The trend is false, mainly because it’s the Democrats who are pushing it. They’re simply making a strategic withdrawal to regroup, knowing that even Californians won’t put up with this forever. They still assume themselves to be the anointed, are still determined to shove their BS down peoples’ throats, and still don’t see a thing wrong with any of their actions. It’s the people who are too stupid to understand, so they have to be “managed”.
‘Strategic withdrawals to regroup’ are the very essence of liberal democracy. The Tories after 1945 for example. Most Democrats and certainly most of the voters, are not ideologues. We don’t know yet how it will play out, but yours is an ‘essentialist’ argument that says political positions ocan never change, when history shows they constantly do. Conservative parties now support democracy after all, which was largely anathema to them in the 19th century. And ‘socialists’ accept capitalism.
Electoral democracy, which is very vibrant in the US, is a powerful force. The Democrats will lose power if they continue down the far woke Left rabbit hole. Offsetting that, those who support Trump, who to say the least is an extremely divisive figure, as the next Presidential candidate, will do their best to ensure the Republicans lose the next Presidential election as well, but I expect we disagree on that!
Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
Malvin Marombedza
2 years ago
This has dismayed the city’s progressives, who complain that she is “pandering to affluent Westside and Valley voters at the expense of black, Latinx and working-class ones”, as two Black Lives Matter activists put it in a recent column.
I have often always wondered: Where do the far left radicals get this idea that a working-class background is one which is a sign of dirtiness, disorder and helplessness? Maybe somebody out in the West can spell it out for me.
I think the bien pensants have always had this condescending view of the poor as the “great unwashed” – Orwell had to fight this after writing “The road to Wigan pier”, when he was apparently quizzed on whether the working class were “smelly”.
I also cherish (true) the tale of the matriarch who, the morning of final departure from the family’s terraced house, scrubbed and waxed the doorstep before the bulldozers moved in, because “I’m not having people think we live like pigs”. Importantly, she wasn’t seen as at all odd for doing so.
Money may, as Spike Milligan famously said “buy you a better class of misery”, but it’s not an essential prerequisite of pride and never has been, at least not that I’ve ever noticed.
When I was a child Saturday mornings, as well as seeing the women of our street cleaning and waxing door-steps, would see them washing the pavements outside; they didn’t have to, but they wanted where their children played to be clean.
Are you sure you are talking about ‘working class’ people here? In my experience, there is a massive difference between those who work and those who never have (and don’t intend to).
In the UK, a big factor in the swing to Conservatives in Northern towns is the growth of a ‘benefit class’ whose income exceeds that of working families. Many of these are economic migrants attracted to the UK by a profligate welfare state.
I read that homeless people move to California because they receive the most generous benefits and that some are actually put on buses by social workers in other states? The weather also allows for more comfortable street living.
Left wing policies fail because they are idealistic and deny realities in human nature. A small proportion of any population is criminal but a larger group will take advantage of others and contribute as little as possible.
Overly generous benefits systems encourage the growth of a ‘non-working’ class, with entirely predictable results. Every civilised person wants to protect the vulnerable, especially children, but the road to Hell and all…
Which is why every commune has failed. Once those who work become disgusted by those who won’t the workers leave. The commune collapses, every time, without fail. CA has become a large industrial scale example of that situation.
Left wing middle class have never done dirty difficult work in arduous conditions and finished the day exhausted stinking and know tomorrow and the following days will be the same. If one makes it worse by living where there is a lack of water to clean body and clothes, when one does finally wash and place a freshly laundered shirt on, it is a near spiritual experience.
Absolutely. Many so called ‘progressives’ have a veiled but decidedly ‘reactionary’ disdain verging on contempt for actual working class and poor people, and even black people (the latter can’t be expected not to commit crime, be punctual etc etc).
In reality – rather than their empty words – they support some form of neo-feudalism, whereby many ‘woke’ individuals and institutions are extremely wealthy.
J Bryant
2 years ago
Part of me thinks this is an encouraging trend, and part of me thinks it’s too little too late. So long as much of big tech remains headquartered in California the state will have enough tax revenue and job growth to maintain its foolish and wasteful ways. And if big tech leaves then California really will be a third world country.
And some Texans are not altogether enthused by the numbers of Californians moving there, as they anticipate the new arrivals will tend to transform Texas politically into the place they left.
Nicolas Jouan
2 years ago
I always thought that the disaggregated, dirty, grotesquely unequal, multi-cultural, unsustainable dystopian California pictured in Blade Runner was the most consistent and fact-based depiction of what our near future will likely be. It’s well on track.
