Part II: Blue Policies Make for Bluer States

(Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Mike Pompeo during Pompeo’s confirmation hearings, January 2016.)

It didn’t take long for California’s newly-minted Senator, Kamala Harris, to display the animating concerns of California’s insular governing class.  The confirmation hearings of Mike Pompeo for CIA Director gave us a perch to view the political island of California at work.  It quickly became apparent that all other matters pale in significance to sexual orientation and the Sierra Club’s environmentalist demands .

Without a whiff of humility or scientific caution, while being oblivious to the more relevant Age of Terror threats, she raised “climate change”.  She asked,

“CIA Director Brennan who spent a 25-year career at the CIA an analyst, a senior manager, a station chief in the field, has said that when CIA analysts look for deeper causes of rising instability in the world, one of the cause those CIA analysts see is the impact of climate change. Do you have any reason to doubt the assessment of these CIA analysts?”

She further burrowed in,

“In the past you have questioned the scientific consensus on climate change. Nevertheless, according to NASA, multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97% or more of actively published climate scientists agree that climate warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. Do you have any reason to doubt NASA’s findings?”

Doctrinaire positions on sexual orientation matched Harris’s passion for “climate change”.  Again, Pompeo had to sit through the following query,

“Your voting record and stated position on gay marriage and the importance of having a quote un quote traditional family structure for raising children is pretty clear. Um, I disagree with your position, but, of course, you are entitled to your opinion. Um, I don’t want to that, however, to impact your opinion on that matter—the recruitment or retention of patriotic LGBT women and men in the CIA, some of whom, of course, have taken great risks to their lives for our country. Can you commit to me that your personal views on this issue will remain your personal views and will not impact internal policies that you put in place at the CIA?”

Why the insistence on ramrodding anything LGBT and “climate change” into national security?  The awkwardness of the issues in a hearing on the CIA should be apparent to anyone not blinkered by partisanship.  But they are the common obsessions of the governing interests in California.  These interests became governing interests when once in power they drove out the base for opposing views and interests.  Their policies helped create the conditions for their dominance.  Blue begets blue.

The policies of the state’s governing class are actually a set of politicized aesthetics.  They are a collection of fashionable standards of thought and beauty of particular powerful factions in the state.  It’s a litmus test ranging from growth control, environmental purity, victimization, and stamping the Hollywood sitcom version of urban life on the whole state – and the nation if they get away with it.   Of course, all of it hinges on the mirage of the omnicompetent state.

Some of the factions merged as NIMBY/drawbridge suburbanites united with environmentalist partisans.  The alliance paved the way for growth control ordinances, CEQA, the California Coastal Commission, activist local planning boards, expanded powers for state and local agencies, and rising housing prices as if on a booster rocket.  The effect is great for people with already attained wealth and homes.  It’s not so great for those wanting to join them.

The rich are in a class of their own.  They can afford whatever the Frankenstein housing market presents.

Jacked-up prices on the coast push the housing market into the interior.  But people looking for cheaper housing will not escape the reach of the environmental lobby and its rich and powerful patrons.  They’ll face jacked-up utility bills due to the necessity of air conditioning.  On the map of electric rates below, the dark color follows the borders of the state.

The state’s energy markets are a state-run extortion racket forcing home buyers to pay $500/month or blanket their roof with solar panels.  The utility companies are at the mercy of the state’s environmentalist godfathers and forced to play along.  The state’s ratepayers and taxpayers are on the hook for all the subsidies.  It’s a massive robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul gambit in a game of musical chairs.  No wonder many have thrown up their hands, loaded up the U-Haul, and headed east.

Accepting longer commutes for cheaper housing may prove to be no bargain either.  The environmentalist reach will grab you at the pump.  The state has the highest fuel taxes in the nation.  Just crossing the state border saves you 25-38 cents per gallon.

Don’t think taxes are the end of it.  The boutique fuel markets within the state, with its state-mandated blends, distorts the markets and pushes up prices. (8) (9)  There’s no end to it.

If the car should ever wear out, which it will on the poorly maintained roads, replacing it will be costlier than most any other state.  California ranks as one of the worst to buy, operate, and maintain a car.   It is next to dead last according to the Huffington Post. (10)

One-time, state-imposed costs (fees and taxes) at the time of purchase are some of the highest in the nation. (12)

In no ranking is California among the cheapest for buying a car, or almost anything for that matter.

