Democrats are wandering around in the political wilderness: lost, desperate–and blaming each other. The latest target of their rage is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who committed the unforgivable crime of “helping Trump,” hatred of the president being the only acceptable posture in leftist circles these days.
The one thing Democrats seem unable to come to terms with is the actual cause of their problems: the leftward ideological lurch that has alienated them from regular Americans.
I write about this in my new book, “Califailure: Reversing the Ruin of America’s Worst Run State.” That’s because California represents today’s Democratic Party better than anywhere else in America.
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Democrats have had complete control of state government for nearly two decades. California — Califailure — is what you get when Democrats get everything they want.
Here’s what we got: the worst poverty rate in America, the highest unemployment, worst business climate, worst homelessness (by far), highest costs for every household essential — housing, gas, electricity, water — all with the highest taxes too!
The California Dream is out of reach, crime is out of control and the fire hydrants are out of water.
The Los Angeles wildfire disaster brought it all into stark relief. Why on earth wasn’t the brush cleared from hillsides, even though local residents warned it was a tinderbox? Why was the water system so appallingly managed?The answer comes down to one word: “Climatism.” It’s the word I use in “Califailure” to describe the extreme environmentalism that justifies an endless series of insane and counterproductive policies because they supposedly advance “climate goals.”
Climatism is more than a policy. It’s a pathology, an ideological sickness that has infected California Democrat politicians. It’s why they’re shutting down our energy industry only to import most of the oil and gas we use from halfway round the world on giant supertankers.
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They don’t care that this actually increases carbon emissions. As long as they look like they’re “waging war on fossil fuels,” it’s fine. Not practical, but pathological.
Climatism is one of nine pathologies I identify in “Califailure.” Democrats won’t get back on track unless they recognize the pathologies, too, and forcefully disown them.
There is elitism, which we saw so appallingly and cruelly applied during the pandemic, with “rules for thee but not for me,” public schools closed while the elites’ private schools stayed open. The people most hurt by Democratic Party policies are the working class, but Democrat politicians don’t care as long as they can glow in their smug moral superiority.
Which brings us to narcissism: have you noticed how Democrat politicians constantly brag about how they’re “leading” the fight for this or that ideological obsession? “Climate justice,” race, gender, equity, on and on…it’s always about them, never about us. They want to look virtuous in the eyes of their activists, regardless of the impact on regular working people. But there’s nothing virtuous about it.
What about cronyism? Of course, there has always been corruption in politics. But California Democrats have taken it to a whole new level. The party is basically owned by government unions and trial lawyers, who get policy favors in exchange for their political donations.
And that’s what produces socialism: the giant bloat of Big Government, the budget of the state of California practically doubling in the last ten years, after inflation, even as our population falls and everything gets worse. We are the most over-governed, over-legislated, over-litigated state in America. Where does all our money go? Into the pockets of the unions and the lawyers who fund the Democrat politicians.
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Allied to socialism, of course, is bureaucratism — the insane morass of nanny state bossiness pouring out of Sacramento’s alphabet soup of unaccountable bureaucratic agencies — CARB (the California Air Resources Board) pushing destructive mandates to ban gas cars, stoves, everything…the Water Resources Control Board actively destroying our great agriculture industry. Try running a business in California — it’s an absolute nightmare of bureaucratic harassment.
If you try to speak out against it of course, you’re hit with Maoism — the silencing of any views outside the ideological orthodoxy. Just look at the reaction when Gov. Gavin Newsom dared to suggest it was “unfair” for biological men to compete in girls’ sports. No doubt that’s why he’s not actually doing anything about it, showing how hollow his recent words were.
One of the most visible symbols of Califailure is our state’s homelessness crisis: we have just over 10% of America’s population but nearly 50% of the unsheltered homeless population. Democrats passed a law to make it illegal to require street addicts to get drug or alcohol treatment, or job training services. This is pathological compassionism, wanting to appear compassionate while doing things that are unspeakably cruel.
And then, in many ways, there’s the defining pathology of the California Democrat machine: Incompetism. (I know, it’s not really a word…) But how else do we capture the epic scale of their screw-ups? This is beyond mere ineptitude. It’s a pathological belief that however incompetent you are, it doesn’t matter as long as you have the right ideological intentions. There’s the High Speed Rail (Fail) – 30 years late, $100 billion over budget, still not a single mile of track laid after over a decade and $30 billion spent. The wildfire catastrophe in Los Angeles. Over $30 billion “lost” by the Employment Development Department during the pandemic. This is not just incompetence. It’s pathological. It is incompetism.
This is what Democrats have to come to terms with if they want to find a way back. Ditch these nine ideological pathologies, and maybe they have a chance.
If not, they will continue to wander around — in the wilderness.
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