Except it won’t be nighttime and rainy all the time and there won’t be Japanese people wearing straw hats riding bicycles around.
Warren T
2 years ago
Why is it that when Conservatives warn of the impending repercussions of far left policies, which actually come to fruition, they are jeered for being “conspiracy theorists”?
But when the Left conjures up outrageous accusations about Conservatives, which don’t actually come to fruition, it becomes national head line news?
Because the purveyors of the News are operatives for and enablers of the Democrats.
Matt Hindman
2 years ago
Now if only we could build a wall to trap them inside…
Amanda Marks
2 years ago
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 30 years and he failure here isn’t JUST liberal policies… It’s INCOMPETENCE. Our mayor Eric Garcetti had few qualifications for such a huge job when he first got it other than a well-known name (his father was a DA with a name affiliated with the OJ Simpson trial), minor local experience, a handsome, young face, an ability to speak some Spanish, and belief in his own political inevitability. But he has proven a TERRIBLE manager unable to tackle just about any problem I can think of. And IMO it’s not just his ideology that has sent the city spiraling, it’s his suckiness.
He fundraises well for the Dems and I think that he thought he was a shoe-in for a big position in the Biden administration, but fortunately they realized he sucked too and have given him an ambassadorship instead of the cabinet post he clearly wanted.
He cannot leave office soon enough. LA is a really, really hard city to run–it’s physically massive, extremely diverse etc. I’m pretty darn liberal, but taking a serious look at Caruso not because he’s more conservative, but because he is capable of leading an organization that is so huge and complex.
Certain small parts of it come pretty close. Otherwise, no.
Martin Smith
2 years ago
Getting rid of the lawyers and politicos is one thing, but solving the problems created…? Still, first things first.
Mo Brown
2 years ago
“In California’s two biggest cities, the signs of progressive retreat are everywhere.” Not true. San Diego is showing few such signs as it has not gone total apeshit left. San Francisco is the third biggest city in CA if I’m not mistaken.
Tom Krehbiel
2 years ago
It seems the author believes that San Francisco is still the 2nd biggest city in California. It’s not, but rather 4th. LA is 1st, San Diego 2nd, and San Jose 3rd.
Yes, but San Fran isn’t the biggest city in its metro area, the aforementioned San Jose is. Besides, does either LA or SF’s actions really say that much about their respective areas? The other cities and suburbs may have entirely different policies.
The trend is false, mainly because it’s the Democrats who are pushing it. They’re simply making a strategic withdrawal to regroup, knowing that even Californians won’t put up with this forever. They still assume themselves to be the anointed, are still determined to shove their BS down peoples’ throats, and still don’t see a thing wrong with any of their actions. It’s the people who are too stupid to understand, so they have to be “managed”.
As you say a tactical retreat.
That could be said of the UK
And so goes life on earth, sadly. I’m not aware of a time throughout history when people were NOT too stupid and needed to be managed.
Who by?
Excepting yourself, obvs!
You mean certain residents. Hard to believe that the residents at the lower end of the spectrum are benefiting.
‘Strategic withdrawals to regroup’ are the very essence of liberal democracy. The Tories after 1945 for example. Most Democrats and certainly most of the voters, are not ideologues. We don’t know yet how it will play out, but yours is an ‘essentialist’ argument that says political positions ocan never change, when history shows they constantly do. Conservative parties now support democracy after all, which was largely anathema to them in the 19th century. And ‘socialists’ accept capitalism.
Electoral democracy, which is very vibrant in the US, is a powerful force. The Democrats will lose power if they continue down the far woke Left rabbit hole. Offsetting that, those who support Trump, who to say the least is an extremely divisive figure, as the next Presidential candidate, will do their best to ensure the Republicans lose the next Presidential election as well, but I expect we disagree on that!
I have often always wondered: Where do the far left radicals get this idea that a working-class background is one which is a sign of dirtiness, disorder and helplessness? Maybe somebody out in the West can spell it out for me.
I think the bien pensants have always had this condescending view of the poor as the “great unwashed” – Orwell had to fight this after writing “The road to Wigan pier”, when he was apparently quizzed on whether the working class were “smelly”.
I also cherish (true) the tale of the matriarch who, the morning of final departure from the family’s terraced house, scrubbed and waxed the doorstep before the bulldozers moved in, because “I’m not having people think we live like pigs”. Importantly, she wasn’t seen as at all odd for doing so.
Money may, as Spike Milligan famously said “buy you a better class of misery”, but it’s not an essential prerequisite of pride and never has been, at least not that I’ve ever noticed.