Need I say anything about taxes?  California has set herself up as one of the worst, to add to all the other “worsts”. (16)

It certainly isn’t a welcoming place to do business.  It’s not breaking news to find California dead last in surveys of the best and worst states for business.  One CEO was quoted as saying, “States like California just don’t get it.  At the rate they are going, who’s going to pay the bills with such an anti-business, leftist government and businesses leaving every month for Arizona and Washington state?”  Another exclaimed, “California has been running businesses out of the state for years, and, in fact, their policies are getting worse. Class-action lawsuits abound, and it’s a crazy environment for small business out there.”  Such comments are so common, and its been true for so long, a person can be excused for responding with “ho-hum”. (13)

But such nonchalance hides a deeper reality: nobody gets a real job off a poor person.  You need rich people and business people.  An economy is more than the entertainment and tourism industries and Silicon Valley.  Any economy so narrowly contrived will increasingly become feudal with the prosperous in their coastal castle-keeps in a sea of peasant poverty.

Once again, the eastward trek continues.  Left behind is the supportive base for the disease.

Woe be to you if you happen to live in California and take your Christianity seriously.  Woe be to you if you believe the Holy Scripture to be holy.  The LGBT lobby is on the prowl, with the state’s legislature and governor as sidekicks.

Prop 8 – the 2008 effort to define marriage as a traditional one – had the misfortune of appearing on the “California” ballot.  The state is a hornet’s nest of LGBT activism.  The abuse heaped upon Prop 8 supporters rivaled Kristallnacht.  More than individuals, entire and long-established Christian denominations were targeted as if they were synagogues in 1938 Germany.  (14)  Like German Jews of the 30’s, Christians might feel more comfortable elsewhere.  No doubt, Christians make up a large portion of the U-Haul clientele.

Leaving no stone unturned, the power of the state’s LGBT hive is now aimed at Christian colleges.  Already, youngsters in the public schools are required to be exposed to the hive’s agenda and sexual activity.  With SB 1146, faith-based colleges will face lawsuits and the withdrawal of financial aid for teaching and practicing their faith.  There used to be an exemption, which is not likely to last much longer. (15)

Everyone must bend a knee to the hive.  Religion, by definition, must have some relation to timeless truths.  There’s little room for a zeitgeist here.  The normalization of homosexual conduct demands the embrace of the LGBT zeitgeist by a Christianity going back to the cross and further to Genesis.  It all must give way to the zeitgeist.   Too much of the Bible is an embarrassment to the hive.  Accommodation to the hive’s agenda by Christianity essentially works out as a suicide pact.  For Christians who actually believe their Christianity, it may be healthier to leave the state.  Many have.

High taxes, abusive energy costs, hostility to business and Christianity lead to a combination of fear and loathing for the not-so-golden Golden State.  The welcome sign has been removed for the striving, enterprising, family-oriented, and Christian crowds.  Those left behind are increasingly more accepting of this hostile agenda.  The political playing field is steeply tilted blue.  The tilt is getting steeper by the day.

RogerG

Sources:

(1) http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/01/12/dem-senator-grills-pompeo-on-climate-change-in-confirmation-hearing/, “Dem Senator grills Pompeo on climate change in confirmation hearing”, The Blaze, 1/12/17

(2) “California Prepares to Throw Climate-Change Skeptics In Jail. Meanwhile, They Allow Violent Criminals To Go Free.”, Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire, 6/2/16, http://www.dailywire.com/news/6263/california-prepares-throw-climate-change-skeptics-hank-berrien

(3) “California Senate sidelines bill to prosecute climate change skeptics”, Wash Times, 6/2/16, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/2/calif-bill-prosecutes-climate-change-skeptics/

(4) “California to investigate whether Exxon Mobil lied about climate-change risks”, LA Times, Ivan Penn, 1/20/16, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exxon-global-warming-20160120-story.html

(5) “Virtues of journalism are at stake in project by Columbia’s Energy and Environment Reporting Fellowship”, Crain’s Cleveland Business, Richard Osborne (former reporter, editor, publisher, Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame 2007), 1/26/16, http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160126/BLOGS05/160129864/virtues-of-journalism-are-at-stake-in-project-by-columbias-energy

(6) “InsideClimate News: Journalism or Green PR?”, Jillian Kay Melchior, NRO, 12/22/15, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428878/environmentalism-advocacy-journalism-who

