The Briefing Room
General Category => Editorial/Opinion/Blogs => Topic started by: Kamaji on March 22, 2023, 01:11:58 pm
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Realigning California Would Realign America
What is happening in California is not only a threat that cannot be ignored. It is an historic opportunity for the
Right across America.
By Edward Ring
March 21, 2023
The conventional wisdom on the Right in most of the rest of America is that California is a lost cause. Rather than fight inside California, where you are up against the most powerful and monolithic alliance of progressive special interests in the world, dedicate resources to flipping purple states, and keeping red states red. But to invert a popular quote attributed to Nietzsche, even if you do not gaze into the abyss, the abyss will still gaze back into you.
California’s role in influencing the future of the country is unparalleled. In addition to its economic and demographic weight, California remains the epicenter of America’s media and entertainment industry, as well as its high-tech industry. Even if several American states defy the momentum of California’s political class, laws governing California frequently end up becoming federal policy. The abyss is coming for us all, and its epicenter is in California.
It’s expensive to engage in public education in a state with a population of nearly 40 million, including 22 million registered voters. California’s political culture is almost completely dominated by social radicals and environmentalist extremists. But if the challenges to changing the political culture in California are daunting, the potential rewards are even greater.
There is an immediate financial incentive for the Right to take the fight into the belly of the beast, which is that whatever money California’s well-heeled public sector unions and progressive billionaires have to spend on defense in their own state is money that will not be used to swing close races in other states. The question then only becomes how to engage in asymmetric warfare to ensure that California’s progressives spend far more money on defense than their attackers spend on offense. In this manner, even if the political battle is lost, the money is well spent.
An example of this strategy is Proposition 32, waged in 2012 by reformers attempting to force government unions to obtain consent from their members before they could spend any of their dues on political campaigning. A lot was at stake for these public sector unions, which in California spend an estimated $600 million on political campaigning and lobbying each two-year election cycle. That’s a lot of money, even in California. Voters rejected Proposition 32, but proponents spent $10 million, whereas the union defenders spent over $108 million. That’s $98 million that did not flow into the other U.S. elections in the 2012 cycle.
In general, ballot initiatives are a good way to keep California’s progressive elites off balance and drain their treasuries. Qualifying a ballot initiative in California today will cost proponents between $5 and $10 million. But if it represents a serious threat to the environmentalist industrial complex, the woke tycoons, or the government unions, they will spend many times that amount to defeat it. And as proven as recently as November 2020, when eight of the nine state ballot propositions supported by unions were rejected by voters, California’s electorate should not be taken for granted.
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Source: https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/21/realigning-california-would-realign-america/
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Things have to become unbearably bad for California to switch.
For somebody who is brand new to politics, they would never believe that California voted for Gerald Ford, Reagan twice, and George Herbert Walker, Bush once
If, and when the day comes when the people of California are hungry for change, the GOP needs to offer up serious candidates, and not a radio personality
I like Larry elder, but come on.
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Things have to become unbearably bad for California to switch.
For somebody who is brand new to politics, they would never believe that California voted for Gerald Ford, Reagan twice, and George Herbert Walker, Bush once
If, and when the day comes when the people of California are hungry for change, the GOP needs to offer up serious candidates, and not a radio personality
I like Larry elder, but come on.
I am a little less generous. Let it implode, and force them to stay there until if goes full frontal dystopia.
No reason for us to subsidize their political stupidity.
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California should be “Exhibit A” of the final result of progressive politics. When I was a kid back in the 1970s, a lot of families move out of Minnesota to California because of the jobs and the friendly tax and business environment.
Progressive politics are just as destructive as an atomic bomb. At least the bomb has the courtesy to destroy things right away.
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Good article and I generally agree, especially if the GOP can make inroads with Hispanics.
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I am a little less generous. Let it implode, and force them to stay there until if goes full frontal dystopia.
No reason for us to subsidize their political stupidity.
The problem is, California is sufficiently big that they can, and will, force the rest of us to subsidize their political stupidity. Many idiocies that start out as California-only policies end up being exported to other states, such as California emissions standards.
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The population of the California has almost doubled since the 80s. Hispanics are coming close to being half the population. When three million Hispanics were legalized in the 80s, that jump started the trend to voting for Democrats making it almost impossible for any Republican to win either the governorship or the Senate offices.
How do you convince Hispanics that voting for Dems is bad for them and the country? Hispanic immigrants have shown that they love Big Government. Until they shift their voting habits, it doesn't look good for Republicans
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Edward Ring:
"Realigning California Would Realign America"
Mr. Ring wins the Fishrrman "Dreamin'" award for 2023.
Are Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Maryland going to "re-align", too...?
The only "re-alignment" I see for those states is an all-out tilt toward the Chinese Communist Party.
Other than that... furgheddaboutit.
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I am a little less generous. Let it implode, and force them to stay there until if goes full frontal dystopia.
No reason for us to subsidize their political stupidity.
If the rest of the country is forced to bail out the mess from failed policy after policy, after having those policies which did 'escape' their socialist utopia, it will only further hamper the ability of successful States to continue or flourish. That is the burden the rest of us have from the Leftists. Let California fix its own mess.