossible to read RD's polemic without laughing.
4
Always interesting what easterners see when they come here, especially eastern conservatives. When I see California, I see a melting pot with a thriving economy. Apparently Ross sees white flight.
When I look at the red parts of the country, I see the Hunger Games.
3
Uniformly liberal? Two words: Devin Nunes. Two more? OK: Darrell Issa.
You're welcome!
2
Douthat doesn't seem to have any problems with the one party Republican rule in extremely rightwing Red States, with super laxed gun laws.
4
America, including California, is so far away from being a liberal dream, that I find the observations and conclusions both referred to and proposed here, unconnected to the reality that is the state of our rapidly fraying union.
Neither the left nor the right acknowledges how thoroughly complicit they have been in sabotaging those dreams over the
last few decades; how the Democrats and the Republicans, their media mouthpieces and their corporate backers, their zealots with their ideologically pure agendas, their promotion of self over country, their undermining of the foundations of our country's unique system of liberal democracy and the public's confidence in it, their championing of greed in its many forms over public service, have unwittingly found one thing in common in this era of partisanship and division - their shared promotion of illiberalism.
In relentlessly pushing our agendas and demonizing each other, we preside over the stagnation of our society, the suffering of far too many of our people, leave problems unsolved and progress unmade, and tear apart the political system that has been the framework, the *liberal* framework, by which we have become the most powerful nation on earth.
Whatever dream is in the minds of Americans today, at least those who set public policy, liberalism is largely absent from it.
Yes, California real estate is ridiculously expensive and the state legislature just rejected a measure to keep that high coastal cost model from spreading.
Douthat's whiny, "I don't like losing," column conflates or ignores social-economic phenomena and governance.
The CA legislature is not on a tax-cutting bender like Republican-run states (AZ, WI, KS, LA, etc.), destroying the tax base that provides basic services like public education, roads, law enforcement, etc. -- See spreading teacher strikes.
The CA legislature has not become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the bonkers Life movement, using every session to enact more draconian restrictions on abortion only to see them stayed by courts and eventually thrown out after years of expensive legislation. In AZ, women now have to explain their health choices to the state government by way of an ever-more lengthy questionnaire.
Can CA be improved? Of course. But I imagine Douthat adores the rabidly anti-choice Republicans who run Texas, as well as their no-income-tax status and lousy public schools.
Disliking Trump does not make someone reasonable or less extreme.
2
Mix a hard right conservative religionist's deep anti-Democratic bias, with a vacation trip to one urban location in a enormous multidimensional state, a brief family history, a few self-selected writings, the total absence of any rigorous statistical data and "Voila", you get a grand, sweeping social/political/demographic "theory" promoting the established limitations of a national party that wouldn't qualify for a D- in any college poli-sci introductory course. (Note the columnist's use of the coded word "suspect" in his last paragraph. What is conveyed is that all the above is actually mere guesswork and sloppy thinking. Whose's really "dreaming"?)
3
I believe the real key to this Op-Ed piece is that a certain group is dying off. And it is very hard to recruit new members to that failed philosophy.
California will always cast an hypnotic spell on its inhabitants.
Like the Soma drug administered in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".....Beautiful weather or spectacular weather....incredible landscapes.....productive agriculture......and completely isolated, fractured communities.
This is a "benevolent dictator"'s paradise. A place easy to command simply because the locals are already passive, well fed, and comfortable AND they are completely out of touch with one another with little motivation to organize. Its advertized world wide as a Land of Milk and Honey, Sanctuary!! All Welcome!! Just do as you're told and you'll be just fine.
Los Angeles has little in common with SanFran Bay Area which has little in common with the Central Valley, which has little in common with the Mountains which has little in common with the North Coast......in fact, even in the microcosm of Los Angeles.....Santa Monica has little to do with, say.......Torrance.....just ten miles down the coast!
Add to this discontinuity.....California is basicly "full up"....a population explosion...there's virtually no livable land left to build on...the once bountiful ag-land is now being destroyed in order to provide for more houses.
Still they come...from China. from Central America. from India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq Vietnam.
Instead of EXPORTING the California Dream to these places....we are quickly IMPORTING ideas from what was once "3rd World"...without filtering out what destroys that dream.
Douthat should go into the field of satire. He hates the thought of people voting in Democratic majorities, yet has no problem with his Republicans party's unabashed, and decades-long, goal of one-party rule under Republicans. His arguments make for a good joke, but do not an constitute an honest opinion piece.
The single biggest California policy problem that no one wants to look at is the effect of illegal immigration on lower and middle income housing. If you are a young person who wants to come to California, you're ship out of luck. In Los Angeles alone, at least 100,000 lower-income housing units are being occupied by people who should not be in the country. Those are the units for which young Americans would normally compete, but landlords would much rather have illegal people in them who will never bring an action in landlord tenant court.
No one in Sacramento cares about this though. These illegal people will someday be the Democratic voters of the future.
1
This commenter claims to live in CA, which makes this comment surprising:
"Democratic California: ... budget surpluses ... "
As several well-informed writers point out, CA (sometimes) balances its budget simply by ignoring certain expenses. Very soon, for example, most money spent on "education" won't be spent on students, teachers or schools; it will be spent on pensions.
Why pensions?
The CA government (state and local) simply contributes less than will be necessary to fund government workers' pensions down the road, and then "assumes" the contributed money will grow at an unrealistically high rate. Result? Presto, chango -- A budget deficit is magically transformed into a budget surplus!
That hasn't worked out so well, and so now the CA government has to raise taxes, and cut spending on students, to afford the high unfunded pensions. That's how we come up with "budget surpluses" here in the Golden State.
2
And what is the Republican reaction to our problems of inequality?
More tax cuts for the wealthy and more cuts to education and Paul Ryan's dream of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
And is it just coincidence that all the teacher strikes are occurring in states with Republican legislatures that have been cutting taxes and school budgets for years?
Germany is known for high-tech manufacturing and they have faced the same globalization we have.
They have good education for the working class, trades and high-tech manufacturing. Also, universal healthcare for half what we spend per person.
After 35 years of trickle-down Reaganomics, we got an opioid crisis.
7
The Republican Majority in Congress is largely due today tothe investment of millions by the likes of the Koch brothers and the Mercer’s based on Conservative Think Tank programs aimed at local elections and gerrymandering for this decade and beyond. If the disabling of the census for 2020 is any indication the plan continues. Only an enormous and anger energized turnout of 50% or more of eligible Democratic voters this November can alter that plan.
Politically, liberalism may win soon, and I hope it will. However, dealing with ravages of 40 years of conservative ascendancy will hamper implementing a liberal agenda for a long time to come. How can the tax system be changed without an initial shock to the economy? What about the Supreme Court's lifetime conservative appointees?
This column presents a analysis of some papers on California demographics that presents a rather simplistic view of what has happened in state politics over the past few decades.
The Number One problem the Republicans have had for decades is simple. It's the party's candidates. It's as if, despite the pro-Trumpian noise made by the state Republican Party hierarchy, the GOP decided to cede the state to the Democrats.
A typical Republican ballot statement for a partisan office in California inevitably starts out with "businessman," and then proceeds to list zero local government or civic engagement beyond, perhaps, the Chamber of Commerce. No local boards, commissions, or local elective office. The Party's state office tactics have also been questionable, consisting of ticking off the Speaker of the Assembly (guaranteeing zero traction on any legislative initiatives), and until recently, using the state's supermajority budget requirement as their primary legislative tactic.
There are still "liberal Republicans" (fiscally conservative, socially liberal) in office in California. They're all registered as "moderate Democrats."
1
We can only hope for such a future, where people vote in their own economic interests rather than to shift as much money to the 1% as possible. A liberal future would look like this:
1. Medicare for All, which should deliver healthcare at 1/3rd less cost with comparable quality, like the rest of the developed world.
2. Much higher taxes on the rich, who now have about 40% of the wealth and 20% of the income, vs. 25% and 10% pre-Reagan, respectively. Just eliminating tax expenditures for the top 20% (about $850 billion per year) would roughly balance the budget. We can also raise marginal rates for income over $500,000.
3. Fully-funded Social Security. Removing the cap on the payroll tax (around $127,000 today) without raising benefits plus making contributions about 1 percentage point higher should bring the program into balance for 75 years.
4. Lower defense spending. The U.S. will be a regional power, working with Germany, England, and France to address terrorist threats.
5. Paid-for tuition or trade school. The balanced budget and lower defense spending will allow us to pay for students so they can compete and for life-long learning credits.
3
It is increasingly apparent that the only way to save democracy is America is to destroy the Republican Party. The Republican Party has always represented the economic elite, but they have gotten out of hand. Since the end of WWII, Republicans have been conning voters who are not capable of spotting the con with anti communism, race, abortion, guns, religion, sexuality, immigration, etc., and those people are now their base. They are also called Trump voters. Since the days of Newt Gingrich, Republicans have treated their opposition as illegitimate and dropped all pretense of restraint: note the impeachment of Clinton and how the last Supreme Court justice was seated. (See Levitsky and Ziblatt's _How Democracies Die_ for details.) It does not seem possible for the Republican Party to pull back from their extremism to something like politics as usual, and the only hope is to beat them to the ground. I hope the California solution wins on a national level, but I fear the generation that drank the Reagan cool aid is going to have to be supplanted by younger voters to break the Republican strangle hold on our country. And "liberalism" doesn't have anything to do with this; my position is the "conservative" one.
3
The mythology of California holds that California is a paradise separated from the rest of the world by the Sierra Nevada Mtns. The reverse is perhaps more valid.....the USA is a paradise separated from the nightmare world of California by the same Sierra Nevada Mtns.
For a brief moment in time, California was strategicly important to defense of the USA.....1941, Pearl Harbour. Japan became a threat...and the Defense Industry moved to California to build the war machines to defeat Japan. The despised Okies and American migrants of the Depression became Middle Class Californians. Hollywood became the Propaganda Arm of the US Govt. Kaiser Steel built PTboats and Airplanes, and crafted todays "natl health care system"....Hughes Oil Drill Bit Co....became a Defense Contractor. California universities developed high standards. JPL. Livermore Labs.CalTech, Berkley, Stanford.....heck, even USC.......But then California ran out of open space.......sitting next to the world's largest ocean....California ran out of water. As we entered the 21st Century, the USA no longer values the importance of California to its national defense....many wealthy californians arguing that we should NOT defend our nation......all while China steadily reclaims its lost colonies once established a long time ago in the 1400s and soon abandonned, vanished before the Spaniards arrived in 1770s.
1
One of the few, if any, columns by Douthat that are more than a theocratic screed.
What he so accurately reports about California -- a booming upper class, and a broad servant class -- is basically the American economy on steroids.
6
Luckily for you, Democrats' smugness is only eclipsed by their blindness.
1
The influx of affluent liberals into the LA, San Francisco and San Diego areas has caused housing prices to skyrocket. This is the main reason for working class flight and for the extreme poverty and homelessness there. (Have a visit to skid row in LA or take a look at it on YouTube.) So, why don't the liberals do something about the affordable housing problem that they caused? Either they are incompetent at governing or they are hypocrites, or both.
1
Sorry, I am a liberal and I don't favor one party rule.
That said I would most like to see the people (particularly those retirees on social security and medicare) conned by Trump recognize the con and re-examine why they feel that a white supremacist misogynist evangelical liar who is selling the wealth of this nation for pennies on the dollar (destroying the value of the dollar) and wants to end the new deal that they depend on is a good idea. At the moment they are too fervently stuck on "may" as in Trump "may" help them when he is clearly doing no such thing. Oh right, the fetuses are protected...once born you don't count...
Two or more parties require some adults in the room. Other than John McCain adults are in short supply in our legislative branch.
1
Why is it that I have gotten to the point where I really don't believe that California has the "highest poverty rate in the country if you control for inflation" b(ut which doesn't include state services) and the unsourced comment that education is lousy...yea I guess Berkeley just can't keep up with Lynchville Baptist or Texas A & M....when I read that from someone whose greatest desire is to turn the whole country into some clerico-fascist 21st century version of Ireland in the 1930's?
1
Rather angry and jealous today, aren't we? I know you tend to blame liberals for everything, but isn't blaming them for good weather a bit of a reach?
11
If the new order is uglier and more unstable, we can thank the neoliberal onslaught that began under Reagan and continues under Trump, combined with a Republican party that knows only loyalty to profits.
4
There are no conservatives in America anymore just war mongers who never served and religious zealots.
6
Hey Ross, You need to read, The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis. Your conclusions about CA. are related to the laws of small numbers and the fallacies of human reason, in this case yours.
1
Why does Ross talk about liberals as if they were some foreign invasive species? Further, when so-called "conservatives" amass wealth, well, that's always a good thing. But when liberals achieve affluence, that's "white liberal gentrifiers in SoCal or the Bay Area."
Ross: the superficial thinker with a degree in gross over-generalization and false equivalencies. Just like his fellow columnist Lord David Brooks, but without the charm.
9
Driving far from a coast recently, I heard a talk radio DJ launch into a series of attacks against California. This column is the grammatical "sophisticated" version by a columnist taking part in a culture war he purportedly disdains.
4
Never has confirmation bias been so evident. When one has an ability to write and influence thought, it seems the confirmation bias should really be in check. There are so many counter points to this hypothesis, one doesn't even have to struggle to find them. For one example, when Reagan deregulated the trucking industry, many in that field went from a very comfortable living to a struggle. There are multiple examples to counter Ross lazy conclusion about D versus R.
3
I think you are conflating political bias and allegiance with technological changes that have grown so rapidly and radically that no-one can keep up. It is mainly in CA, but you can see this in MA, NY, small enclaves such as Austin, Seattle. Yes, the tech sector is full of selfish and self absorbed millionaires who think that tech is all they need to focus on. I think much of the changes are because this new economy has gotten away from us. You could see it when the 80 year old Senators had no idea what it is all about.
Not everything goes back to party affiliation. It seems more important with an unbalanced person in the Oval Office, and with all the cowards surrounding him. But I think this is a mirage, and confusing the changes with D or R is going down the most obvious road, probably mistakenly.
(And the party division has been shown to be about losing to diversity.)
2
Republicans control all 3 branches of government on the federal level.
How is that working out, Ross?
6
It seems to me that a lot of the Democratic hopes were based on bad demographic research . They read that the "white" population was declining and thought that was good news because they blame a lot of problems on White Males. It turned out that the "white decline" was due to a statistical fluke: the demographers redefined "white" to exclude Hispanics/Latinos and anybody of mixed race (what used to be known as the racist "one-drop" rule), which created the illusion that there were less whites.
2
Funny this commenter should mention this, since yet another such proposition is slated for the CA ballot this fall:
"Isn't there some insight into California when they regularly trumpet secession from the Union, and never, ever, even get close?"
The most recent proposal is to split CA into three states -- Northern CA, Southern CA and plain old CA. As you note, the chances of this passing are extremely low. Even if it passes, the Civil War pretty much settled the question of whether a state can simply secede from the US. That War answered that question, emphatically: No.
1
It is more, much more, scary out here than you think Mr. Douthat, some of those pesky "Spanish speaking" immigrants are availing themselves to the public education system including the UC system, grasping themselves up by the huaraches, and entering society as, gasp, licenseidos, that's right; hoardes of Latino and Latina doctors and lawyers, engineers and designers, actually fulfilling their American Dream. No wonder your Uncle pulled up stake and headed out for the Trumpian hills, who can compete against such a stacked deck?
4
"I thought conservatives should resist the lure of Trump, lest he govern badly, alienate widely, and act as a kind of accelerant toward a Californian future."
What I read here, sir is your usual loathing of things left of center. You shudder at the destruction of the Republic under Trump yet you silently waved it on, smirking the entire while.
Whatever California's faults--and they are plenty, particularly as relates to people of color--it tends to attract those who wish for a better society and not only for themselves, but for all others as well. This thought process is "wide but shallow," you write.