(7) “Kamala Harris Grills CIA Nominee Pompeo on Gay Rights and Climate Change”, Weekly Standard, 1/12/17, http://www.weeklystandard.com/kamala-harris-grills-cia-nominee-pompeo-on-gay-rights-and-climate-change/article/2006261

(8) “Why California gasoline is so expensive”, Dan McSwain, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2/3/16, http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/columnists/sdut-why-california-has-higher-gasoline-prices-2016feb03-story.html

(9) “Car Buyers Beware, Cheapest And Most Expensive States For Unexpected Fees”, Forbes, Jim Henry, 6/29/14, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2014/06/29/car-buyers-beware-cheapest-and-most-expensive-states-for-unexpected-fees/#f45371677f5e

(10) “Most (and Least) Expensive States to Own a Car”, Elyssa Kirkham, Huffington Post, 3/21/16, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gobankingrates/most-and-least-expensive_b_9516846.html

(11) “Tax-Friendly Places to Buy a Car”, Mark Solheim, Kiplinger, 4/7/06, http://www.kiplinger.com/article/cars/T009-C000-S001-tax-friendly-places-to-buy-a-car.html

(12) “Most (and Least) Expensive States to Own a Car”, GoBannkingRates, 3/21/16, https://www.gobankingrates.com/car-loans/most-least-expensive-states-own-car/

(13) “Survey: California still worst state for business”, Editors, OC Register, 5/23/16, http://www.ocregister.com/articles/california-716365-states-business.html

(14) “The Price of Prop 8”, Thomas M. Messner, Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder #2328 on Family and Marriage, 10/22/09, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/10/the-price-of-prop-8

(15) “Does This New Bill Threaten California Christian Colleges’ Religious Freedom?”, Thomas Berg, Christianity Today, 7/5/16, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/july-web-only/california-sb-1146-religious-freedom.html

(16) “Best and Worst States for Taxes 2016”, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emeg45ehhij/no-45-california/#391c3d67e3cd

Part 1: Changing Demographics and Political Orientation

One question looms large after the 2016 election: How did California become such a blue bubble,  and so unrepresentative of most of the nation?  One answer lies in the preconditions for turning a state from twice electing Ronald Reagan for governor into a lock for the Democratic Party and consistently pushing its presidential candidate over the top in the national popular vote. (2)  The fact is, the place is different from its 60s persona.  As the author D.J. Waldie said in a LA Times piece, “How do we understand California when it’s not Californian anymore?” (5)  Quite so.

One factor affecting the state’s politics is its transformed population.  It’s not just the growth of certain population categories.  It’s also the decline of others.  These conditions are a backdrop to an altered political orientation.

Granted, actions by the now shrunken Republican Party have magnified the trend.  Dilatory and half-hearted outreach to Latinos contributes.  Also, party decisions to avoid the state, while understandable to some extent, has meant surrendering it to the opposition.  The Democrats are the only ones active in this playground.

Yes, it’s a one-party state.  But Republican negligence pales when compared to a tidal wave of changing demography as the driver.  The state has a population more receptive to the identity politics and victim-mongering so characteristic of one of the nation’s most zealously left-wing state parties.

The state’s population is more immigrant-centered.  Promises of low taxes, small government, and robust nationalism isn’t likely to find much appeal to an increasingly immigrant population, one largely unfettered from assimilation expectations.  As the immigrant component has grown, the native Californian sector has declined in relative numbers.  Any increase in population for the state is due to foreign immigration, not domestic in-migration.  In fact, domestic in-migration is negative by 720,611 from 2004-12 for example.  In other words, more people have left for other states than have moved into it from other states.  As of 2010, the foreign-born accounts for 27% of the state’s total population. (5)

The exodus is concentrated among the middle class and families, constituencies more receptive to Republican-like appeals.  Certainly, the high cost of housing, energy, high taxes, and fewer status-raising jobs has taken its toll.  (7)  These are the kind of things that discourage families.  The chart illustrates the phenomena by age group from 2004 to 2012.  The bar extending below the center line is out-migration.

The 40-54 cohort is people in their wage-earning prime.  The 0-15 are youngsters tied to their parents, i.e. families.  (7)

If you need more proof, look at the next chart.  It shows the labor force status of out-migrants.  The largest sectors among the exodus are “Employed” and “Retired” (like yours truly).  It’s people with jobs, and likely to get other jobs, like the middle class, who are leaving. (7)

Examining out-migration from an income level reinforces the nature of the exodus.  The chart below breaks it down. (7)

The conclusion: The state’s middle class is increasingly looking elsewhere.  With them goes Republican votes.

