“I thought the king’s policy was to make the world England” – Major Duncan Heyward complained to his superior in the 1992 movie “The Last of the Mohicans”. Upon arriving in the new world Heyward was horrified to discover that General Webb, was negotiating (rather
than pressing) the terms of militia service (in the king’s army) with the arrogant and provincial colonial inhabitants.
Fictional character Heyward merely echoed the British mindset of the time (1757, French and Indian war) that England was the model for every locale and culture and didn’t take kindly to the notion his commanding officer deviated so dramatically from accepted thought. It was shocking to the prim and proper Heyward. He was a purist and a loyalist at the same time.
A similar conceit appears to have taken hold in California, with liberal Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom’s oft-professed belief that he’d like to “Make America California”, as though every state should desire to send someone like Kamala Harris to Congress (and then have a short-sighted idiot tap her for his running mate).
For more than a half century, California basked in the glory of a reputation as a paradise with low taxes (Proposition 13 is still in effect) and a friendly business environment that motivated legions of adventurers and profit seekers to pick up and move west to the land of movie stars and opportunity. The frame looks different now, however, as the Golden State has turned into the poster child for what unrestrained liberalism will do to your once desirable communities.
In a piece titled, “West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Even Lefties Say Gavin Newsom's 'Make America California' Not a 'Winning Message'”, Victoria Taft wrote at PJ Media recently:
“Knowing he needed to do something to appear busy, Newsom pushed the legislature ‘for a set of bills accelerating infrastructure development.’ And when push came to shove, ‘Newsom … jettisoned a controversial water project acceleration while adopting a modified version of Newsom’s push to relax [environmental] reviews.’ Politico entitled the piece, ‘Newsom’s 11th-hour infrastructure push.’
“Of course, even Democrats are laughing up their sleeve about Governor Hair Gel’s attempt to look busy and pretend things are great as he sheds the population of people who can still afford to leave and lost $60 BILLION in COVID-19 unemployment aid to COVID fraudsters in prisons and from overseas.
“If Newsom aspires to something bigger than managing the decline of California, well, Rep. Ro Khanna, whose district includes Silicon Valley, says, ‘I think the message that says ‘Make America California’ is not a winning message,’ he told Vanity Fair. Newsom continues to go on blithely about how he has made California into the ‘True Freedom State’ as a tweak at Ron DeSantis’s Florida. It’s such a phony, fraudulent message that even Newsom’s in-laws got the hell out of California and moved to … Florida.”
Yes, the exodus from my home state is truly astonishing, and has been accelerating in recent years thanks in large part to Newsom and his fellow Democrats who have completely taken over the governance of every major city as well as the state legislature and governor’s mansion. I’ve been “out” for over 28 years now, but it’s hard to remember a time when Republicans were actually politically competitive in the state.
It was only for a part of one night, but I recently returned to Cali before catching a plane to the Hawaiian Islands, another state that is obviously suffering under the strain of government COVID dictatorship and restrictions so penal – to business owners – that it made Venezuela look like a bastion of freedom. Okay, maybe not that bad, but for a place like the Aloha State, which is almost totally reliant on tourism, to lock itself down so extensively (with quarantines, etc.), what else but ruin could possibly ensue?
But here we’re talking about California. In the part of an evening that I did spend there, I noticed that the sheer amount of “change” from the old days is unquestionable. Sure, the area is nearly three decades older, but even in the mid-nineties the signs of cultural and societal decay were pretty cleverly disguised. There are now tents and signs of homeless presence on avenues that used to be clear, certainly lending the impression that it’s not safe to do the ol’ three mile walk from our house to the video game arcade any longer.
And even on a warm summer evening, I noted that there were very few people outside. Are they terrified of being accosted?
I could be jaded, but it doesn’t appear that the home owners are putting the money into maintaining their houses and yards like they used to, either. And I can only imagine what’s happened to property values in the heart of Joe Biden’s America where you’d need a pretty darn large salary to afford today’s interest rates and purchase residence in a relatively safe neighborhood. The gap between rich and poor is about as wide in Cali as it could get anywhere, and Newsom’s tax policies aren’t about to engender a reverse migration into the state.