You would be more intellectually honest than you come off were you to absolutely to write a piece shredding the Trump reality. And it was not an aberration as white out-migrants fled the influx of the Mexican wave.
California, you need to be reminded, was also the launching site for the John Birch Society. The Golden State bequeathed to us Richard Nixon and Pete Wilson and, yes, "government is the problem" Ronald Reagan. The state's underside includes the Aryan Brotherhood, a healthy breeding ground for the alt-right, alt-white nativist strain that comprises much of Donald Trump's "base," a base which includes the roster of right-wing Silicon Valley flashing lights (Peter Thiel) that you casually toss out for our contemptuous consumption.
You know, you're a difficult read in the best of times but you never cease to drip with a hatred of anything that's not white and rich.
5
You left out '18 in your nom de guerre.
That said, you are far too intelligent a person to end your comment with your last sentence. Unless of course you harbor the mirror view and consider the preaching of Louis Farrakhan as indicative of all black intellectualism.
We need to solve problems more than we need to invoke racial ranting.
1
@Durk, Rochester, NY: My apologies for an awful final sentence. It’s never been my way to post a comment that will offend a reader. I may be guilty of much—chief among my serial lapses are carelessness and haste—but to purposely affront a reader—any reader—is not my way. I regretted the sentence right away after I hit “send.” All that’s left, besides your justified surprise is my embarrassment. Oh, and ‘18 was way before my time. But ‘67, ‘75 and ‘86 remain crosses to bear, as do ‘78 and ‘03.
i am going to throw some conservative boiler plate back at you.... "what the heck were your recent ancestors and other out immigrants doing while wealth was pouring in and property values were rising fast around them? renting? all of that wealth being created all around them and they couldn't grab a big enough piece to establish themselves in this place they loved? why should we worry about people that couldn't fund their own bootstraps in a place and time of such abundance?"
anyway, it is distressing to see california become so expensive that it is exclusionary..... but give us time. after the likes of republicans George Deukmejian, pete wilson, and of course baby daddy arnold, and the pre- trumpian conservatives in our legislature? it's going to take a while. jerry has done a great job of turning things around. it was't that long ago that you would have been writing our epitaph not bemoaning the imperfections in our success.
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To paraphrase John Kerry, receiving a lecture from Ross Douthat on income inequality and the evils of one-party rule is a little bit like getting a lecture on law and order from Tony Soprano.
1
California has become 'liberal' and Democratic not because of any starry-eyed youth movement sweeping the state but because California has now become virtually a white minority state. As other states also follow this trend they too will become Democratic. The Democratic majority in California rests on the tolerant values of the former minorities in the face of blatant white intolerance. As white Trumpists flee the state, watch other states become California during the next decade or two.!
I suspect this commenter is right, but I do have my doubts:
"Mrs. Clinton['s] ... time is now over."
HRC has said she's never again going to run for any office, but one can't help but notice she's doing little else but giving political speeches -- not all of them "licking her wounds." I also remember that Richard Nixon "retired" from politics in 1962, after losing the CA governor's race to Jerry Brown's father.
Sometimes politicians change their minds.
"the ideal egalitarian society liberalism claims that it can build." It seems as though this ideal could be shared by conservatives, except for some very ancient thinking to which they cling. That is to wit: "We all are fallen creatures, and great men will come to free us." Of course not all of us will be freed, some will never get it, i.e., what the great men say, and they will perish. Given this, how could anyone believe that all of us, by our very birth, are entitled to all things that life has to offer, including and importantly, an equal voice in public policy? Notice that RD is writing a book about the current Pope. One wonders if RD's concern with the Pope lies with the Pope's willingness to let all peoples be included in all of life.
California has some liberal policies but scratch beneath the surface and what Douthat is describing is a Republican party platform - unhinged capitalism.
2
If you are an accidental tourist with no plans to travel the friendly skies, there is always a folding chair from the local convenience store to be found at a moderate price. From this perch, you can indulge in a viewing of the fading of America's golden dream in sunny California, while dining with the rich; safely secured in gilt fortresses and in possession of a security guard. If this is your dream, make it a goal, and go for this happy bubble.
Beatriz, a Mexican immigrant and health carer, gets stranded at one of these celebratory events, and the evening goes downhill at a fast pace. Doug, the guest of honor and deal-make, is slumped in complacency, sitting on flattened laurels, with signs of a thickening girth, and gets mildly rebuked by his wife for showing signs of behaving like an immigration prosecutor. This is dismissed by her spouse who goes into a mild blubber about his own 'modest upbringing', and displays his own dream, now a fact, of shooting the last white rhino.
While watching this cruel, yet realistic comedy of manners, branching out into a garden of prickly thorns and cactus, a movie viewer might start noticing the absence of The Middle-Class on this ill-fated starry evening.
Marlene Dietrich was a Hollywood icon. She came to America for a reason and not only be a blue angel, while her grandson in New Mexico, Pete Riva, writes in our local town news this April last, 'A View from The Edge', to our notion of The American Dream on a cautionary note.
1
California's (and the planet's) most pressing problems stem from human overpopulation.
Mr. Douthat, who has often written of the evils of women neglecting to have as many babies as possible, needs to think a little more about the consequences of his bronze age beliefs.
1
Republican California: Arnold Schwarzenegger, celebrity governance, no experience, tax cuts, massive debt, moral turpitude.
Democratic California: Jerry Brown, tax proposals approved by the electorate, budget surpluses, intellectual governance, relevant experience, modesty, fair voting, education funding increases, environmental enlightenment.
That’s not a Democratic wave. It was a logical vote that foretells the exact situation we see now with Trump. As he relies on his celebrity status, we watch his constituents suffer under his policies, we see another massive Republican debt, we see edcuation ignored, we see environmental ignorance, and we are sullied as a nation by a lack of morality.
2
I guess there is a significant difference between a "small-business man" and a small businessman.
Good catch by somebody there at the Times. What a difference a hyphen makes!
(About the rest of the article:)
"All predictions are guaranteed to be wrong, including this one."
-- Mike Greenberg
It looks like you had your head in the clouds out there from this sentence:
"...its upper class-service class-underclass hierarchy, expanded to landscapes that lack the balm of all that beauty, and lack an easy exist for the discontented as well."
Not sure I buy the whole exodus narrative, btw.
Or we could all live in those Republican states like Alabama and Mississippi where they have parts of the population with infant mortality rates worse than Botswana.
And we are the richest industrial country on the planet.
Shame on us.
1
As a native ex Californian I have to say to the middle class, not wealthy, commenters who profess they are still happy to be there. Thank Prop 13. That froze your proprietary taxes at 1978 levels and was the beginning of the end for funding of Californias once great schools, parks and other benefits to society. BTW that was on Governor Browns watch( in fairness he opposed it just not enough). Yeah there’s still the weather, fires, floods, beaches you can’t access because they’re too polluted or built out with billionaires homes. But yes if you’re from some third world country or overcrowded megapolis in India or China California still looks like heaven, but please don’t confuse California of fifty years ago with the homeless capital of the country it has become, if this is liberal Nirvana you can have it.
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I'll take California Dreaming anytime over the dystopian world that you, your conservative allies, and the Trumpists are promoting.
3
Rarely is Mr. Douthat capable of writing a column without using the word "liberal", "liberalism", etc. Here we waste no time whatsoever - it's the first word in the title of the article. I hope he realizes that he owes everything to liberals and liberalism. It's hard to image him holding down a job without us to kick around.
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What seems to bother Ross about California isn't liberalism, but capitalism, because that is what capitalism does, even with a liberal flavor ...
1
I agree with your assessment of California's problems, but I'm confused about what you think the Republicans might do to fix them. I mean - yes, sure, I can buy the story that displaced working-class white Californians will be filled with resentment of smug white Bay Area liberals and Spanish-speaking immigrants and will vote red. I will grant you this scenario. -- But what does that vote get them, exactly? I mean, are Republicans going to get them a $15 minimum wage? free college for the kids? rent control? shore up social security for their old age? Isn't California's economic situation, kinda... what Republicans want? I mean, the rich get richer, and then it all trickles down and the rising tide lifts all the boats, right? You seem confused, Ross, about the economic policies of your own party.
2
"It (current Republican electoral dominance)depends on a backlash that will weaken as the voters driving it gradually age and die, it relies on countermajoritarian bulwarks that savvy Democrats can dismantle...
Countermajoritarian bulwarks.
Mr. Douthat here has outdone himself in creating what I believe is a new and academic-sounding euphemism(just count all those syllables!) for purging voter rolls of lawful voters, gerrymandering legislative districts to limit minority representation, enacting voterID laws and then closing the very state offices that issue them, changing the federal census to intimidate and underrepresent hispanics, denying former felons the right to vote...
Countermajoritarian bulwarks. Mr.Douthat, how long will you provide psuedointelectual cover for the criminals who lead the Republican party? Until US Marshalls knock on the Oval Office door? Longer?
1
Thanks for writing my article for me (they won't publish mine, it's too blatantly obnoxious). I might have called it The Liberal Nightmare. New Jersey has been living it for decades. No one will admit that it's also blatantly racist. I'm living in a town that bills itself as progressive - but ran a railroad through a minority neighborhood for the benefit of white commuters. The town is full rich white breeding New Yorkers now - I call it the Stepford Wives meets Logan's Run. It's downright scary. The rest of us are unwelcome here, but they are destroying our neighborhoods so they can buy them up cheap. Creepy. No, I didn't vote for Trump, but most of us will be forced to move to red states. You can't say that both parties aren't making war on us. When are we going to get a third party?
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Sure about your numbers?
"Income inequality is a national issue, perpetuated by a regressive tax structure."
According to actual statistics (for 2016, the latest year available), the top 1% of taxpayers paid 40% (39.48%, to be precise) of federal income taxes. The top 5% paid 60%. The bottom half paid 2.75%.
Other taxes indeed may be "regressive" (sales taxes are often cited as an example), but not income taxes.
Douthat ignores several relevant facts here. Yes, California has the nation’s highest poverty rate (when accounting for cost of living), but it also has the highest rate of economic mobility. A poor American has a better chance of “making it” in California than anywhere else in the USA. Second, California’s high cost of living is overwhelmingly attributable to the cost of housing (not liberal tax rates), and those costs are mostly the result of local land use restrictions imposed by both Democratic and Republican-led cities. The difference is that Democrats are at least beginning to have a debate about reforming local control over housing (see State Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 827) to increase supply and reduce costs. The same cannot be said of state Republicans.
1
Having grown up in a beautiful horse town in Silicon Valley, and watching it become an extreme haven for the very wealthy, with McMansions and nannies, I can tell you that this became a thing before everyone started identifying by party affiliation. When we over ascribe everything to party, we are over simplifying. Trump has caused the divide, likes the divide, thrives on the divide.
The income inequality has been growing, and is more about job training, an accelerated change in the economy. Tech has gotten way ahead of us, and we can't rein it in, or keep up.
I also think the criminality of the mortgage scams in the early 2000's has caused an exponential rise in the problem. And the fact that we never go after white collar criminals has been with us for many years. And now with the white collar criminals openly in charge, it will only get worse. See Mulvaney's statements. "We welcome corruption."
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I think it's less about "figuring out how to build an information-age middle class" than mustering the political will to do it.
The great American middle class of the mid-20th century arose in large part as a result of three policies:
1) mass access to higher education through the GI Bill
2) acceptance of organized labor's role in ameliorating the more societally corrosive effects of capitalism
3) federal investment in a massive increase of the housing supply
Our policy choices since 1980 have reversed those commitments, and eroded our middle class. We've restructured the tax code to greatly advantage the already super-rich; we've abandoned workers by enabling or accelerating the decline of organized labor; and we've disinvested, on every level, in affordable housing.
Douthat, as always, is trying to push as much of the blame onto "liberals" (you can almost hear the sneer as he writes the word) as possible. And to be fair, they have abetted all three shifts to some degree. But the big driver across the board is money in politics--invested by, and robustly returning to, the likes of the Koch Bros. And their preferred party is not the one that runs California.
1
some things are so obvious that we can't always see them. In a country as ours, one with fox news and its ilk, there will always be 2 parties , willing to promise anything to get that 50th percentile voter. As proof, consider bill clinton's triangularism, and trumps anti free market policies which were quickly supported by members if their respective tribes despite contradicting decades of previous policy dogma. What Trump is mostly accomplishing is a change from conservative /liberal dichotomy, to an open vs closed society dichotomy. don't worry, the tribes will reorganize but return in mass.
1
First, California is hardly uniformly blue - Devin Nunes, Daryll Issa, Duncan Hunter are some of the more well known Republican constantly voted into power. The eintire Central Valley seems to have been missed, by Douthat. Secondly, the class separation is occuring across america, and is more pronounced in fly-over lands that have lost their social services. Just take a look at womens health care in Oklahoma, for example.
Thirdly, California is plagues with agricultural pollution, San Diego with pollution from Mexico, Los Angeles with (still!) smog, not to speak of bums. So to paint this weird picture of a thriving class society in the beautiful landscape is just hogwash. You ought to get out a bit, Ross. I suggest Bakersfield, or Tipton, the home of Devin Nunes - is he part of your democratic super-majority you fictionalize in California. Just kidding.
4
Ah, Ross. You can fool some of the people some of the time with intricate, reasonable-sounding prose. But your entire thesis is erected on a foundation of mud.
Let me re-write your column in 50 words, so the glaring flaw is more easily exposed:
Middle class white folks got squeezed out, replaced by really rich white folks and really poor immigrants. Neighborhoods, like your family's, changed beyond recognition. It's not working well, thereby proving that the liberal dream of social and economic justice is evermore elusive. Middle class white folks won't go to Hungary.
There - 50 words.
What you ignore - completely - is that whatever less-than-utopian circumstances continue to plague "liberalism's golden dream" are not of liberalism's making. Income inequality is a national issue, perpetuated by a regressive tax structure. Social tension is a result of federal policies. Social injustice and poverty are exacerbated by federal failure, among others, to provide a functioning health care system for all Americans. As others have noted, the residue of Pete Wilson's policies inhibit justice for immigrants.
California is not a failing experiment in liberalism. California is a example of a growing, complex part of our society, trying to find humane footing in an increasingly conservative and inequitable nation.
5
One word: Gerrymandering. This is why none of us, Republican nor Democrat, have a real voice. The incumbents get re-elected over and over again.
Douthat thinks economic hard times originate in liberal California, a narrow perspective. You are always left wondering, what conservative ideas will truly help the middle class? Pointless tax cuts? Crushing Obamacare? Opposing single payer? 2nd amendment protections? These conservatives love to accuse liberals of hurting the middle class. Isn't the opposite true?
5
So-called "liberal" California is more objectively seen as a crystalization of 1960s era policies. Immutable. Unable to adapt to Modern Times. With typical California self-delusion, we imagine California as the future....when it is truly "the past". Lost in a dream. Soma. Medical Marijuana. The Magic of Hollywood. Free Internet. Call it what you will. We still insist on seeing USA in general and California specifically as the Safe Haven for Democracy.....we refuse to see the rest of the world as on the peer level with USA.....why is there NO opportunity elsewhere in the world? Overpopulation in California destroyed the dream.
Haven't been to the East Coast, do know that living along the coast in certain areas of California is budget busting for many Americans.
Don't know if this is the fault of liberal policy, as noted by others, proposition 13 has played a major role in the economic situation there.
Regardless, the notion that liberal policy has emaciated the middle class seems silly, would Mr. Douthat argue that the conservative policies in our poorest states have destroyed their middle class by pushing more people into poverty rather than lifting them into the middle class?
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California simply ran out of land available for housing. Overpopulation. Politics is not the problem....just a symptom. Open Immigration is not helping solve the problem.....only allows the politicians to exploit the situation to their personal advantage. Soon the Golden Goose will die.....
