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Sadly, California voters would have turned left with or without Trump
40 percent of the state is on Medicaid
There is no rule of law in CA, only left wing judges and lawyers
Yeah... sadly I agree with this. The masses on both sides of red and blue seem so dumb to me. I get why they react the ways they do but it really gets old how easily they are played up into a frenzy over stuff that has limited impact on their lives and how little focus is on things they could improve. Blinded by politics, manipulated by media and social influences.
Blinded by politics, manipulated by media and social influences
Exactly how the TPTB want it
Yep.
I'm beating a dead horse but it really annoys me. TPTB also love for people to look over at their neighbors and focus on the issues in their schools, government, and institutions. This is what Christians do as well. Instead of looking at failure and success and trying to learn, then see what we can do in our own areas of influence and control we just stoke our egos about how much better we are.
This is why movements and institutions just keep drifting leftward. We have hit a point where people have been awaken from their slumber but they have a comical level of over-confidence that things are shifting in a more than temporary way.
Why don't movements and institutions ever move right?
This is a very good question. I don't have an answer. I dont know that I would say never because there probably have been times in some of them.
I don't think we are seeing this now regardless of what people say about DEI and climate stuff. It's still there in them they are just cloaked now due to the new admin. At best it's a paused.
One reason in modern times at least is that the modern right wing movements seem to lack actual principles. They have a lot of positions but most are reactions to the left.
There are exceptions but it's not the norm.
The left has no principles. They are results driven. The ends justify the means.
Conservatives are all about principles. We can’t lower ourselves. We have to be better than the left. We should not abuse power because the left will abuse power.
With conservatives the means justify the end
A different way to say it is that conservatives aren't united by any particular principle. So conservatism isn't based on a specific set of principles.
It's not that individual conservatives are unprincipled people, although many are.
Yes, that's what I am trying to express.
For example the left is always opposed to completely free markets. They do not shy from this. They are opposed to inequality. Of kind and outcome.
Any right winger who opposes all regulations is usually called extreme by those in his camp. Those that say taxation is theft are extreme.
The common conservative stance is to only be more moderate than the liberal left wing Democrats. Lower taxes. Not oppose them. Reduce regulations not eliminating them.
You can say they have principles but they are based in opposition to a more extreme left wing stance. They are reactions. They aren't based principles on their own.
You have to get into the libertarian side to find actual based principles. One can think both extremes are wrong but I think it's hard to say they aren't principles.
Another way of putting it is that Democrats and Republicans are more alike than different to me. The difference is mostly in degree. There are exceptions but history seems to show that the Republican and right is drifting leftward in both their view of law and morals. They are just slower to progress left than progressives.
I'm not sure it's that either the left or the right lack principles. I think it's that modern social media makes it so that any principled movement is too easily hijacked by click baiters and rage farmers.
Politics is downstream of technology, too.
I've heard this case before and I think it's basically correct. Conservatism is kind of an umbrella for everything that's pushing back against change. Principles usually require one to push for specific changes.
At best it's a paused.
This seems very black-pilled, especially for you. Isn't the best case that you're wrong and these course corrections are real?
I actually agree that it’s a pause and not permanent
Maybe so. The black-pilled part is thinking that's the best case possibility.
They are right at the moment, but we need to see if that's more than a temporary course correction.
What institutions do conservatives dominate?
Podcasting? Independent journalism?
I didn't mean that they are dominating any, but there's a lot of movement away from the woke insanity and abandoning of climate alarmism.
Isn't widespread dumping of DEI departments a rightward movement?
Yes but I wouldn’t call it a movement
Colleges are still admitting on the basis of race despite the Supreme Court decision in 2023
My dream scenario for California is that once it's been pushed to the brink it finally goes through with splitting into several smaller states.
Local economic interests should be better able to apply enough pressure on a smaller local government to keep things somewhat functional.
My dream scenario is voter ID in CA
I don't trust elections in CA especially the cities
Is that more realistic than the entire state dissolving?
probably not which is why I said dream
Do you think this election will be conducted just as poorly as normal or will there be any changes?
Governor race might be less corrupt because it’s an open seat.