Do the changing demographics, in fact, show in the political orientation and behavior of the state?  While correlation isn’t causation, the coincidence of the trends is at least interesting.  A connection is highly probable.

When was the last time California voted Republican in a presidential election?  Answer: 1988.  In the last 3 presidential elections, the Democrat garnered at least 60% of the vote (2008, 2012, 2016).  In those 3 elections, the Democrats won 31-34 of California’s 58 counties.  Not only that, and more importantly, they won the populous and vote-rich counties along the coast … overwhelmingly.  The figure below shows the coastal counties to be most fervently Democratic.  The next figure distorts the counties to show the weight of their voting numbers. (1)

The coast overwhelms anything to the east of the Coastal Range.  Cleary,  the coastal plain is all blue.  A glance at LA makes clear how blue a California coastal city can be.  Take a look at the map from the 2012 election. (8)

It is even more pronounced when you move up the coast to the Bay Area and the environs of Nancy Pelosi.

Even Orange County isn’t immune from the trend.  In 2016, Clinton won the county by 5%. (4)  The tidal wave is washing over the last Republican outposts in the state.

For the near term, Republican prospects can’t be described as rosy.  No Republican officeholder is safe.  Things might get worse before they get better for the R’s.  Yet looking over the horizon, things might look a bit different.

The middle of the country between the Appalachians and Sierras are in a no mood for California politics.  They comprise a potentially election-winning block for the Republicans.  If they unite, they can discipline California’s left-wing zealotry.  They can save California from itself, as well as rescue the rest of the country.

A middle-America alignment could gain control of immigration and reduce the receptive critical mass for identity politics and victim-mongering.  As the state’s and the country’s demographics begin to gel, upward mobility and assimilation will take care of the rest of the pandering.

Republicans can only hope that the middle-America block remains solid for a long enough time, while Republicans jettison their “whites only” brand.  Their message of real prosperity and upward mobility, as opposed to the Democrat’s message of government dependency and serfdom, should have appeal beyond the white enclaves.  Really, it’s a message for everyone.

Republicans get busy and develop a broader appeal.

RogerG

Sources:

(1)  “California’s Political Geography”, Eric McGhee and Daniel Krimm, Public Policy Institute of California, Feb. 2012, http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_quick.asp?i=1007

(2)  wikipedia.org – Calif. votes 2008, 2012, 2016

(3)  Ballotpedia, ballotpedia.org/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_California

(4)  LA Times, 11/9/16, “Orange County voted for Democrat for the first time since the Great Depression”

(5)  LA Times, “California demographic shift: More people leaving than moving in”, Nov. 27, 2011, by Gale Holland and Sam Quinones

(6)  “Land of Inequality”, Troy Senik, NR online, 3/10/14, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/371796/land-inequality-troy-senik

(7)  “California’s Migration Problem: “Good Luck Movin’ Up Cause I’m Movin’ Out””, Carson Bruno, Hoover Institution, 7/21/13, http://www.hoover.org/research/californias-migration-problem-good-luck-movin-cause-im-movin-out

(8)  “Interactive database: How did your precinct vote for president?”, LA Now, LA Times, 11/13/12, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/11/presidential-election-interactive-map.html

If you want to watch a discussion in a bubble, watch this “roundtable” of talking heads on San Diego’s KPBS. Whether the subject is immigration or climate change, it’s an echo chamber that is far removed from the rest of the country.

Some facts and opinions won’t penetrate the membrane. Fact: Science is not a primer for the pet ideologies of California’s governing class. Fact: The debate over “climate change” is robust and certainly not settled. Fact: The value of so-called sustainables (energy) is not all positive. Anyway, how can we honestly evaluate them while they are heavily subsidized, protected by a cocoon of regulation, and alternatives are bashed into pulp? Fact: California’s nullification of immigration law is blatantly unconstitutional.  We fought the Civil War over that issue.  California’s position lost.

Some California apologists make the absurd claim that anguish in policy is therapeutic, that massive tax hikes and regulations make things wonderful. I call it the “Slavery approach to human betterment”. You know, like John C. Calhoun’s absurdity of slavery being good for the slave.

They’ve even massaged numbers to conform to the oxymoron. It’s deliciously delirious. It’s Disraeli’s dictum all over again: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”