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Et tu, Douthat? "...I am always grateful to Twitter for the interesting ideas it surfaces." Yes, language evolves (usually for the worse). But it pains this scrivener to see such a champion of expression as yourself, adding to the limited uses of surface transitively. Say it isn't so!
1
After reading this essay, I am sure Mr. Douthat believes that a better model for state government would be found in Kansas, which is clearly doing so much better than California.
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I would love to read your analysis of California when it was a one-party Republican state, Ross.
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A boring piece, a made-up story to criticize democrats and other non-conservatives in the future for their projected failures. If the present is too grim, it’s a cheap maneuver to go after your intellectual adversary by inventing a dystopian world to be. All eyes should be on the corrupt first season of D. Trump. There is plenty of material for conservatives like Ross to write about.
1
Ross cherry picks his way, again, through a minefield of assertions without supportive statistics. The comments mirror the "anecdotal" nature of his argument. " . . . California is presently as unequal as a Central American republic . . ." Seriously, Ross. You slay me.
1
The Electoral Collage gerrymandered power to the rural southern states (mostly populated by slaves) and away from fast growing industrial, urban northern states. It was a false equality that brought on the Civil War. It was based on age old white patriarchal ideals that were starting to melt with the dawn of the Age of Reason.
Slowly, the world has become more enlightened (with horrid backlashes like the Third Reich trying to reverse that enlightenment). Just as the Confederate States could not hold onto slavery , the United States is not going to be able to continue to control a world in which 2/3 of people are both non white and non Christian.
The United States needs to decide if it is the world leader, that promoted democracy and rebuilt economies the world over after WWII or The Old South that continued to deny equality and struggled as economies and human rights moved forward.
1
Its always amazed me how people are critical of the South and refuse to acknowledge the same behaviour in, say....California. California is also extremely gerrymandered, by Democrat Politicians, to ensure re-election of approved Democrat Politicians. The California system is indeed..."rigged"...through its Primary Election system....only the top two vote gainers are allowed to be on the General Election Ballot.......pretty much ensuring that each district election is just a race between two approved democrat politicians who survived in the Primary!!
Its also interesting to listen to Californians complain that they were blocked from voting for Bernie....that Hillary "stole" the California primary.....and then the same complainer sees nothing dishonest about how Hillary thrashed Trump in the California General Election!! Perhaps maybe 3milion fraudulent votes? Think about it...before you howl at me.
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These same predictions were made in 1980, 1992, 2004, 2008, 2016. Missed it by that much.Liberal writers predicting liberal victories. Now that’s original thinking! What’s next? Predicting a Hillary victory?
1
.."with one of the highest poverty rates in the country once you control for its exorbitant cost of living. Its educational performance is lousy and its racial gaps are stark."
You were speaking of California, but that's everywhere USA if you have a middle class point of view.
In Bucks County, with a population of about 625,000, Hillary won by less than 1%. This is a bellwether voting county for the country. There is good distribution of conservative, liberal, upper, middle, lower, socio-economic classes. Fact is, many upper middle & lower class people voted for Trump here for him to almost win the county. By extension, you could argue he won the presidency in large part due to Pennsylvania and Bucks County.
The majority of upper socio economic classes of people who voted for Trump will again. Their lot in life never changes. They are rich, protected in their social standing, and come on, they care about #1, themselves always. The middle & lower classes are in the same boat.....their lot in life has also not changed & will not under Trump.
For Douthat to surmise that a new order along "these lines" would be uglier, more unstable and far more easily undone or overthrown is missing the point. That's the way it has always been for the middle & lower classes. That's why the mid term elections are always an upheaval. Bring it California.
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M....consider the California voting process. Many Californians suspect DNC malfeasance in the PRIMARY....where Hillary defeated Bernie.....but then the same Californians see nothing unusual about Hillary's very strong performance in the GENERAL election against Trump......65%-35% or there abouts.
CNN accidently spilled some beans, which nobody picked up on.....Hillary thanks everyone for not observing. CNN conducted a small poll of "actual, representative California voters"........52% of them said they voted FOR Trump.......
1
Ross, compare California to a Conservatives' Tarnished Dream: Kansas or Oklahoma. Now, where would YOU rather live ??? It's not a trick question.
5
Really, nothing a little socialism can't cure. Given the level of inequality, we can raise taxes enough to improve the infrastructure in California and the lives of the non-Peter Thiels. Better Bernie Sanders than Robespierre.
1
We ain't got no "ideological deadlock."
What we got is the brazen selling out of our democratic institutions to our oligarchs. Ross Douthat is merely one of their face men.
3
" the Trump Republicans" The irnony is that on most issues except immigration, Trump is to the LEFT of the traditional (i.e. pre-Trump) Republicans. For instance, it is Hillary and McCain who are the hawks these days,
Trump prefers to avoid wars. When he is pushed into bombing Syria, he does a half hearted job, for which he is criticized by "liberal" media.
I think by " the Trump Republicans" you mean the Republican party which is forced to cooperate with Trump, at least for the time being, lest they go over the cliff.
Once Trump is gone, the Republicans will go back to being friendly to immigrants (read H1-B visas) and to Muslims, and will wage wars like there is no tomorrow.
In 2000, 40,000 Florida Muslims voted for Bush. Surely a thought to make Republicans salivate! Remember when Bush declared Islam the religion of peace? And so it is in a way, But Trump has not noticed.
My wife and I have benefitted economically from CA's rise -- greatly. But our sons will suffer. One of them is about to rent a one-bedroom apartment in SF that will cost him, with parking and utilities, about $3,000 a month. The prospect of him ever buying a home in San Francisco -- or even in a suburb -- is what they came up with the word "remote" for.
I know of many people leaving SF, and CA in general, for Nevada, Texas, Arizona or elsewhere. Indeed, sometimes I think the entire population of Incline Village, Nevada (on Lake Tahoe, near the CA border) consists of ex-Californians who moved there to avoid high CA taxes. I'll never do that, but I certainly can understand the sentiment.
2
So the story is that liberalism leads to a hollowing out of the middle - rich people and poor people and nobody in between.
If you look up one of the most commonly accepted measures of income inequality - the Gini index - you will find that California's rating sits right between those of Texas and Alabama. Is this because Texas and Alabama are liberal paradises? I don't think so.
California is also miles better in statistics like percentage of people with health insurance, median income, infant mortality. The one problem they do have is high housing costs - but that's because they aren't liberal enough!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/california-is-doing-fine-...
1
Liberalism’s Golden Dream beats republicanism’s golden showers any day of the week.
3
The next Democratic nominee for President must persuade the American people that she has real substantive ideas for improving the prospects of middle-income families; will not as President be pushing cockeyed politically-correct ideas like shared bathrooms; and will be a President that enemies of the U.S. will fear.
Mrs. Clinton would be ideal, but alas and alack, her time is now over.
2
Yes affluent people go to the warmer climes with gentle breezes. They need services once their mansions and seaside houses are built. Some like Mitt violate building codes and upset their neighbors. California is heaven for those who can afford it.
Now, what is the conservative dream. The poor educate themselves in crummy schools, the worthless children of the rich go to private schools and become a part of crony capitalism. The defense industries profit and poor kids fight for oil. The hospitals provide minimal care and the poor die quickly and cheaply. The rich consume their taxes in their gated communities. They buy and sell congress. They have "theirs" and try to pass it on to their kids with legacy admissions to the Ivies. They get tax abatements for their private use of their corporate jets. They sup on tax reductions for "investments" for nonexistent job promises. Their churches promise them heaven and forgiveness for cheating, adultery and raping the environment. They profess in public values which do not exist in their private lives. They give a couple of bucks to charity. They keep their 15 percent corporate pass throughs. On and on. Greed is good.
3
Mr Douthat, You are a first-class thinker and writer, who will not, unfortunately, call out explicitly the history of racism, homophobia,
misogyny, and xenophobia that dominates the party that you attach yourself to.The heavy majority of Republicans support Trump. That's your party.
3
I lived in Alabama for many years, a reliable bastion of Conservatism. If the corruption in the state government (Governor resigning in disgrace, Speaker of the House in prison for corruption, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court removed not once, but twice) is any indication of what happens when Republicans rule, we as a nation are in deep trouble.
2
Ross just cannot keep himself from using the term liberal as a dirty word. What spawns all of the that hate? I wish I knew because it is conservatives like him that led us to this desperate time where we cannot work together as a nation to solve our problems. It is his anecdotal citing of facts that reinforces these beliefs about "liberals" and is totally incapable of looking in the mirror at the failings of conservatives. California or Kansas? Or Oklahoma? Does Douthat ever look at these states as critically? He can't drag himself to the keyboard to do it.
1
But wait, this "upper class/service under class" that Douthat writes about, this is the crystal clear goal of the Republican Party. Just look at their recent tax cuts for the rich, their health care non-policies, attacks on the social safety net, anti-consumer protect policies, on and on and on. Republican for the rich.
I think Douthat is so ideologically biased that he can't see the forest for the trees. Why are they still paying this guy?
1
Ross as he often does exaggerates cause & effect. Is California "Liberalism's Golden Dream"? Is California even liberal at all? Consider the states history including giving us the conservative saint Ronny Reagan and you would fine Ross's argument less convincing. Visit the congressional district that has spawned Devin Nunes the Trump sycophant who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and you would wonder what Liberal California is he talking about. Besides if the liberal professional class is as negligent of the middle class as Ross implies then the conservatives aren't any better. That fact alone will keep American politics swinging wildly. Anyone predicting hegemony by either political party is on a fools quest or just trolling the usual nonsense. I suspect Ross is too intelligent to actually believe in this particular foolish trope & is just trolling nonsense for effect.
1
Left-of-center policies create a high quality of life, including highly performing schools, a well-maintained infrastructure, fine recreational facilities, a vibrant cultural life, and good access to health care.
These amenities attract the affluent and upwardly mobile, which puts pressure on the housing markets in those places. Builders profiteer in a such a market, catering to the affluent by building apartments that charge more for a studio than many existing residents make in a month. There may be (may be) public housing for the really poor, but the middle income population is priced out of the city.
This happened in San Francisco and New York quite early, but the trend is progressing in Seattle and in Portland, Oregon, which I would love to move back to but have been priced out of.
This form of gentrification is beginning to appear in my current city of Minneapolis.
These are all wonderful cities, but their city governments need to rein in the developers and (since no one can build without a city building permit) insist on a certain ratio of middle-income and low-income housing for each luxury building built, or else offer tax incentives for non-luxury housing, with the tax breaks revoked and the savings to be repaid if the building goes onto the luxury market.
3
If the country did follow Cali then you'd likely have a political realignment as discussed in this article.
https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue-4/the-co...
Where politics becomes oriented around whether there should be more or less government intervention in the economy in order to grow the social safety net and other public goods and smooth out capitalism's excesses and rough edges. I would imagine that such a reorientation hasn't taken place in California already because of external pressure from conservative social political thought elsewhere in the nation. The lower class minorities don't feel they have allies in lower class whites so they're making common cause with upper class liberal whites for now. Social conservatism will have to wither dramatically everywhere before that changes but I could see it potentially happening over the course of the next several decades.
I lived in California for seven years and this is a fairly accurate picture of at least the area where I lived (San Francisco and around). I'm not sure all the out-migrants become Trump voters though. People who are middle class and urban or suburban but traditionally Democratic might well move to Midwestern cities that are cheaper but still more liberal than the states around them.
Nevertheless, the Democratic party really is full of fissures-- both of class and race. We'll see what the future holds.
2
One key to understanding California is that the great majority of them have rejected Ronald Reagan's core Republican philosophy, that "Government is the Problem."
California voted to retain and moderately increase taxes so their government could function properly. A thoughtful people know that solving societies complex problems requires working together and using our government as a functioning tool.
California is trying to figure out how to create a cost competitive universal healthcare system. Maybe they will succeed. Our national government shows no interest.
California seems to understand that the nihilism practiced by today's Republicans can never succeed for anyone but the most wealthy.
3
I agree that we are headed towards greater class separation and stagnation.
Mr. Douthat obviously does not care for what he considers liberalism which he seems to think is about class consciousness. He does not offer any ideas from conservatism that might heal income inequality and does not say how liberalism created this inequality which seems to have more to do with conservative philosophy than liberalism. Liberalism has more to do with the redistribution of wealth through fair taxation of those who can afford it the most, the fat cats who horde their income and demand more.
How does conservatism create a level playing field for those who are working hard, but still can not pay the bills? Conservatives distract from this problem by pointing in a vague way towards liberalism. But it is liberalism that has supported a safety net for all that provides security for those times and situations that would destroy everyone below the one percent income level. Of this Douthat says not a word.
3
Nobody argues that income disparity has developed significantly since the early 1980s. Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the upper rungs of society. And a Republican-controlled government recently passed fairly massive tax cuts for these upper rungs, increasing that wealth at the same time that it moves to cut programs for the poor and squeeze the middle class (eg, teacher pay freezes, etc). I completely fail to see how Democratics are responsible for an increasing income divide in California, as Mr. Douhat suggests.
4
Yes, folks who can't afford California, or Washington DC, or New York City, are moving elsewhere. They are taking their liberal values with them: they don't become conservative just because they move to fly over country. They are more likely to vote for candidates that truly aim to stop the flood of the nation's wealth to the already wealthy, since, after all, they have been in a sense victimized by this process. Furthermore, Ross, you might be surprised by how many immigrants are settling in these places as well. Perhaps they will vote Republican for reasons of social values, but not if Republicans continue their anti-immigrant ways.
1
Douthat’s thesis the out-migration from California has been a significant factor in the Democrats achieving a super majority is interesting. I’d like to have seen some data to support it.
3
One thing Mr Douthat leaves out - many of California’s current issues stem from years of Republican tax cuts. Marketed as “cutting the fat”, Republicans did significant damage to the public schools, colleges, and the University of California system. Only by obtaining a 2/3 majority could the legislature overcome Republican tax cut fanatics and start repairing the damage Republican policies caused.
High home prices? It’s called the free market, and population pressure. Republicans fight anything related to family planning - which means more people competing for resources. There’s only so much fresh water and arable land - unless we repeal the laws of thermodynamics, there won’t be new matter created.
In short, the Republicans have become a party driven by a lust for power and a fanatical devotion to ideology over reality. Only by forcing them from power until they regain their senses can we start solving this country’s issues.
6
Isn't there some insight into California when they regularly trumpet secession from the Union, and never , ever, even get close? That the math and economics just don't add up? They benefit inherently as a member of the United States, and as such are required to enforce federal laws. How could a Calexit even be discussed, it is impossible. Any discussion is delusional. That is the scary part of California politics, they don't seem tethered to reality.
Progressive Liberal politics of social justice requires lots of money. Money the rich have, and the poorest don't need. I feel that the social safety net of America can provide a standard of living equal to a salaried employee at $20 to $25 p/hr net SALT, IRS, and Insurance Premiums. It isn't easy to get every benefit, and everyone may not get them equally ( just like income distribution). So anything under $20 p/hr for a family or single mother and advocating for yourself in the Social Service Bureaucracy could be an avocation.
Here in CT, a democratic state where the middle class is exiting as well, my family of four needs $70 an hour to stay afloat. $35 an hour is spent on taxes and insurance.
Perhaps we are all headed towards a Californian future. A future not tethered to reality.
4
RD is correct that there is a severe income inequality problem, but this seems to be more of a natural consequence of the concentration of financial (SF), media (LA), and technology(SV) than anything inherent in a liberal democracy. It is refreshing though to hear a conservative talk about income inequality - nice triangulation Ross.
8
California will become the liberal state of the haves and the have nots and no middle class if what is predicted does happen. You will have clusters of poor neighborhoods with immigrants and minorities set apart from the white wealthy gated communities with mansions dotting the exclusive neighborhoods. This will not be a pretty sight as resentment will fester between the two groups.