Los Angeles will be fraudulent because Bass is running for a second term and it will be close race. Pathetic because she should not survive a primary.
I have a dream that one day we will deport people based on the color of their skin
If your dream happens in LA, I don't think you'll like which color they choose.
That is like the nightmare scenario to me because I'll surely be caught up in the Peoples Republic of California
I mean... I think people exaggerate how bad California is politically. In reality its more like a left led European nation. Not China or North Korea. When I visit states like Texas all I hear is "how can you live in California?". Its funny to me because I do comparisons between states taxes/fees and laws. And states like Texas, Idaho, and Oklahoma are less than the freedom loving havens right wingers like to believe.
Covid over-reach did wake some people up and reversed the drift in red states but honestly I don't think enough woke up. It simply delayed the drift left in all states. I hope the people in other states wake up fully but I don't really see it. I for sure don't see it in California. Things have to get a lot worse sadly.
Texas is the biggest freedom LARP'er.
The unsung heroes are TN, IN, and the Dakotas.
Do you see the State of California as a positive check on what the City of Los Angeles would do on it's own?
No, both are governed by corrupt politicians and controlled by government employee unions
Right, so removing a layer shouldn't make things worse
More like the conservative areas of the state putting a check on what the state does.
The state would be gone, though. My guess is that one of the states would just be the LA metropolitan area and you're already subject to all the nonsense they want to do.
I can't remember off the top of my head, but there were definitely some crazy state level ballot initiatives that failed (thankfully) that probably would have passed if it was just SF and LA voting
You are correct. SF and LA almost always lead the way left and into madness. The rest of the state doesn't have the population to really hold them in check both at the ballot or in Sacramento. This is the basic thing that I have tried for twenty years to express to conservatives I know here.
When there were efforts that had more press to break up the state I never found a person on the right I know that was for it. This was pre-Covid. I still don't think there is enough clear headed thinking to see it.
Trumps election really gave the right wing over-confidence and they are gonna lose hard in the coming years for it. The divide culturally is getting wider, not closer. I see more conflict and more violence ahead unless the two sides actually start to think rationally.
People that profit off of this divide will perpetuate it until this happens.
Maybe so. But the new City State of LA may not even have that legislative mechanism and those initiatives may not have even come up.
Outsiders do not really understand California has always had massive conflicting interest groups. Its always been this way. These long term divisions have little to do with right/left politics but today those divisions play in as well. Water is the big and long lived divide. SoCal, CenCal, and the Bay Area all conflict over water rights.
Cultural differences also play in. The middle of the state is Ag focused and more conservative. Northern California is far more rural and is hard to pin down politically. But these two regions are steamrolled and have been for decades by SoCal and the Bay Area regions. There are conflict between LA and SF. Between LA and the Central coast.
The state is too big and diverse even if they all voted the same in national elections. Depending on where you live in SoCal you might be OK though. I have seen maps that would divide the state including Orange county and the land east of it in with Bakersfield and Fresno.
Sadly, I think the state breakup will either never happen or be VERY ugly and messy. Most people have never thought deeply or even close to deep about this stuff. You don't have to be an anarchist or libertarian to see it. The left runs this state and has for decades and I don't see that changing. Where I'm different is that I don't see other places going the opposite way. I see them as just a few years or maybe a decade behind it. History shows this to be true. Unless the right realizes that most institutions are fully owned by those that hate them it will not shift in a meaningful way. Many institutions need to be torn down before other states can actually alter their direction. They will just continue to follow California.
the state breakup will either never happen or be VERY ugly and messy
Yes, but I still think that's the best case scenario.
just a few years or maybe a decade behind
I do see this changing trajectory. Just as a microcosm, many middle America states have reversed course on the public school trans insanity and never went as far as California.
California is now widely seen as a policy failure and as a result it's no longer acting as the object of imitation. This changed a while ago in the Midwest because of how successful Mitch Daniels was in Indiana. The neighboring states (Illinois excepted) have sought to imitate, or at least pay lip service, to that approach.
Sadly, Trump's shenanigans are going to turn California voters further left. Nevermind that it makes zero sense to base local policy preferences on what the Federal government is doing.