What business owner longs to invest top dollar on the necessities of creating employment when he or she knows, based on a simple perusal of the surroundings, that there will be a tent city with all levels of drug addled societal filth stumbling and mumbling – and raiding – the productive people for spare change within a short time?
Yet Newsom seems proud of the fact that his fiefdom has become an epicenter for “abortion tourism” and now, not-so-shockingly, “transgender surgery tourism,” where underage youth with gender dysphoria can visit to have their genders transformed by a willing medical professional! One can only suppose that there are still millions of folks stuck living in the state through circumstance who can’t fathom what’s going on there. But with California’s political demographics the way they are, what hope is there for a sanity revival?
The wealthy residents who pay for and then vote for liberal Democrat politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff – and Newsom – couldn’t care less about the average schlep in deteriorating communities with police terrified to enforce the law because there are millions of phone video cameras just waiting to capture any move that could be interpreted as abuse? Those same electronic recording devices pick up citizens being victimized and the perpetrators getting off because the Soros-backed prosecutors won’t make them pay.
Despite the plentiful evidence of American culture gone bad, California’s “sunny paradise” image is still being obscured by the media. TV coverage from last month’s U.S. Open golf tournament was highly misleading, for example, lending credence to those who claim, like Taft, that the “real” California is being draped in palm trees, large estates (along the ultra-exclusive Los Angeles Country Club) and tales of passing by the Playboy Mansion.
What the high-dollar production failed to divulge was the fact that a few miles from the club, in downtown L.A., the living conditions for the street people were akin to those in the most noxious slums in the third world. I worked a couple summers in downtown (in the 90’s) and never felt unsafe – at least during the day. I can’t imagine what it’s like now.
The totality of the conditions – fantasy versus reality – would be extremely arduous to camouflage if Newsom does end up running for president. I know, I know, the Democrats are desperate, with nary a notable name to supplant senile Joe Biden at the top of the party ticket. It’s the primary reason why Democrats are so willing to overlook dumbo Joe’s daily mental stumbles and apparent stupidity in addition to the growing body of evidence that the Biden family is an international shakedown operation – not to mention cocaine found in the White House.
Simply stated, Biden’s the best they got.
Thankfully, there are plenty of California expatriates, like myself, to offer first-hand testimony as to what would happen if someone like Gavin Newsom ever won the White House and attempted to “Make America California”. It’s almost like the complete opposite of Trump’s “Make America Great Again”, an urban decay complete with exposed drug needles, piles of feces, crime, high taxes and governmental tyranny.
For those who think “it’s really not that bad”, California may still be livable today in most areas outside of the cities. But trends are trends and time is time – for how long? Is it any surprise that Americans are moving by the wagonload to Florida and fleeing like deserters on a battlefield from the Golden State?
Gavin Newsom may be the epitome of a slick, smooth-talking modern Democrat politician generating comparisons to Bill Clinton, but how would the hair gelled one be able to explain away his state’s deteriorating economic position and simultaneously sidestep the images of society-gone-bad in Los Angeles and San Francisco? Remember when Paul Pelosi was attacked by a homeless miscreant in his own home last year? Is anywhere safe there?
California governor Gavin Newsom’s “Make America California” philosophy may play with the climate change adoring, COVID population suppression advocating super rich among the Democrat elites, but it’s hard to see where the blatantly phony snow-job would convince “normal” Americans that they want their states and cities to become like California’s.
Newsom can travel only as far and as fast as his reputation will allow him to – and that’s about a clogged California freeway’s chance of ever catching on.
Joe Biden economy
inflation
Biden cognitive decline
gas prices,
Nancy Pelosi
Biden senile
January 6 Committee
Liz Cheney
Build Back Better
Joe Manchin
RINOs
Marjorie Taylor Green
Kevin McCarthy
Mitch McConnell
2022 elections
Donald Trump
2024 presidential election