You need a middle class in order to thrive. California also has a homeless problem that only seems to grow. You will have high taxes paid by the rich to support the poor. After a while the rich will become disenchanted and angry because they will be supporting those who are getting government assistance on their dime. This will raise taxes for which they do not benefit. How long will they tolerate this. They too will eventually leave California for greener pastures. If this continues, this once beautiful state will become a wasteland before long and only inhabited by the have nots. California better be careful for what they wish for.
41
Pretty extreme.
1. Sounds like you know nothing about California, especially real estate and the engine that drives this place.
or
2. You're an angry ex-pat that is bitter, which is strange, because being from NYC now, you're in the exact same boat, gentrification and high costs stratifying the classes. The climate just isn't as nice. Kettle: Pot
25
The wealthy are not going to leave California. They live there on purpose. Sure, they're going to abandon Malibu so they can move to Waco.
22
A large middle class is a historical anomaly. The norm is for a few elites who own everything, with a subclass of retainers. Everyone else is beholden to them for the means to live.
That is the logical end point of unfettered capitalism, and it's happening under our noses. It morphs into something resembling royalism, who's creed seems to be "my ancestors owned it, I own it, and to do so forever is my family's God-given right".
Without a new paradigm, that result is a given. Only the timetable is up for grabs.
23
Missing in Douthat's piece is any mention of California's sane approach to the nightmare of climate change. Next to cutting taxes, the Republicans cut and gut regulations that if left to stand will literally poison all of us. The GOP is out of step with modern times. The faster they can be turned into a rump, the fewer people will die.
13
Ross Douthat has a problem. As a Catholic social conservative, he has a worldview that most Americans don’t agree with now, and that even more will disagree with in the future. That worldview is largely predicated on the idea of “gender complementarity.” Women and men occupy separate spheres. They shouldn’t have equal opportunity to succeed in all areas of life because a woman’s natural place is in the home, bearing and rearing children. Men, on the other hand, are born to be leaders both inside and outside the home. Most women, and many men, reject this stereotypical, ancient view. So all Ross and his fellow Republicans can do is try to block access to contraception, starve social programs and otherwise limit women’s freedom and control over their own lives. They can also pointlessly snipe at liberals for being better educated and more economically successful than the poor and middle-class people conservatives use their power to limit, undermine and oppress.
16
California's flaws are the nation's flaws: income inequality, failing schools, working poor people, skyrocketing health care costs, and social injustice plague the United States as a whole. Only when the American people discover they have these things in common and the causes can be traced to the takeover of their government by plutocrats will things change. The divide and conquer strategies of Nixon and Atwater have been refined and perfected over the years so that the nation has segregated itself into single-issue groups (guns, abortion, immigration) that reject commonalities in favor of tribal warfare. Until a party or politician can re-frame the political narrative in terms of unities, we are stuck in a trend of increasing social and economic injustice and will continue to decline toward a fascist future.
216
While I was reading this article I was thinking except for the ocean breeze he could be talking about Atlanta. We are still Republican (for now anyway) but the conditions are very similar. The super rich northern suburbs, gentrification, immigration, resentment, middle class shrinking and getting pushed further out... etc.. etc...
16
Finally, a California comment, from a Californian! Thank you....and I hope many read yours and are reassured, California endures...its not anymore a hopeless mess than the rest of the country.....and I agree with your observation about the politics being the problem NOT the solution.....right. left. Doesnt Matter....they're all using divide and conquer tactics to PREVENT anything from changing. Status Quo.
12
California has more people than Canada, one of the largest economies in the world, and unparalleled natural resources. California has all the resources it needs to achieve that utopian ideals that advocates of progressivism are promising. Yet, Utah one of the Reddest states in the country has the lowest Gini Coefficient, which measures economic inequality, while California ranks 44th. Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska are the best states for social mobility, while California lags far behind. A recent overall ranking of states that looked at many factors, including health, education, economy, fiscal stability, quality of life, ranked Iowa, Minnesota, Utah, and North Dakota as the top four states for resident outcomes, while California was ranked #32. Utah was ranked 1st for fiscal stability, while California was ranked 43rd. (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings) Perhaps, the progressive dream is not as promising as advertised. I suspect if some key industries, such as high tech and entertainment, were not located in California, the situation would be even worse, approaching third world conditions.
2
This essay is mostly inane ramblings by a conservative who finally realizes/admits the the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the modern GOP. It makes no cogent points aside from reminiscences about the writer's youth, and the current income inequality.
By the way, "countermajoritarian" is misused here, and is often spelled with a hyphen. The "counter-majoritarian" difficulty, sometimes dilemma, is a phrase attributed to Yale Law School Professor Alexander Bickel in his book, "The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics". It describes the puzzle faced by the Supreme Court, or any other unelected court, every time a decision rescinds popular legislation enacted by majority-elected legislators or the Congress. Majoritarianism and electoral accountability are are secondary to the "Rule of Law" as established by the courts, if we are to have a democratic republic with system and order. Rule by the whims of the majority, or mindlessly overturning legal precedents, is a prescription for bad laws or worse (Jim Crow laws, anyone?). If "The current Republican advantage... depends on a backlash" of voters opposed to the rule of law, it deserves to follow the Whig Party into the dustbin of history.
10
We already have one party rule in the federal government. You need not look at California for an example. Republicans control the Presidency, the Senate and The House of Representatives. And yes, it is a disaster! With no checks on their power, the Republicans are looting our national treasure for everything they can haul away to line their pockets and those of their families and cronies. There may be nothing left by the time they're done!
17
One would think that Conservatives like Ross, those champions of the "free markets," would be holding California up as a shining example of those forces at work in the real world. When the demand, say for housing, exceeds the supply, then prices rise. In California that even has applied to wages; when the demand for qualified workers exceeds the supply then cost of labor rises. CA is the world's fifth largest economy. There are a number of GOP controlled States that would not even have economies if it weren't for the taxes that California ships to Washington for re-distribution to, say Mississippi et. al.
Would Mr. Douthat would be so critical of California if it were a reliably Republican State? No, it would be hailed as a miracle of Conservative, as opposed to conservative, principles in action. For a counter-example see Kansas.
21
Does not CA has a surplus as to their budgets?
4
OH, no! The Republican-oriented conservatives and bemoaning the loss of the middle class and the death spiral of egalitarianism.
What will happen next? Might they see that repressing voting results in fewer votes for their candidates in some areas?
1
Can we just admit that people leave the narrow minded stuck in the 1950s thinking flyover states as soon as they can and most don't go back for good reasons. Who wants to be on the receiving end of that type of mistreatment? No one.
3
I would be interested to see a view of the one party Republican states and how well they are doing. What about Kansas? MIssissippi? Louisiana? If you want to make the case that California is becoming a third world country, shouldn't you point out that Alabama already is.
7
Give us a chance in flyover Michigan where the "conservatives" control the State, governor, both houses of legislature, and the State Supreme Court.
Our local GOPers are all ass&elbows at it, racing to the bottom to be as ignorant and barefoot as any Confederate home to conservatism.
Our schools are aiming to be as bad as any, and we'll underfund them till we get there. Our roads are all pothole and no pavement. Shucks, our governor poisoned a whole city full of poor people, but doesn't get any credit for it cause the residents are all black; ain't no news when they die, darn liberal media.
Ross may point to California issues, but he turns his back on the Old South, which is "conservatism" in full display: racist, misogynist, impoverished, with a nice white icing.
1
Quite a bit of inconvenient truth in this column. Thank you, Mr. Douthat.
1
“One party rule”? That seems a bit hyperbolic. Last time I checked, California still conducts democratic elections.
5
What we are seeing played out in the Red vs. Blue scenario is the latest iteration of the Hegelian/Marxist principle of thesis (Reganism/Trumpism) - antithesis (California) - and synthesis (yet to come).
Underlying this are the changes from a majority white country to a majority-minority country, the changes from globalization (which hollowed-out the middle class), and the decline of social relationships (Facebook and Twitter do not count as such).
In the 50s and 60s we saw white flight from the cities, and in the 00s and 10s we are seeing white flight from the Blue States. But in 20 years "refuge" states such as Arizona and Texas will be majority-minority as well. Are all the whites going to live in Idaho? No.
I do not think that this is something that will change in a year or even a decade. But it is coming.
38
The 'revolution' we need begins with a return to rational and civil discourse, and a turning away from the rampant mendacity and disrespect spewing from the 'right'....
Much of this is motivated by the 'victim' complex that rationalizes blame and hate.
The GOP likes to claim to be the party of personal responsibility.... yet, if there is a characteristic of 'the base' that stands out, it is its perception of itself as rightly aggrieved and righteously punitive.
Commonwealth? Common Good?.... That's for the much maligned liberals, whose main fault, it seems, is their inability to deliver utopia....
4
Douhat puts forward a plausible sounding theory — that economic resentment stemming from inequality is driving as many toward Trump as the Democrats are gaining because of Trump — finds little empirical support. Clinton won those below the median income by about the same margin as Trump won those earning between the median income and $100K. In other words, Trump’s support comes largely from the higher earning middle class. Several studies have concluded that racial and ethnic resentments, not economic worries, were the prime movers of Trump’s older, white base.
5
Interesting column. It's apparent that wealth and income inequality in our nation is killing the middle class and shrinking its opportunities. This is most apparent in major cities, in which these disparities are most stark and obvious. It also doesn't help that a good deal of real estate is bought by "investors" who use it as a way to either park or launder money while the property itself stands vacant, pushing down the availability of housing by those who actually work and live there.
We need to raise wages in this country across the board. Since Ronald Reagan, there's been so much fixation on taxes, taxes, taxes, that we've utterly ignored the other side of the equation, which is wages. Working Americans would be and feel less displaced had wages kept up with actual productivity.
6
This was heart-wrenching for me to read, because it's so true. Born in 1961, I grew up in California in the 1960s and 1970s, when the middle class could enjoy comfortable lives in beautiful places, with ample assistance from the state government for things like roads, K-12 education, and universitites. Demographics, and a tax revolt (Prop. 13 in 1978), pushed all that into the past. California K-12 schools are nowhere near as well supported as they should be, and the middle class can no longer enjoy the California dream, having been displaced by overwhelming numbers of illegal immigrants (thank you, Nancy Pelosi!).
2
My sister is a lawyer lives in California, married to a lawyer and now retired from a civil service job.
House wise they are worth over a million , but they pay $25,000 a year just for property taxes.
They’d like to move but with grandkids nearby and housing prices what they are, there really is no place to move to.
She gets a nice civil service pension – which is taxed – so when you add it to the property taxes, they feel the squeeze.
She is virulently anti-trump, anti border wall.
Didn’t like the new federal tax plan and its loss of deductions for state taxes.
For all her education she doesn’t get how California went from being one of the richest income per capita states to one of the poorest. Which I attribute to massive immigration.
When I visit out there, it is painful to commute in the horrendous traffic.
Noticed in the recent election in Arizona that the Republican Lesko, won by 5% of the vote. 5% of the Republican electorate said they voted for lesko because she supports Trumps immigration policies, to which the Dem was opposed.
I wonder if the Dem had pointed to California and said that’s the result of massive legal and illegal immigration how she would have fared.
3
Ross, you are correct in stating that today’s Democrats have no reason to triangulate GOP positions, but that won’t stop them from trying. congressional leadership has punted on DACA, and the least said about Medicare-for-all, the better (for them).
As fo the long-term Dem majorities, there’s a flaw in that plan - the Dem coalition is indeed one of upper class professionals and working class people of color. Problem is, the party increasingly governs for the benefit of the upper class, throwing crumbs at the lower class. The proof is indeed in the increasing un affordability of liberal enclaves. Showing solidarity with the left over social issues can make this discrepancy at times, but it’s not a winning formula.
1
Yes, California is the dream and probably has been since the Gold Rush. It’s an extraordinarily beautiful coastal region. We wanted to move there, but the more we looked the more we realized the place is both economically and environmentally unsustainable. And the degree of homelessness is shameful. Volunteerism isn’t going to fix it. It’s not a matter of drugs or mental illness, its a fundamental failure to provide affordable housing that has exaccerbated the latter two. Many people are working homeless. Downtown LA has an encampment of thousands. We moved to North Carolina instead. It has beautiful mountains and coast, lots of national parks, organic farming, a great university system. The state was relatively progressive until the 2010 gerrymandering brought to us thanks to the money and shinnangans of the Kochs, ALEC, the RNC and our own plutocrat Art Pope, who became appoplectic when Obama won the state in 2008, blowing up the Southern strategy. The population still is trending that way. So calling all currently displaced humane free-thinkers - move to NC! We will change the state government. The only problem, unless you work in healthcare, high tech, or higher education, you have to bring your own job with you. Lots of artists and musicians though. If you come please agree to register and vote.
10
We have a lot of homeless in California because their chances of freezing to death are vastly decreased out here, unless you're up in the higher elevations of the Sierra. I've volunteered and befriended many of these unfortunate folks, and they will all tell you that. It's the weather, stupid. Lots of our homeless come from Red states to thaw out here. Those long lines in front of soup kitchens often decrease during the summer months, when lots of homeless head back to the midwest. Like reverse swallows, they return in the Fall.
California may be unequal, but that's just because it is so attractive to the best and the brightest. The economic dynamism it has created bakes a pie so vast it will be able to afford to correct those inequities in time.
6
Lol. The pitchforks will come before it “corrects those inequities in time.”
Mind boggling that one can say that when all indicators show that inequality is growing, and CA is increasingly unaffordable for anyone who is not at least upper middle class.
I'm middle class, and I live in California--and here's what's crazy, a whole lot of other middle class people do, too. Despite Ross's suggestion, we make a lot less than $200,000 a year, and we're not migrating elsewhere. Oh, and there's this. Ross doesn't mention why California turned so reliably Democratic. It was Pete Wilson, Republican governor in the 1990s, who tried to ram through a race-baiting law discriminating against undocumented migrants. The people who are our neighbors. Our employees. Our students. Our customers. Our friends. With that measure, Wilson lost California for the Republican Party for at least a generation to come.
119
Amelia....thank you for the observation direct from California.....'cept I will disagree about Pete Wilson......I believe it was BUSH(and the Texans) that destroyed California. Many of Bush's underhanded, cynical actions served to ruin Pete Wilson's time in office. We had a lot of CA base closings, the old WW2 Defense plants were shutting down faster than in the Rust Belt....Deregulation of the Power Grid didnt help...on and on......give Pete Wilson half credit.....his problems were forced on him by the White House.....Bush.
2
There is no other State that is remotely comparable to California, or for that matter anywhere else in the World.
I am from one of the most liberal and progressive parts of the country - Massachusetts. What I know is that California is so unique culturally that Massachusetts liberalism has far more in common with say Kansas or Alabama liberalism (yes, there are liberals in Kansas and Alabama) than with California.
We, New Englanders, are far more likely to choose to stay and grind it out (lowest divorce rate in the country) and fix it - not pack our bags and move to Arizona or Washington, because things are bad where we live. This is not to say that people from Massachusetts do not move to California to take advantage of phenomenal opportunities there, but they do not leave because they feel forced out or abandoned at home, and just want to escape. It really bothers me when I hear that people are leaving California because they fell they have no alternative.
I love California, but I do not relate. Like our New England weather, being liberal (near universal healthcare here in Massachusetts as an example) is not supposed to be easy, just worth it, and the right thing to do.
To me, California liberalism has always felt a bit too libertarian, or even convenient. But, I do love that weather.
4
The two party system may be dead. Chaos will reign. Militias will strengthen. Slow motion revolution, I call it. A disaffected population with guns and heroin. A nasty mix.
May the best drug lord win!
California, here we come!
How many dead this week from the epidemic of guns or drugs?
Right, the center cannot hold. There is NO center.
Every time I see an obituary of a young person, "Died suddenly" I wonder. I worry for my grandchildren. This piece is really about the migration of the 60's California drug culture. We're all exposed/ infected now.
As the great Joan Didion (who now lives in NY) put it-- "Goodbye to all that"
Yep.
