Dysfunctional State Dominates National Election

California has 55 electoral votes. That accounts for 20.3 percent of the total 270 electoral votes required to elect a President. Take California out of the mix and core American traditional values like freedom, equality of opportunity, free markets and limited government would win the day in most national elections.

Let’s examine the nature of a one party state that carries so much weight. It is no exaggeration to suggest that California has instituted a failed economic and social model dominated by “progressive” policies. Think of it as an AOC state. How do we know it has failed? Well, let’s take a look at just a few of the results of what progressive governance has produced.

California has 12% of the nation’s population but 34% of the nation’s welfare recipients.  That’s almost three times the percentage of dependent people than successful states have. California’s poverty rate when adjusted for cost of living has the infamous distinction of sitting at rock bottom nationally. California’s public schools rank 47^th out of the 50 states. In its pre-progressive days when I was in school, California schools ranked among the top two or three on national assessment tests. 

California’s cost of utilities, tax burden and housing prices are among the highest in the nation. Gasoline costs $1.00 to $1.50 more per gallon than in most states. Thus, California is among the least affordable states to live in and raise a family. It is the most highly regulated state. The state’s infrastructure is crumbling. Air and water quality do not reflect spending. ‘Business and family formation unfriendly’ should be its motto.

California per capita spending (taxpayer dollars) is more than twice that of most red states (low tax, low regulation states) while producing inferior public services. The top 1% earners pay 37.3 percent of California income tax. This is progressivism gone wild. If only a small portion of the top earners leave, the state will suffer extreme economic distress. Fully loaded moving vans heading east tell that story.

Thefts valued less than $1,000 are treated as misdemeanors and rarely prosecuted. The message to criminals is clear. 

California’s population growth would be negative if it were not for immigration, much of it illegal. State and local law enforcement holding illegal alien criminals do not cooperate with federal law enforcement. People don’t flock to places where criminal activity is not taken seriously. San Francisco and Los Angeles are reducing spending on law enforcement. Maybe they should put up signs saying, ‘ fewer cops and more criminals in your neighborhood, come on down’. 

Twenty-two percent of the nation’s homeless live on the streets of California cities. The numbers are increasing every day. Living, defecating and urinating on the streets has gone unpunished for at least a few decades. Like a metastasized cancer, it can’t be easily cured. It’s another indication of the acceptance of lawlessness and disrespect for those who play by the rules. 

I’d suggest people walk the streets of Los Angeles or San Francisco. Larger and larger sections of these once great cities look more like the slums in Calcutta and Manila. Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters, among other fixtures in California leadership whose cities are blotched with the inevitable human carnage their policies produce, are elected and re-elected by margins between 70-80%. Legal? Of course. Destructive? Obviously.

California is producing less electricity then it did ten years ago while mandating the elimination of the combustion engine by 2035. They have no replacement source for the electricity to power the added automobile charging load that would result. Leadership increases the need for reliable electricity while banning reliable and afforable methods that generate electricity. This can only make sense in the world of progressive fantasy.

Nuclear power is cheap, safe and reliable. It is rejected in California. Nuclear power plants are being decommissioned. Twenty-five percent of California’s power is imported from other states. The Monterey Basin, rich in fossil fuels potential and generation of thousands of high paying jobs, goes untouched. Brownouts and blackouts are a factor of life. One might try to charge his $90,000 Tesla during a brown out. Good luck.

Lack of forest management in the name of warped environmentalism, has contributed to devastating wildfires. There are water shortages in California while bordering desert states do not suffer from water shortages.

California state schools at all levels have replaced free speech with woke speech in order for the state to inculcate the progressive message. Security is required on the rare occasions when less than woke speakers are invited on campuses. Authorities in charge of failed public schools encourage kids to skip class to go to “demonstrations”. Teachers unions refuse to teach until the police are defunded. Divisive ahistorical inaccurate ethnic studies classes that rewrite history and encourage balkanization are core curriculum. 

The Governor has told people how to conduct their family Thanksgiving and chew food. Meanwhile tens of thousands of businesses are failing or have gone out of business 100% due to arbitrary and capricious Covid-19 hysteria dictates.

If California were a business its entire leadership staff would have been fired for incompetence long ago. I understand the people who continually vote for failed leadership have every right to do so. But I also think that a sober assessment of the results of the progressive model and its impact on the state can come to only one conclusion. The progressive model will lead to less freedom and prosperity, more crime and unfortunately in the case of California a tragic impact on national elections. 

There is a ray of hope at this depressing moment. Despite the maleficence of the media, academia at all levels and the leftist captains in control of Silicon Valley, the President has the support of 71 million Americans. A nation evenly divided when the playing field is so seriously tilted to the left is a miracle.