Come visit us here in Texas for the other one party rule Super-state. Long term single party control distorts the system massively, whether the leaning is left or right. This is particularly true now that (in the post-pork barrel days) politicians (at least here in Texas) no longer aim to serve their constituents--they serve the national tribe that feeds them.
16
Republicans, the party of the ultra rich and corporations-- passed a $3,000,000,000,000 tax bill, now will cut
Medicare,
SS,
Medicaid.
No infrastructure, against any organizing that isn't for monetary profit, equal protection under the law.
For: no environmental protections, no diplomacy, no ideas or ideals, just money for those that can pay for influence-- a.k.a, ultra rich, corporations.
22
It's amusing that the day after the Times publishes an article about research indicating white racism is the key component of Trumps victory, and economics had nothing to do with their voting, Douthat submits this piece suggesting it is all about working class economic uncertainty.
Maybe it is just too embarrassing to conservative writers to face the fact that racism is an essential component of their current power and the reason they will soon lose it.
Working class white male voters are in decline not just in CA but all over the nation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-anxiety.html
15
As a former Californian (Altadena, greater LA above Pasadena), this is spot on.
And while Ross alluded to it with his reference to socio-economic stats that resemble countries in Central America, I wonder if he could’ve been more blunt and just admitted that this version of America - or better yet something that looks like Brazil - is what many liberals, especially among the rarified super rich white variety - want.
We want the cheap help. The cheap workers. We want the dining options that diversity brings. We want the vanity and virtue politics of being woke and being environmentally good.
What we don’t necessarily need are low taxes, good schools, a safe commons, or a financially sound public fisc. Why? Because we’re rich. We can afford high taxes, private schools, gated neighborhoods, and a state that slowly bankrupts itself due to public pension obligations. If things get really bad, we’ll just move to Seattle, Boston, D.C. or Atlanta and start replicating our preferred environment there.
And if the vast majority of people - the non-white minority population and lower middle class together - are stuck in favelas, it doesn’t matter. What really keeps us warm is the sanctimony from being woke, liberal, and mindful of the environment.
We’re sick and shortsighted. La la land is a great fit. Without a flood of poor immigrants and population replacement, we’re going to have trouble selling the rest of our countrymen on this vision.
7
Something in me says that, if second and third generation descendants of Steinbeck’s Okies move back to Oklahoma, then that is a net good for both California and Oklahoma. My experience with California outmigrants is that they’re nowhere near as Trumpy as you portray them here.
The Californians I’m most worried about are in the interior, where hipster economics runs head on into the economic reality of agricultural America.
4
Here is a book review by James Fallows of a recent book by Manuel Pastor, State of Resistance, that paints a very different picture of California and its arc of rise, fall, and recovery. Pastor describes the initial rise, in the 1950s and 1960s, in which the private and public sectors worked together, the fall, between 1970 and 1990, in which Republicans dominated the governorship with an ideology that became increasingly hostile to both the public sector and to immigrants, and the recovery, and a return to collaborative public-private ventures and grass-roots social movements. As for the rest of America, Pastor concludes: “America now looks like California at its lowest point”.
10
Yes, it was Republican hostility to the taxes required to fund these projects that caused this. California once had great schools (once the best in the nation all the way through college). The housing issue was initially caused by a combination of success and geography so many new people moving in to San Jose which is ringed by mountains that do not permit new building. However, it isn't as if Republicans thought to push affordable housing, they are always against it, as they were against rent control in NYC. To blame liberals for Conservative actions is the height of BS. Having said that Liberals now need to get in gear and reinstitute the tried and true solutions to these problems. Housing is CA's issue. My husband and I have not been able to move there, despite his industry being based there, precisely because despite a decent income, the housing would begger us.
3
Did you factor into that higher housing all the money you WON'T be paying to heat or air condition your house? My son's heating bill in Illinois is at least $500 a month during the winter, and similar for air conditioning in the summer. Few of us along the coast even have air conditioning, much less need it. Lots of us here don't pay for expensive gym memberships, because we're outside exercising all year long. We made decisions when moving here that we'd rather trade lots of unwieldy property ownership, with smaller homes and a better life style.
See: Reagan, Ronald, whose amiable malignancy metastasized to the entire country. CA might be in recovery from his impacts, the rest of the country, not so much…
1
I can never quite figure out just what RD fears so much about liberals. "Kicking social conservatives while they're down?" LOL. Regarding wealth inequality, CA cities are known for their dynamic industries: it is odd to hear a conservative blaming liberals for that success and the attendant effects on wealth inequality, when promoting such inequality appears to be the soul of conservative economic policy. Expensive real estate? What would you do to change that? The liberal position in CA is one that emphasizes stewardship of the environment and the means of economic mobility---public institutions of research and education, public infrastructure, baseline healthcare, and so on. And these are paid largely by taxes on wealth. I would like to hear RD's specific critique on actual policy grounds that matter. I feel the cultural resentment, but what does that have to do with governance?
17
California isn't the only place that has changed since some idealized yesteryear - so has much of the rest of the country. So why not compare this liberal icon with any red state paradise of today. Kansas? Alabama? Oklahoma? I wouldn't put my child in a public school in any of them. But maybe Mr. Douthat is, in the end, less interested in socioeconomic opportunity, and more interested in the socio-political imposition of Christian dogma on the population, as his link to the National Review implies. Poor victimized American Christians no longer have complete legal hegemony everywhere - its just too much for them to bear!
15
Sorry. But when you look at successful states in the US, you start with California and New York. Blue states are far more successful than red states. Is Ross really saying Alabama or Mississippi are preferable to California? I don't think so.
16
Poor republicans, beware immigrants and the highly educated. Immigrants (cheap labor) build, tear down and build again. Our hometowns disappear, but someone makes a profit.
And the highly educated follow Peter Thiel and the libertarians into the "information age middle class."
Now Democrats have a real problem to solve: uphold the downtrodden with education and socially fair laws. After all, they build our infrastructure. And tax and regulate those libertarians to foot the bill.
As went the U.S. after Reagan, barring a heavy turnout in November, so might we enter a trickle down libertarian future run by and for profit hungry tech geniuses.
1
“government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”Means that democracy is a mistake? Government of, by, and for the people is not the goal of the Republican Party. Government by the very rich is the Republican goal.
Douthat creates a narrative in which the middle class has fled California and all that remains are the rich and the poor. If Douthat’s thesis is correct California will become a Republican stronghold. Not even close.
Democrats/Liberals should bury Republicans/Conservatives as Trump and the rabid Freedom Caucus have proven that they are not just unfit. They are dangerous and willing to destroy the middle class and the world in a rush to end democracy.
1
I think some interesting points are made, but I think it is incorrect to assign economic disparity to liberalism's failures. Real liberalism is the teachers' strikes happening in red states obsessessed with tax slash and burn civilization form of Republicanism that domunates conservative discourse since the 1980s. The latte sipping limousine liberalism is incomplete because it addresses personal permissiveness which i support, but fails to address the economic failures which the Reagan revolution began with the dismantling of unions and Clintonism accelerated. Both parties failed to ensure success for the average working American. Desperation is the true root of Trumpism and it might rise in an equally obnoxious quick fix "liberal" populist backlash. We need to get back to "united we stand, divided we fall." Sorry if you prefer Malibu, but I know plenty of central Ohioans who prefer the bucolic beauty of their rolling hills of forests and fields and stay for that reason even though they are quite capable of succeeding anywhere. But they are sick of the blighted economics.
4
Many of Mr. Douhat’s observations can be applied to New York City, Boston, Seattle, Austin or any other booming Democratic controlled city with wide race, housing and income disparities. I see this in the extreme in Dubai but all of us “foreigners”, educated or not, rich or poor, can be kicked out in a flash and replaced. How long will it be before the majority black and brown underclass revolts against their wealthy isolated privileged masters? There’s a limit how much inadequate welfare payments and insincere social justice bromides can keep the people down. Once the hope of attaining the American Dream vanishes, watch out. That is the recurring nightmare that Mideast potentates have.
1
I lived in California (specifically, the San Francisco Bay Area) for about a year, and my impression contradicts Mr. Douthat. San Francisco and Los Angeles may be liberal paradises, but rural California tends to be Republican. On a visit to Sonora, I saw a man opening carrying a gun, holstered and strapped to his hip, like a Wild West cowboy. I was shocked, but nobody else gave the guy a second look.
Mr. Douthat is correct, however, about one thing--the backlash against Trump and the GOP. The Trump campaign and his administration has revealed the Republican party for what it is--greedy CEOs who want MORE and angry, bitter, older working-class white guys complaining how "their" country was taken away from them by "foreigners." It is a morally bankrupt organization. Is it any wonder, then, that young people are flocking to the Democratic Party? If the GOP is to survive, it has to offer voters more than xenophobia, white nationalism, militant "Christianity," tax cuts for the rich, and hatred of the educated "elites."
10
Irregardless of California and their example, you can look at any State in the Union and find this same scenario, minus of course, the beauty of the Coast of California. In fact the middle of California can be just as ugly as any other place.
So is the political climate in sections of California.
Liberalism is not the culprit, nor is conservatism. It is lack of thinking about consequences when Politicians abandon their Principles.
This is also true of Washington D.C. Obviously One Party rule anywhere is not good for the Country.
What would be good for the Country as well as California is that both Parties remember that they are supposed to do what is best for their State and Country. Not what is best for their donors.
4
California shows us what the race to the bottom looks like.
It is a turning into a third world country. Its GDP is rising but that is only due to population growth. Actually prosperity is decreasing.
We do not want to become a country with a few haves and millions of have-nots.
3
Thanks for your faithful efforts at trying to smear liberalism, progressivism and the inevitable march toward modernity, Father Douthat.
Yes, California has its problems, but it treats its citizens like citizens, not peasants.
The pernicious effects of right-wing vulture-capitalism are powerful nationwide, but they are most fatal not in California, the state with the nation's largest population and economy, but rather in red, regressive, 'religious', Republican states.
Look at one statistic that tells the true story about liberalism vs. conservatism, with California near the top of the human dignity rankings.
State & Infant Mortality Rate (# of infant deaths per 1,000 live births)
Alabama 9.1 (worst)
Mississippi 8.6
Arkansas 8.1
Louisiana 8
Delaware 7.9
Georgia 7.5
Indiana 7.5
Ohio 7.4
Oklahoma 7.4
Tennessee 7.4
W. Virginia 7.3
N. Carolina 7.2
S Carolina 7
Kentucky 6.7
Maryland 6.6
Missouri 6.5
N. Dakota 6.5
Michigan 6.4
Illinois 6.3
Wisconsin 6.3
Nebraska 6.2
New Mexico 6.2
Florida 6.1
Hawaii 6.1
Idaho 6.1
Iowa 6.1
Pennsylvania 6.1
Kansas 5.9
Montana 5.9
Maine 5.8
Virginia 5.8
Nevada 5.7
Rhode Island 5.7
Texas 5.7
Alaska 5.4
Arizona 5.4
Utah 5.4
Minnesota 5.1
Wyoming 5
Colorado 4.8
Connecticut 4.8
S. Dakota 4.8
Oregon 4.6
New York 4.5
Washington 4.3
California 4.2
New Jersey 4.1
Massachusetts 3.9
New Hampshire 3.7
Vermont 0 (best)
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/infant_mortality_rates/infant_...
Ross's conservatism is a deadly American nightmare.
230
"The pernicious effects of right-wing vulture-capitalism are powerful nationwide, but they are most fatal not in California..."
I know! Apple, Facebook, Google! In fact, all of Silicon Valley! The very antithesis of unfettered corporate greed, right? Indeed, all of them, to a one, are the apotheosis of American corporate enlightenment. They're such nice companies, let's grant them a waiver from any and all criticism and save the brickbats for the companies run by the avaricious oligarchs in the other 49 states.
My 22 years I the Air Force were spent in NY, Georgia, Florida, Mass, Maryland, Vietnam, Nebraska, Illinois, Alabama and Washington.
You nailed it, Socrates. Been there, done that, 1958-1980.
3
I agree that in Cali (and plenty of other places) we've seen an erosion of the middle class.
But one must ask oneself how that happened, and the analytic answers don't bode well for the Republican ethos, or, truly, the more mainstream Democratic ethos.
After all, both of those have been complicit in the demise of union bargaining power, in the dismantling of truly progressive taxation of both wealthy individuals and corporations, and in the allowance of rich oligarchs to control campaign funding in a one-dollar one-vote manner.
Outsourcing and technological displacement have surely also contributed to the hollowing of the middle class, but still, there's nothing wrong that much more progressive taxation, a resurgence in worker's rights, stricter financial sector regulation, and a return to the Fairness Doctrine--or even more hopefully, public funding of all elections with strict limits on individual and corporate contributions (and an overturning of Citizens United)--wouldn't go a long way towards curing.
And I have the feeling that the rising generation is eventually going to insist on all these things, and not just in California.
36
Mr. Douthat's piece is representative of a particular story line that you hear often about California. But it misses much of the historical context and many important threads of the story.
It is only recently that California has had a Democratic supermajority at the state level. Do you remember Mr. Douthat that not too many years ago California was in chronic debt, could not pass a budget and was considered by many pundits as unmanageable? Frustration with that situation was also a contributing factor in the Democratic shift. We had a situation where there was something of a tyrany of the minority that was driving the state into the ground. And guess what, now that we have a Democratic governor and Democratic supermajorities in the state houses, the state now has a pretty functional state government.
It is not perfect but no state is. The problems California faces are serious and difficult to solve, especially when you consider that the population growth rate does not show signs of slowing significantly. By most measures, income inequality, homelessness and water scarcity are the three biggest and thorniest problems that the state faces. The majority of Californians (who live in the urban areas) have come to the conclusion that the policies and agenda of the Democratic party and better suited to solving these problems in was that are consistent with their values.
My husband, a surfer & 5th generation Californian agrees with the LA surfer. People have learned to get along.
29
As a Conservative, when I think of California, I can only smile--because it's easy to see where it's all headed. Liberalism's great laboratory is blowing up.
Douthat points to many of the challenges;
Confiscatory tax rates
Shameful income inequality
Environmental idealism--making development impossible
Sky-high real estate prices--due to lack of supply
Stultifying building codes
Middle class out-migration
Some of the worst schools in the nation.
Billions of debt--owed to powerful public unions
Soaring crime rates, abetted by sanctuary policies
High poverty levels
Crumbling infrastructure
In other words--liberalism is creating the opposite of what it promises-as opposed to Texas, where conservatism is delivering prosperity.
But still, liberals can't be made to recognize the problems they have created. Serious out-migration should be a sign the Golden State Experiment has gone awry--but liberals shrug it off.
So...get ready for a "Tax-payer Death Spiral"--as fewer taxpayers are left to foot the bill, the overall burden is distributed over an ever smaller base--and it eventually collapses on itself.
And that's why I smile when I think of California. Its citizens, like those in Illinois, are fleeing in ever-larger numbers--leaving behind the non-contributing free-riders, and wealthy elites. As Douthat says--they have created their own Central-American economy.
Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, the old Soviet Union--and now California. Failures all.
6
There's always Vermont, home to the opioid crisis but good maple syrup.
2
What an absurd post, culminating in equating the state of California's fate with Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and Soviet Union?
You jumped the shark.
You need to come out for a visit and really understand that all utopias have problems that are not insurmountable which includes your gilded state of Vermont.
In summary, it's an awfully rich analysis coming from someone that lives in about the most socialist state in America.
Oh, tell your Senator that Larry David wants his stolen act back.
1
@Futbolistaviva & James Griffin...
Thank you both for mentioning Vermont. And yes--we are the most socialist state in the union--and are losing population for some of the very same reasons. I am in the belly of the beast--so to speak--watching Vermont make the same mistakes--in lock-step with California.
There are however a few differences: We are not supporting millions of illegal aliens, we have only 1/60th of your population--and we have no Silicon Valley to defray the costs. We have low unemployment--but crappy jobs. Our best and brightest leave to go to college--then never come back.
It will be interesting--to see which socialist utopia craters first. My bet is on Vermont. The margins on Maple Syrup can't compare to those in Silicon Valley.
I can see a californication of the country and it looks like this: a national gun registry with required licensing and training, universal health care, LGBT equality and opportunity, stronger unions (with a growing middle class), a smaller nimbler military, restrictions and transparency for campaign contributions, consistent infrastructure investment through a gas/carbon tax, student loan reform, sensible immigration policies and reentering the Paris climate accord under President Gavin Newsom. Would that balloon the deficit? Not anymore so than the Republicans have already done under trump. It all sounds like this liberals dream and a conservative nightmare.
17
An excellent essay, making that resonate with me, a Midwest boy who moved to the West Coast (Oregon) in 1981 and returned 23 years later. I am not, however, a disgruntled West Coast Republican and I think Douthat makes way too much of ideology and political belief about people leaving the People's Republics of the West Coast. He's correct about the high cost of housing -- that was alone nearly enough to drive me out, for Oregon -- or at least Portland -- has experienced the same. It was other things -- the attitudes about living in "paradise," the snootiness of the financially successful, the growing youthfulness of the population while I grew old -- that influenced me, as well as a growing desire to be closer to my family in the Midwest that made me decide to leave. There were things to love about West Coast life, but also things to greatly dislike, but I can guarantee you that a growing Hispanic presence had nothing to do with this person's leaving.
6
The our day will come myopia of; 'California is a harbinger of a delayed-but-still-coming Democratic wave', should be addressed. The European 'Californias' (OK they don't have the weather) UK, Austria. Holland France (Le Pen) and Germany ADF, are portents of the complete opposite. What one is witnessing is a kind of populist surge to the right. California may be an omen but it heralds what is beginning to appear like a failed state.
As to what is for us round the corner, people have had enough of experts; left wing journalists; opinion makers, think tanks, with their acronyms denoting serious, deeply informed gravitas. People have realised that these 'talkers' and their confident claims that they know what is best and what is on the horizon has been consistently wrong. See Liberal journalists media projections for the US 1916 Election. So why should one believe the latest wailing cri de couer that soon it will be the Democrats turn?
These secular priests (left wing journalists) sense of moral order bear only the most superficial relation to lived experience. The growing populist movement in Europe and with Trump getting elected should be analysed not on an empirical level (good for the economy) but on a visceral level.
4
The upper-class liberals Ross nails here will probably be vulnerable to an attack from their left, as scruffy activist insurgents seek to hold them to their professed creeds of fairness and equality. An early example is Facebook scrambling to find the right solutions as it builds communities for its workers while integrating modest-income people into the mix. The difference is that rich liberals listen, while rich conservatives dig in and resist.
Yes, there is plenty of hypocrisy among rich liberals. But it is open to crisicism and change, while current-day extreme right Republicans simply double down and find reasons to reject any criticism of their values and actions.
3
Actually, Ross, economic stress of the working class may not be the transformative political issue this column suggests- Trumps victory was largely the result of working class whites wanting to sustain white privilege according to research sited in a Times article posted yesterday.
It is difficult writing about that while supporting a conservative perspective- maybe the GOP should be working to purge this aspect out of their political tool-kit... but what do they have to replace it with?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-anxiety.html
2
Leave it to Mr. Douthat to game “liberalism” for the high property prices for coastal real estate caused by the tech industry invasion and the poor educational system (according to him) caused by Prop 13 and tax giveaways to big companies.
There are problems, to be sure, but the chances that forward thinking Democrats, like Gov. Jerry Brown, will solve them are much higher than the likelihood that kooky and greedy libertarians and conspiracy theorists like Peter Thiel will.
21
Ross, you fail to mention the elephant in the room, the Republican elephant with his foot on the scale of free elections. This helps explain the fact that Republicans enjoy "more power than at any moment since the New Deal". Take away gerrymandering and voter suppression and there would be far more swing states. This would necessitate compromise in Washington since Americans vote basically 50/50 yet with their "advantages" Republicans win the greater percentage of the seats. Trump's unconventional method of "negotiating" is not what will unlock frozen politics...free elections will. If Republicans didn't have guaranteed seats in many districts they would have to make deals instead of stonewalling. You might even see the country following California's progressive ideas again like clean air/water, auto emissions, and immigration as it did after WWII. If conservative policies are so good they shouldn't need the elephant's foot on the scale.
16
California is roughly the size of Iowa-Missouri-Arkansas in dimensions. These are very diverse states. So is California. Douthat seemed to stay in the coastal area of a huge metropolitan area to make his observations. I sure when he writes about New York, it will be the areas around NYC and not areas like Buffalo.
Many states are multi-cultural and they are usually liberal, progressive and Democratic. Other states are not multi-cultural and they tend to be conservative (scared of progress and change) and tend to be Republican (these days.)
14
Old folks, like me, read the Greening of America in 1973. All wishful thinking and very unrealistic. On the other side was Karl Rove's new Republican majority. The electorate is much too fickle for such long term predictions.
5
Virtually all the problems in California stem from its high cost of living, which is predominantly due to the fact that so many people want to live there and there is only so much desirable coastal real estate to go around. Some policies like zoning laws contribute to this cost-of-living crisis, but the cost-of-living issue is mostly due not to policy but to supply and demand. Californian policies replicated in the rest of America would not create a cost-of-living crisis because most of America had plenty of room to build.
6
Supply and demand for housing is of a piece with zoning restrictions. What do you think the price of a Manhattan apartment would be if no building could be taller than 5 floors? What do you suppose would happen to the price of housing in Palo Alto if every lot were allowed a second house?
A bill in the California legislature recently proposed to override local zoning to allow denser housing near transit hubs. It went down in flames.
California is not alone. Cities east and west restrict new development, with the effect that far too many people spend more than 30% of their income on housing. The problem is totally fixable, or not, depend on whether the problem is technical or political.
6
The problem with this analysis of CA as the land of weathy professionals conflicts with Douhat's assertion that the white lower middle class have been replaced by immigrants who occupy much the same position on he socio economic scale. He also exaggerates the scale of white middle class exodus. The change in the ethnic make up he describes is in fact taking place in numerous other states particularly in the west and southwest. It's also fair to say that millennials and teenagers (witness Parkland) generally exhibit much more liberal attitudes than their seniors. How else to explain the seismic shifts in attitudes to women and the gay community over the last 20 years.
So there is definitely a trend in place and after all Clinton did garner 3 million more votes than Trump. It was the exigencies of the US electoral system that propelled Trump into the WH. The same exigencies btw that require one vote for a senator in WY but 73 in CA so the system is loaded in favor of the Republicans. Then of course there is old Art Schlesinger's 40 pendulum which still has some validity particularly given inequality patterns and some of the fundamental issues facing all Americans like healthcare.
California looks pretty plausible as a future scenario for much of the country outside the more obvious exceptions in the South.
15
California is Democratic in two important ways. The first is nationally--it produced virtually all the millions of votes that gave Clinton the national election. But that 4 million was reduced to 3 when the votes of all the other states were addded in.
California is also Democratic internally. And Democrats had lost state legislatures and governoships long before Trump showed up.
In addition, there were many people who voted for Obama twice before voting for Trump. And it's not clear if that was a rejection of Clinton, Democrats in general, or the political establishment as a whole.
For the country to become Democratic like California the state would require millions at a local level to reject whatever Republicans were offering in favor of Democrats as a whole.
It will be interesting to see if 2018 produces results that looks like that's happening. The strikes by teachers across several Republican led states may be a harbinger of more large and local changes to follow.
2
That should be, Clinton won the popular vote.
1
"California...produced virtually all the millions of votes that gave Clinton the national election."
Hillary Clinton received 65.85 million votes in the 2016 election, of which California contributed 8.75 million.
2
Erik, it gets exhausting pointing this out.
California went for Clinton over Trump by 4 million votes.
The popular, nationwide vote went for Clinton over Trump by 3 million votes.
That means 1 of California's millions was lost.
1
Debbie Lesko won in a deep red Arizona district by a mere or six percent. The idea that the Trump backlash is an isolated to affluent socially liberal Democratic enclaves flies in the face of reality. I'm glad Republicans think that, because it will further sink their prospects in November and beyond.
8
California has achieved a ''tipping point '' where Liberalism is the dominant consensus due to putting it into everyday practice. That means all levels of government are working in harmony to produce laws and taxes that work for everyone and are fair to everyone.
There are no pockets where the lowest common denominator is lowering taxes and privatizing everything so that balances are skewed all out of whack.
It is going to be a slow process to achieve it nationally ( due to marked resistance by big business wanted to keep their majority slice of the pie ), but the citizens of states are learning that the federal government is no longer able or willing to come and bailout those republican controlled states that are becoming insolvent.
The demographics make it an inevitability.
4
Excellent analysis FunkyIrishman. Dare I even mention Denmark, where taxes are not a political issue. Taxes are raised or lowered to effectively support the social contract. No one gets a free pass (welfare) such as today's rich and big business in America. Time for California to start leading the country again with progressive ideas.
3
What if the overwhelmingly Democratic California has come about because most California voters, no matter their economic situation, think Democrats, no matter how flawed, have a better handle on the multiple challenges of the 21st-century than Republicans? What if most voters look at Republican ideas about less regulation, giant tax breaks for the rich, reductions in public spending, restrictions against the right to control one's body, and anti-science and anti-public education stances, and see these as reactionary? What if, in other words, Californians believe what Ross Douthat denies: Liberalism's golden dream, with all its internal contradictions and historical failures, is the best of all possible dreams?
On a personal note, I lived in California for 7 years, and have returned for long stays multiple times since I left. I know people living all over the state--in the San Fernando Valley, in downtown LA, in Santa Barbara, Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley, Sacramento, Sonoma and Eureka. Californians have tremendously varied backgrounds, but they seem to mix comfortably a whole lot more than they do anywhere else in the country. They mix at suburban barbecues, at Google headquarters, at outdoor concerts and in the parks. Perhaps the comfortable mixing is the result of the blue skies, the strong Latinx presence, and even some vestigial memory of happy hippies. I don't know. All I know is that the culture is a good one--loving the beauty of life, and utterly forward looking.
95
Plenty of states in which Republicans have total political control that could be contrasted with California. What is the Republican vision for the nation? Kansas? Mississippi? But I don't mean to quibble or point fingers, really, I just would point out that instead of a polarized nation of one or the other it genuinely is possible for there to be a nation with two parties that work towards making it possible for all Americans of all economic levels to get ahead. I know, I know. Hard to imagine! But there's no reason why the choices are California or Mississippi or nothing.
47
Agreed! The problem is that both parties need to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of both parties to create a robust, information-age middle class. Both sides reflexively say no to the good ideas of the opposition party-- where a policy mix of both is probably best for society. I make these statements as a native Mississippian who grew up seeing the stark contrast of the haves and have nots in a Republican-dominated state.
1
Street, more both-sides-isms. No. It is not that Democrats say no to the good ideas of the opposition party - it is that the current opposition party HAS no good ideas. Tax cuts, blindly deregulate, rinse, repeat. Oh, add in cutting all aspects of the social safety net and building military weapons that no one needs.
Even now, as their budget-busting tax "reform" that's a grand giveaway to giant corporations and the already-wealthy is a bust, the only legislation they will consider is more tax cuts. Infrastructure? Nah. Any supports for the working class that 45 supposedly cares about? Nah. Doing something to address climate change? Nah. Hiring anyone in the executive branch who has any idea of the responsibilities of their position? Nah. Just cut taxes, eliminate any and all regulations (unless they make the rich richer), and build a big wall to keep out the "hordes" who will soon move anywhere but here.
If the opposition party ever comes around to admitting that there are actual, empirical facts, that education - real education - and science are important, that those beyond white males have value, then there will be a time to "recognize the strengths and weaknesses of both parties to create a robust, information-age middle class." Not holding my breath.
The beginning of the end of traditional conservatism, small government, low taxation and a light regulatory hand over business and guns can be traced to technological and social charges in the middle to late 20th century. These trends belie the Reagan/Clintonian formulations that government isn't the "solution but the problem"and that the era of "big government is over." The complexities of gigantic military/medical/technological entities will foster continued centralized watchfulness by government.
In this environment our challenge will be to encourage a spirit of independence in the creative populace to assure continued prosperity and also encourage humane sensibilities rooted in the arts because the arts are often one the hidden wellsprings of scientific and technological creativity. (Shakespeare and Goethe, to name only two, giants of England and Germany, partially formed the intellectual spirits of successful nations of the industrial revolution)
Republicans will prosper again and the country will benefit when its thinkers shed notions that the struggles of the future will revolve around class welfare paradigms regarding socially liberal professionals and small business provincials. The mindless contentiousness of Trumpism has its parallel in conservative intellectual ranks fixated on liberal hubris and ignorance. Conservative intellectuals might look more deeply into Western traditions to understand the challenges of the future.
1
Very thought-provoking, Mr. Douthat. I suggest you continue your travels and head into Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Louisiana. Share with us your observations on how well those states have flourished under years of Republican governance. Let us know what you discover pertaining to education funding, infant mortality, life expectancy and other quality-of-life measurements.
Of course the cost of living in those states will be comparatively low, but then again, you get what you pay for.
768
And let’s not leave out Kansas.
73
and Oklahoma, with its high state taxes and high unmarried pregnancy rates.
45
okpolicy.org "According to U.S. Census data and the Tax Policy Center, Oklahomans’ taxes rank 42nd in the nation per person and 47th as a share of personal income in 2013." OK has high sales tax and low property taxes.
Douthat is arguing at the margins...."For many years, more people have been leaving California for other states than have been moving here. According to data from the American Community Survey, from 2007 to 2016, about 5 million people moved to California from other states, while about 6 million left California. On net, the state lost 1 million residents to domestic migration—about 2.5 percent of its total population. These population losses are low in historical terms."
Data from the California Non-partisan Fiscal and Policy Advisor.
5
It's also important to note that many Californians want to leave the union. I've spoken with many who want to see HI, WA, OR and CA declare independence as the Pacific States of America. History shows us that all countries fall apart eventually. It could happen...
12
It could...but it won't.
Two words - "Manifest Destiny". You'll see martial law roll in long before DC lets the coastal cash-cows leave the Union.
2
That's how the Serbs felt about Kosovo. That's how the Ottoman Empire felt. It's probably how the Romans felt. And how the USSR felt about: Georgia, Uzbekistan, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Kazakstan... All Countries eventually fall apart. Californians really hate Trump and the Republicans.
1
The answer really can be both. I made much the same argument just yesterday. Economics and anthropology are not mutually exclusive. They are very much the same thing measured in different ways. I don't think ex-migration fully explains liberal dominance in California though. Indeed, I'm not sure we're appropriate in claiming California is liberally dominated. The state is quite big with an economy larger than most countries. Focusing narrowly on a specific city or even a specific industry is largely missing the point. There are still conservatives in California. They simply don't hold a majority.
We're also largely ignoring the "socio" part of socioeconomics. People don't like to be unwillingly dominated by a political ideology that runs contrary to their beliefs. That's why those "hotter, flatter" places generally contain fiercely defended blue enclaves where working professionals can hide from rural and suburban conservative oppression. The California class problem is not unique to California. The problem exists in many parts of the country. The issue is often a result of politics rather than the other way around. California isn't the only place where cities are seen as a sanctuary. Unfortunately, that means you need a relatively high income or you become part of the urban "underclass." Conservatives meanwhile stay comfortable swathed in their blanket of white religious suburban middle-class-ness. The entirety of the country is effectively denied to the rest of us.
4
I think Mr. Douthat's observations are largely correct, with the (very large) caveat that the ideological red/blue "conservative"/"liberal" divide that he assumes is one that has been imposed by right (and swallowed by half or so of the Democratic party). This divide leaves the Republicans with as many contradictions & traps as the Democrats. The Democrats may slip their Clintonian corporatist policies under the cover of group equality & identity politics, but the Republicans have been conducting the bait & switch of "traditional values" & white identity politics into economic elitism for 50 years. With increasing success, arguably.
I can imagine a future in which the Democrats simply get better at the sort of con that the Republicans have perfected, and the nation's economic divide continues to widen, and the voters get angrier and angrier, but all obediently blaming the other political party. For this to work, the political power balance of the parties will have to be plausibly maintained. But I can also imagine a future where one of the parties begins to dominate consistently, or in which the alienation of the middle class & poor simply becomes to great to sustain. And then people realize that the partisan script written for their consumption by the corporate & financial elites was itself a con.
14
Ross is trying hard to argue with success, and is failing.
Unlike Manhattan and central London, California's astronomical real estate prices are driven by people with astonishingly well-paid jobs who want to live there. I doubt that this "everyone is above average" is a model that can be exported.
One caveat that he fails to mention: we have been blessed recently with a wise governor who has reined in the worst instincts of the Democratic super-majority — without Jerry Brown things could go south quite abruptly.
57
Is destroying the working and middle classes your idea of "success"?
3
Successful economies like California's do tend to attract successful people. That means a higher concentration of wealth and, without effective redistribution, greater inequality. Still, I think California and Massachusetts are better models for the future than Arkansas and Alabama. What really is needed is more liberalism—higher taxes, more redistribution of wealth, and a much more comprehensive and efficient social safety net, which ensures everyone a basic living income and affordable housing, education, job training, healthcare, dependent care, transportation, and access to information. A free and vibrant, but sensibly regulated economy with a strong social safety net should be our goal.
I know we'll hear the howls of "socialism" from the right, but enough of the right's childish bogeymen. We need to face our problems like adults, stop shouting catch-phrase nonsense, and apply ourselves to developing real solutions.
227
Being ignored by college educated elites in the press, government and academy is an unfortunate result of the new, wealthy economy (high tech and investment oriented)--the economy of major, world-straddling opportunity. The upper class could fix that separation by telling the lower orders how they, the rich, got that way. They ought to say, for example, how they look after their children, how they deal with married life, how they themselves look for opportunities, starting in college, and how they practice all the other habits that got them there. There is a conscience involved in good luck, in other words. They ought to start looking out for the rest; they ought to take an interest in them; they ought to reach out and lend a helping hand. Where is the compassion of the upper class? Human life is life together; we are all in this together; we cannot escape responsibility for others. We are a country of fellow citizens.
5
The answer can be summed up in one word: Education. Look at the state of education in most republican states. If it isn't valued and respected, expect failure.
People need to wake up and care about their children and vote accordingly.
23
Actually, states like Kansas, Utah, and Montana have some excellent universities. Along with civil populations and room to breathe.
There another dream--maybe equally strange--that our partisan leaders can start to govern in ways that go beyond political scripture.
Your penultimate paragraph, with its caste system, is the one that has been pushed into place for much of the country over the past four decades. Almost all economic gains have gone to the upper 20%, as collective bargaining has been gutted, and we have seen socioeconomic disparity reach record levels.
To imply that this was a single party operation is, at best, disingenuous. Select forms of evangelism are bipartisan affairs. The trickle-down tax bills so loved by Republicans have helped push this "dream" at a national level.
Many Republicans are openly hostile to the ideas of a living wage, a social safety net to include adequate and affordable health care, education, and improved retirement hopes for those below the upper 20%.
The idea that we can deal with current and future instability without getting a handle on socioeconomic inequality is fraught--no matter one's party, no matter one's evangelical proclamations. National Republicans have offered precious little along these lines.
63
Housing prices tell one side of the story well. My parents stretched to buy their totally decent but not impressive home in lesser-Westwood for $72,000 in 1972. Today their home would sell for nearly 30X more.
The surfing line-up at El Porto (Manhattan Beach) tells another angle to the story. In 1972 surfers were almost all white and pretty unwelcoming to newcomers. Today whites are a minority and the vibe is surprisingly friendly.
The feeling of relative racial harmony in today's no-longer white majority SoCal is noticeable. If this is the future of America, it's a good one.
60
Whatever. You miss the point that the working and middle classes have been driven out of Cali. And actually, pretty much away from the west coast. It's very hypocritical of liberal elites to pretend otherwise.
5
@me - Can you please tell us what a "liberal elite" is? The right throws that term around all the time, but I have no idea what they mean by it.
Without supporting statistics, Me your comment is just hypocritical conservative nonsense. My state is middle- and working-class -- and yet very liberal. So are my small-town Minnesotan ex-laws. But nice stereotyping.
The link to the out migration from CA was interesting but in some ways not clear excepting to where the people emigrated to namely AZ and TX and the fact that most had only a hugh school education and their income was 'middle class'.
The most confusing graph was he one that showed a small plurality were eighteen and younger.
Excepting that if one studied retirement communities or other communities in AZ and TX you would fine the exodus was caused by the very high price of housing in CA and people cashed out their homes bought far cheaper but nice homes and had a nice nest egg to live on.
They were not driven out but simply chose to live where the cost of living was far less.
For the younger people without a college degree the booming construction trades in TX and AZ offered work not easily found in CA.
I see nothing profound or earth shaking in all of his.
6
Perhaps nothing earth shaking for those of us not waiting for a powerful sign from Mother Nature of a forthcoming destructive one in CA.
Calling on political plumbers, construction workers, chimney sweeps and bridge builders, with or without a college degree, to mend and restore the Nation's Road to the Future and remove from its troubled Soul, the mire and sloth taking us into a dry stone well.
I believe in my Country, and the privilege it takes to be an American. Our younger generation, those willing, capable and fit, have a role to contribute, based not only on a solid education but common sense and vision of America in 2020. Unite and bring to the good of our Nation whatever you can afford. The choice is yours.
1
I'm one of those east coast elite liberals, but unlike the actual majority people who voted for Trump, I have never made more than $50,000 a year. I've worked for non-profits in the arts and sciences most of my life, and my income in comparable to a lot of working class Americans; yes, some of whom voted for Trump. But please, let's be honest here about who really supports this guy--and why.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-t...
"In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy."
79
That statistic about rich people being the only Trump supporters is a lie. I live in Fl, where there are a LOT of mobile home parks and small, inexpensive homes. And that's where I saw Trump banners and flags in 2016, not in the more expensive neighborhoods. The people who did that "study" are so out of touch with low income whites that they probably didn't know how to find any to survey them.
5
Believe it or not, there is truth to what both of you post. The huge problem with the income statistic on Trump voters is that it was largely based on exit polls, and to a far lessor degree, telephone calls post election.
Guess what? People lie through their teeth about how much money they make. Look no further than Trump for validation.
Stephen Brill wrote an opus in TIME years ago about the ACA. A couple featured claimed to be making around 50K and were hoping they could get a subsidy. In fact they were earning well under 20K and qualified for Medicaid.
Go figure. Just figure that people lie about the figures they earn.
It is fair to point out that liberalism is not living up to its own stated ideals, but equally fair to ask "compared to what?" I can't bring myself to call the current conservative mode Trumpism because there aren't enough clear goals and requisite coherent ways and means defined to view it as anything other than flailing. Liberals can't deport enough conservatives to implement a grand new order, but the opposite is also true. Pandering to coal miners - they're not coming back in a modern economy - and attacking immigrants - they're not going away in a modern economy - and addressing every social ill and tax decision with a playbook from the middle of the last century runs the nation further from the center, where it must eventually return.
40
Immigrants are not going away, but illegal aliens ARE definitely going to be deported and soon. And coal miners? dude, they are like 55,000 jobs. It doesn't matter to the economy if they stay or go.
1
CC, good luck with that. The GOP and Trump donors want undocumented immigrants here. It's great for their bottom line. They'll be deported; others will take their place, unless the EMPLOYERS pay a penalty for hiring them. You're stuffing a finger up the faucet, when you should be turning off the valve.
While there is much to disagree with here. Let's take one claim California's educational performance is lousy. Compared to other states? What is the basis of your claim. We do not see teachers marching on the statehouse because they are paid not much more than the minimum wage as they are in next door Arizona and many deep red states who want to cut taxes to nothing. Are teachers among the middle class you say are fleeing to go teach in red states? Surely you can't be talking about higher education where California's University system after a tough time during the recession has again re-emerged as probably the best in the country and one of the best in the world. Some of your other points are arguably valid, but there is always that overreach.
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Teachers Pay is NOT a good indicator of student performance.....sorry if I hurt anybody's feelings.
As for California Higher Education....it has abandonned its mandate to educate the people of California in order to pursue higher profits from Foreign Students who get Federal Guaranteed Student Loans...unlike the local American kids....nearly 40% of UC and CalState students are from foreign countries, that denies a lot of locals access to higher education right there.
2
Actually it IS workers like teachers, police, firefighters, etc. who are leaving the state. Teachers in CA make $100K average salaries, but face huge classes, illegal aliens, dysfunction and violence every day. Their educational ACHIEVEMENT is rock bottom, with huge dropout rates. It is also false that teachers in AZ or anywhere else -- not even in West Virginia, for gods sake -- make minimum wage ($7.25 an hour). The AVERAGE public teacher wage in the US is $59,000 a year, for a part time job 6 hours a day and 180 days a year, with all summers off with pay.
2
This piece illustrates the consequences of studying the entire country through the lens created by the experiences of one state, even a state as important as California. Douthat, like other analysts before him, correctly stresses the failure of modern liberalism to cope with the problem of economic inequality, a thorny issue which threatens, not just the electoral future of a particular political outlook and the party which endorses it, but the very survival of America's democratic experiment. Trump may have temporarily attracted support from voters alienated by the distorted nature of recent economic growth, but the hollowness of his promises to restore the industrial middle class has already begun to undermine his coalition, as demonstrated by recent special elections.
If California's destiny suggests the nightmarish reality behind the state's "golden dream," why should disillusioned Democrats flee to a party whose recent tax cut reaffirms its identification with the economic elite? If both parties prove unable or unwilling to tackle the problem of economic inequality, surely the country would witness a concerted effort to create a new party which would address that issue.
Whether such a political re-alignment could duplicate the success of FDR in restoring a measure of economic democracy remains unclear, but certainly both traditional parties would feel the effects of the earthquake. California represents a cautionary tale for conservatives as well as liberals.
12
We need a third party that represents us. I voted for Hillary, but her party, like the GOP, betrayed working people long ago. She was only the lesser evil. And the blue state nightmare is as bad or maybe even worse in NJ as it is in California. Check out Newark and Camden.
2
Conservatives all seem to mirror their own traits on this apparently monolithic enemy, "liberalism." The problem is that it is not monolithic and never will be. Freedom of thought always results in nuanced conclusions that vary, group by group. It's much more likely that the "victory of liberalism" will result in the evolution of more, not fewer, political parties representing those various nuanced conclusions. Unless and until the GOP abandons its circular-firing-squad approach to politics, the GOP will not be among them.
20
Douthat says:
"But to imagine America remade in California’s image is to imagine the state’s social and political order, its upper class-service class-underclass hierarchy, expanded to landscapes that lack the balm of all that beauty, and lack an easy exist for the discontented as well."
Without agreeing that the California Essays are correct in thesis - or not - doesn't Douthat see that America is already becoming what he bemoans as the 'California image' ?
The socioeconomic strip-mining policies of the Koch Bros. Inc. cabal being prosecuted under GOP'ers across the country, crowned with the Trump Tower Tax Cut law which GOP'ers are now quitting Congress rather than try and defend at the polls, has created coast-to-coast bedlam. Witness: Kansas, Louisiana, and teacher rebellions in numerous states.
It's also notable that California differs from most of the egregiously gerrymandered rest of the more populous states, as California strives for fair legislative district boundaries:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-road-map-california-redistrict...
And in other states interested in fair re-districting, GOP'ers have fought tooth and nail - see: Arizona, Pennsylvania, et al.
Let the voters vote - then count their paper ballots properly in fairly drawn districts !
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You neglect to point out that CA Primaries are cynically designed to ween out all other candidates from the GENERAL election(the one that matters).....according to 2012 re-districting plan....only the top two vote getters in the primary are allowed on the General Ballot......meaning that only Democrats end up on the General Election Ballot! And that is today's lesson in clever gerrymandering.
1
@Wherever - So your complaint is, that in the free market-place of ideas, Dems would get more votes than GOP'ers ?
Doesn't that mean GOP'ers need to adapt their message to what the market-place is actually buying ?
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." - David Frum (Dubya's speech writer)
17
So, based on these observations, in California, Democrats have been complicit in and benefited from a rise in income inequality. Mr. Douthat's thesis that Democrats nationwide can win based on a repudiation of Trumpism will only become reality if they can offer something to the middle class that has exited California and is now residing in other (presumably now red) states. And so far, in spite of efforts by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, that just doesn't seem to be happening.
4
Mr. Douthat should visit Illinois with his family next. Specifically, Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel's Chicago. It's all Dem all the time there. And... the money has done run out! Too many pension promises, too many courts telling the pols that they have to honor their labor agreements. Too much poverty and importing more via "santuary city" status.
Who's paying? Who's on the hook for the Dem's tab? Not just the Democrats in the city. EVERY property tax owner, red and blue. Illinois, and Chicago, is suffering a mass exodus. One-party rule does not work because there is no check-and-balance system when one tribe has the checkbook and is writing out monetary promises that they cannot pay without the rest of us chipping in.
Those who live modestly within their means, who will survive the unnecessary wars, the foreign aid giveaways, the open borders and the shift to the master-servant relationships will be the true heroes of this country in years to come. In short: if you want freedom in America, learn to raise your own children and clean your own toilets. Be self sufficient and live within your means. Social Security will be gone, and we will only have more and more hungry wolves at our gates trying to consume our daily nourishment.
Pray too.
2
You need to get out of Indiana. Yes, it's expensive to live here, but there is a huge, thriving middle class.
1
Yep. Probably so. But that wouldn't change things for the people who remain. One of the things we are dealing with is self-stratification by folks who have college degrees or training moving into prosperous areas, further eroding tax base of areas they moved from. So schools, roads and infrastructure suffer. And if EVERYBODY moved to Boston, then you would have the same problem there too. Too many people for too few jobs.
Ross, California suffers from the same maladies as the other 49 states. California has lost a lot of manufacturing and blue collar jobs and many who lost jobs have left California. Residential construction has declined and construction workers find better opportunities elsewhere. Gentrification is a problem in New York, Atlanta and Denver too. Income inequality is a problem no matter where you live. The policies that drive inequality are primarily federal policies driven by conservatives in the Republican Party and Republican-Lites in the Democratic Party.
The more interesting comparison is California and Kansas. California suffered under a wave of ballot initiatives that restricted the ability of state and local government to fund necessary programs. Kansas has suffered under Brownback and a conservative Republican legislature to defund state and local government. Both states have taken measures to restore funding.
43
yes. recently (maybe even now) the legislature had control of only 15% of the budget due to ballot initiatives. californians have voted to raise their taxes recently due to a ballot initiative offered by jerry brown to improve education. can't beat 'em? join 'em?
7
California's 'overwhelmingly' Democratic Party bent is what happens when unadulterated-by-gerrymandering elections are held and the top two primary vote getters face in a run-off.
It's a thing the Greeks invented and called 'democracy'.
It's what we used to do until the monied people invented and imposed hedges like voter suppression, gerrymandering, limitless campaign funding and 'corporations are people'.
316
Excellent comment--thanks! Somehow Douthat managed to ignore the salient fact that California's elections are not gerrymandered.
15
What?? California is NOT gerrymandered? How is it so many people can complain about Hillary "stealing" the CA primary from Bernie....and see nothing out of the ordinary about Hillary beating Trump 65-35 in CA General election??? it defies common sense.
"Unlike in the 1990s, when Clinton Democrats had to imitate Reagan Republicans to succeed, there is nothing in the present G.O.P. worth appropriating or imitating or triangulating toward...."
I think this statement is as key as when you talk about "Trumpian ideology." Since when did the Party of Trump, the new Republican party, have an ideology other than grievance, anger, and finger pointing?
I mean, you can't say that Trumpism looks out for the little guy, when you examine the president's policies that do anything but. Under Trump, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and breathe unhealthier air. With extreme deregulation, we're poised to face the same rapacious lending policies that created the Great Recession, a set of tariffs that will hurt the heart land, and a bellicose foreign policy itching for war. And just where will our military come from?
If Ross thinks that Trumpism offers an appealing ideology, I have a bridge to sell you. So OK the migration of the middle from CA reflects disgust with immigrants, but is anti-everything a solid ideology?
If Democrats are to create shangri-la enclaves of happy liberals, turning more states blue, it will be because their ideas of a more just society and focus on healthier, safer policies appeals to the young of this country.
Which so far it does. The young will inherit the earth here-- and I'm eager to see what they do with it.
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For what it's worth, those millenials (or whatever you quantify them as) in tech land who make oodles of money are actually living the same middle class yet hand to mouth existence Ross's grandpa did, my folks did, and I did for much of my working life. In those enclaves prices for housing and much else renders their $150k/yr commonplace and unremarkable. Most of them are riding bikes, not driving Porsches. Their attitudes towards money and their notions of what trappings signify sucess may be different but besides better health care and more vacation, are they really that much better off?
What Ross misses is they too harbor that resentment about the People's Republic of Kalifornia, and as they ascend they'll necessesarily fuse elements of many camps to forge the new societal synthesis needed to wind back our social doomsday clock. As with others before them they won't make it perfect but certainly will make it more palatable to many more people. Trumpism is but a hernia in the intestinal wall of our society, and fixing it will leave scars and residual pains, and will not cure the other various ailments afflicting our body politic. Whatever developes is certain to leave us less invested in fables, fairytales and religion, which irks Douthat no end and fuels his screed once again.
10
No, Christine. The meek shall inherit the earth. And if you want to gift your inheritance to the next generation of young, bully for you!
But like with the ill-planned healthcare mandate, please stay out of MY pocketbook. Non-consentual donations, inheritances and mandates are theft if I don't agree that the fruits of my labor and hard-work are going to gift the children in the sanctuary places their survival needs so they can fund -- on my dime -- their "American" dreams.
If you can't afford it, don't consume it. If you can't feed your baby, then for heavens' sake, don't have a baby. Sign o' the Times...
3
Uh...Midway... were you aware that in real life people often suffer financial setbacks AFTER they already have the children? What are they supposed to do -- auction them off to the highest bidder? Dump the kid with cystic fibrosis or autism into the street because it's an impossibledrain on the family's resources? No successful society in history has ever adopted libertarian principes -- because they don't work in real life. "Let them eat cake," was not exactly a successful recipe for the French aristocracy.
Woody Guthrie once wrote and sang a song about people from back East escaping the poverty of The Great Depression by heading West to the "golden land" of California.
The problems those emigrants faced---the lack of well-paying jobs and the exploitation of their labor by the wealthy---were exacerbated by the fact that these migrants lacked the financial resources to thrive.
So it is today in a nation with economic inequality not seen since the 1920's.
And somehow, someway, it's all the liberals' fault, and not the result of conservative economics, the demise of unions, and the embrace of a libertarian ethos.
The whites without a college education who support Trump and the GOP have made a suicide pact with people who could care less about their plight and are simply taking advantage of their fears.
Without California's taxes and economic output, our GDP would be less, and many red states that Ross pretends to admire would be in even worse shape than they are now, with teachers striking to earn a decent wage, rampant poverty and opiate abuse.
247
The thing is, you say neither Trump nor the GOP care about working class whites. While that may be true, the FACT is that neither do the Democrats/liberals (except arguably Bernie and one or two non glamorous Dems). And the Republicans don't go out of their way to openly insult and mock working class whites the way the Democrats do, which makes a big difference. We all have both enemies and friends as we go through life, but when someone who once pretended to be a friend stabs you in the back, it hurts more than when an enemy does the same thing.
53
@ me...... " it hurts more than when an enemy does the same thing.".
no it doesn't you just think it does. while i agree that democrats like HRC and Obama do not understand what it's like to a wage earner in this society? only one party wants to take away the little break in healthcare you have been given. only one party keeps lowering taxes on the wealthy at your expense. only one party was anxious to send your kids to war without a plan. only one party denies science. this should be enough difference for anyone.
Do you remember "Sweet Home Chicago" by Robert Johnson of 1936?
"Oh Baby,
don´t you want to go
Back to the land of California
To my sweet Home Chicago"
This is blatant geographic nonsense and Chicago apparently never had been "Sweet home". Everybody knew.
These are the entire lyrics:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/sweet-home-chicago-lyrics-robert-johnson.html
These interpretations here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Home_Chicago
don´t get the simple meaning of the text.
In all longer chorusses following the singer is always running away from a bad situation to a place far away imagined as some kind of Promised Land. In the next chorus after "I´m going to" the Singer falls in a similar mess again. Running did not help him.
This says: Forget the fairy tales about paradises far away. When you will get to the "Sweet home" in your dream lands far away you have to find out soon that even whenit´s called "California" it´s as sweet as Chicago is. Doesn´t matter how glittering the picture is you are going to find the same mess - Great Depression conditions - everywhere you go as had been a collective experience in these times. Nothing but some "Grass is greener" kind of (self) deception.
Mr. Guthrie shared the same experience personnally as you know. Mr. Guthrie who appeared on a radio station where he got in touch with these songs said the same in 1940 in his well educated plain language what Mr. Johnson couldn´t say as clear for his audience on a record in 1936.
5
Everybody’s afraid of something. But as a group, conservatives appear to be living in continual terror of everything. They’re afraid of foreigners, education, science, economic fairness, health care, women, running out of bullets, world peace, the poor, anyone who is darker than popcorn and the invisible sky people whom they must please so they can live in a celestial Disneyland after they die.
I’m no fan of wacko liberal trigger-warning bunny-huggers or college kids who riot against conservative speakers, but there has to be some place where people can escape the relentless fear, anger and ignorance that conservatives have been selling us for ages.
For every action there is a reaction, and California’s blue skies are there to balance all of the dismal red-state indexes of misery for which they’re so well known. Poor schools, poor health, poor incomes and poor prospects are what drive other states to make poor decisions about who is looking out for them. They vote for the very people who rob them of their dignity, as well as any chance of escaping their fate.
The conservative intellectual is constantly justifying his fear, rattling off names of conservative firebrands that I’m proud not to have ever heard of and believing that right-wing philosophizing can free us liberals from our misguided faith in fairness, immigrants, living wages and education.
If the current political landscape is what conservatism offers, California, here I come.
548
Amen, Gemli. Let's get the Republican elephant's gerrymandering-voter-suppressing-foot off the scale of free elections and make our country sane again. We ain't in Kansas anymore.
52
If the current political landscape is what conservatism offers, California, here I come.
--------------
Bring your sleeping bag and a cheap tent to claim your spot under the freeway underpass, friend. The wealthy from all the countries now buying their way in to what Americans built here will likely have you priced out of the California housing market.
ONe day too, the federal government checks will quit coming. Boy will you folks in shangri-la be up the creek without a paddle then...
10
Bravo!
11
"the G.O.P. currently enjoys more power than at any moment since the New Deal"
... and is less popular than at any moment since the Civil War.
Why do I say that?
The Democratic candidate for President has won more votes than the Republican candidate for six of the last seven elections. (In two of those elections, the prize when to the popular election loser.) This string of 6 out of 7 hasn't happened since the Civil War.
The fact that the GOP is so unpopular yet so powerful is a result of gerrymandering and other distortions of democracy.
454
I'm a Democrat, but I should mention that I think you mean the GOP currently is less popular (about as popular?) as the Democratic Party was at the end of the Civil War. As you know, it was the Democratic Party that was the party of slavery and the Confederacy. They've done a 180 since then on public policy. That's why I'm a Democrat.
17
Ah, the Constitution and its, "distortions of democracy."
You want tyranny? Let's just use the popular vote. The voice of the minority will be non-existent.
I would encourage you to read about the difference between a direct democracy, a representative democracy, and a republic to see how your statement- without clarification, doesn't make sense. We are not governed by a simple majority vote of the people.
But I suspect you know this.
6
And please don't forget the KOCH-SCAIFE-OLIN-BRADLEY KABAL.
14
A couple of things to consider about the Californian cancer metastasizing to the rest of the country.
First, the "New California" movement undermines your politically homogeneous view of the Golden State.
Second, our national political divisions remained confined to geographic areas. East and West are the liberal Democrat bookends. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Third, American voters are like two occupants of a car fighting over the steering wheel, careening it from ditch to ditch. They have always been and will always be reactionary. So while the Democrats may have their "time in the sun" it will only last for a political season: about 8 years or so.
This leads to the final point that you make at the end. Voters are reactionary because politicians never accomplish what they promise. And the Democratic party professes higher Utopian ideals than their generally more realistic opponents. The "what have you done lately voter" will turn the tide in due time.
I just hope, with my driving metaphor, that we maintain enough forward momentum that the fenders only sideswipe the ditches.
4
Sorry, but Republicans and GWB put us completely in the ditch and then stood on the road and jeered as Obama and the Democrats alone pushed us out of the the ditch. Then Republicans took over by complaining that Democrats didn't do enough and now are bragging about how much they have done. Of course, they've done nothing but head us into the ditch again.
8
huh..... the ditch on the right seems to be getting deeper and harder to get out of....
6
Touche. Valid points, especially the one stating you can't price or annoy conservatives out of the U.S. the way they have out of California. The other issue that liberals from liberal enclaves seem to forget is how to negotiate with people who disagree with them. Conservatism is barely tolerated in California, and certainly not as a political force.
I'm from the Midwest, so conservatives often have similar problems with intolerance of liberal views, but in less extreme ways. Call it the Midwest-nice phenomenon, or just call it good manners, but liberals and conservatives have to live with each other. And it still bothers me that so many liberals feel that conservatives have nothing to offer. That they can so easily dismiss so many people makes me afraid for the future of reasonable politics.
13
Today's conservatives "have nothing to offer." Remember George H. W. Bush's signing of the ADA? (Americans with Disabilities Act) But of course, George H. W. Bush is not representative of today's conservatives. Steve King of Iowa is representative of today's conservatism.
34
I am a liberal living in one of the most conservative counties in Georgia. The hate of liberals being the enemy of America is a common thread in all discussions. The talking points they will use comes directly from FOX, Brietbart or Rush. I read these sources so I can be ready for what points they will use in the discussions. I have found it very difficult to have a normal discussion by bring in any other source because the response is always the same it's fake news. This is the reason why it is easy to dismiss what they say because it's propaganda. By the way you didn't happen to see the way Republicans treat Obama when he was in office.
18
"...it still bothers me that so many liberals feel that conservatives have nothing to offer."
Can you blame them? I'm not saying this because there are no good ideas in conservatism. The problem is that mainstream conservatism is dominated by strident voices such as Fox News'. And since Trump's election, Breitbart and Infowars are also getting mainstreamed. Its hard to take any of these seriously when they peddle in fact-free, science-denying conspiracy theories.
Goodness knows we need a sane conservative voice for a healthy democracy. Unfortunately, neither the GOP in its current form, nor the mainstream conservative media offer that.
16
Two interesting parts to the puzzle nationally. First, is the 435 member limit of the house of representatives which is creating a greater and greater imbalance between the states. The old one representative for 30,000 has long gone by the wayside. Second, there is more to California than the coasts where everyone wants to live and where the cost of living is extreme.
8
Thank you, Tom! I've been saying this for years. The arbitrary 432-member limit on the House is NOT in the Constitution. It's an archaic rule imposed by the House in 1919!
Its effect on today's population is to give rural votes many times more weight than rural ones, which spills into the EC. It's why the EC and popular vote results are getting farther apart, after matching 100% from 1880 to 1999. The Senate was intended to represent land; the House to represent the people. All of them. EQUALLY.
LIFT THE HOUSE LIMIT! NO TAXATION WITHOUT EQUAL REPRESENTATION!!
1
It was conservatives, starting with Ronald Reagan, who started the war against the middle class. It began with war against unions, and the continuous tax cuts for the wealthy that removed funding for schools, infrastructure, housing, health and welfare. But this is a liberal problem?
528
The war against unions started with Jimmy Carter not Reagan. For example it was the massive deregulation of interstate trucking, the airlines, etc. all under Carter that crushed the unions.
1
It's called "neoliberalism," unfettered, unregulated capitalism and universal privatization promoted by Reagan, Thatcher, and Friedman. The jury's in: neoliberalism is as big a sham and ruse as communism. Reagan, Thatcher, and Friedman were as wrong as Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.
34
I read Douthat's warning of a Democratic long game and think of our Iran policy. Both are banking on time to give moderation a chance, and let the entrenched immoderates time to decline. Both countries have conservative, often rural, religious, immoderate leadership and a burgeoning population of younger urban people who don't share the same outlook.
I am more optimistic that Iran will see the immoderates die off than I am that the US will. Iran has suffered 4 decades of the economic and personal suppression from their religious right. Here, we are only in the infancy, and young people are some of conservatism's and populism's biggest supporters. Moreover, our set up - states having more representation than popular vote - means that we are more "one acre, one vote" than many other countries. A lot of our acreage is chasing Trump right now.
So sure the urban areas will grow to resemble California. But they can be shouted down by the vast real estate of Wyoming or Texas. Our journey towards religious political mayhem and reactionary populism is just beginning.
11
Ironic that the founders instituted our arcane electoral system to forestall demagoguery of the 'mob' when it turns out that it's the rural minority who consistently prefer demagogues.
16
I have been traveling to California as part of my career for decades. This is spot on. In fact, it is a cautionary tale. The real challenge for liberals is to provide the educational underpinning that prevents the dichotomy that exists in California. Just voting "blue" won't be enough. It will take the heavy lifting of the next "blue wave" leadership to scrap the concentration of effort on the next election. They will need to get busy and give the next generation the tools to succeed. Calling them "deplorables" was not a spelling bee question.
4
Mark,
I think that it's worthwhile, even mandatory, that you take the long-term complex, and often pernicious effects of Proposition 13 on many aspects of life in CA before drawing conclusions. This is particularly important in the areas of education and new home ownership, both of which correlate with the development sustaining of a middle class. Then look at who the champions of Prop 13 were. Mr. Douthat's analysis lacks important historical and political context.
40
Yes, I am old enough to know Jarvis and would agree that Prop 13 was a very bad deal in the long run for the middle class. My earlier references to education was meant to mean nationwide. In fact, I think that the way most places fund public education ( local prop tax) only serves elites on both sides of the aisle well.
It doesn't help that so many people seem content to get most of their news from whatever memes populate their Facebook feed no matter what their political leanings. For example, when Clinton was referring to Trump's basket of deplorables she was referring to the people he surrounded himself with and given the revolving door of corruption that has become his cabinet she was spot on. That little piece of context is still being ignored.
The fact is I'm not really sure what a conservative is are you? Is it someone that crafts a tax bill in secret that will leave this country trillions of dollars in debt? Is it someone who supports a child predator because putting this country trillions in debt was more important than ANYTHING? Is taking tax payer funded golf outings every weekend because you personally profit from it a new conservative thing now?
Ross should be aware as well that most normal people are looking at what passes for the republican party's weird brand of "conservatism" with a mixture of disgusted bewilderment.
20
A warning bell for progressive utopians. Ross is on the money here. No one who’s spent any time in California can honestly deny it.
A modern society simply must focus on creating a viable, sustainable, dominant middle class to avoid the momentary stability of a police state or the desultory instability of endless insurrection.
Ross may be ironic when as a conservative he calls out inequality for the social disease that it is. He is also right, and California and progressives in general must take heed.
15