When I was a child Saturday mornings, as well as seeing the women of our street cleaning and waxing door-steps, would see them washing the pavements outside; they didn’t have to, but they wanted where their children played to be clean.
Come and visit the council estate near where I live in Victoria. You won’t need anyone to spell it out for you.
Are you sure you are talking about ‘working class’ people here? In my experience, there is a massive difference between those who work and those who never have (and don’t intend to).
In the UK, a big factor in the swing to Conservatives in Northern towns is the growth of a ‘benefit class’ whose income exceeds that of working families. Many of these are economic migrants attracted to the UK by a profligate welfare state.
I read that homeless people move to California because they receive the most generous benefits and that some are actually put on buses by social workers in other states? The weather also allows for more comfortable street living.
Left wing policies fail because they are idealistic and deny realities in human nature. A small proportion of any population is criminal but a larger group will take advantage of others and contribute as little as possible.
Overly generous benefits systems encourage the growth of a ‘non-working’ class, with entirely predictable results. Every civilised person wants to protect the vulnerable, especially children, but the road to Hell and all…
Which is why every commune has failed. Once those who work become disgusted by those who won’t the workers leave. The commune collapses, every time, without fail. CA has become a large industrial scale example of that situation.
Left wing middle class have never done dirty difficult work in arduous conditions and finished the day exhausted stinking and know tomorrow and the following days will be the same. If one makes it worse by living where there is a lack of water to clean body and clothes, when one does finally wash and place a freshly laundered shirt on, it is a near spiritual experience.
Absolutely. Many so called ‘progressives’ have a veiled but decidedly ‘reactionary’ disdain verging on contempt for actual working class and poor people, and even black people (the latter can’t be expected not to commit crime, be punctual etc etc).
In reality – rather than their empty words – they support some form of neo-feudalism, whereby many ‘woke’ individuals and institutions are extremely wealthy.
Part of me thinks this is an encouraging trend, and part of me thinks it’s too little too late. So long as much of big tech remains headquartered in California the state will have enough tax revenue and job growth to maintain its foolish and wasteful ways. And if big tech leaves then California really will be a third world country.
Big tech are already starting to relocate to Texas. Oracle & Tesla immediately spring to mind.
And some Texans are not altogether enthused by the numbers of Californians moving there, as they anticipate the new arrivals will tend to transform Texas politically into the place they left.
I always thought that the disaggregated, dirty, grotesquely unequal, multi-cultural, unsustainable dystopian California pictured in Blade Runner was the most consistent and fact-based depiction of what our near future will likely be. It’s well on track.
Except it won’t be nighttime and rainy all the time and there won’t be Japanese people wearing straw hats riding bicycles around.
Why is it that when Conservatives warn of the impending repercussions of far left policies, which actually come to fruition, they are jeered for being “conspiracy theorists”?
But when the Left conjures up outrageous accusations about Conservatives, which don’t actually come to fruition, it becomes national head line news?
Because the purveyors of the News are operatives for and enablers of the Democrats.
Now if only we could build a wall to trap them inside…
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 30 years and he failure here isn’t JUST liberal policies… It’s INCOMPETENCE. Our mayor Eric Garcetti had few qualifications for such a huge job when he first got it other than a well-known name (his father was a DA with a name affiliated with the OJ Simpson trial), minor local experience, a handsome, young face, an ability to speak some Spanish, and belief in his own political inevitability. But he has proven a TERRIBLE manager unable to tackle just about any problem I can think of. And IMO it’s not just his ideology that has sent the city spiraling, it’s his suckiness.
He fundraises well for the Dems and I think that he thought he was a shoe-in for a big position in the Biden administration, but fortunately they realized he sucked too and have given him an ambassadorship instead of the cabinet post he clearly wanted.
He cannot leave office soon enough. LA is a really, really hard city to run–it’s physically massive, extremely diverse etc. I’m pretty darn liberal, but taking a serious look at Caruso not because he’s more conservative, but because he is capable of leading an organization that is so huge and complex.
Did no-one learn anything from the Arnie experiment. People’s functional memories (or ability to read ) seem shockingly flawed.
Why was Soros funding these hyper-woke officials?
Insidious creep. So weird to use his wealth to undermine the values that underpinned his country’s release from Nazi slavery
what is Soros’s role? I didn’t see his name in the article
His money has bankrolled the campaigns of many progressive DA’s across the country.
It’s because focusing on identity based issues distracts the Left from focusing on income inequality which is a lot more troublesome.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
– H. L. Mencken
Yeah, seeing the disastrous state of Switzerland should give everyone shudders who would consider democracy to be a good thing.
You know apples? You know oranges?
The only way to fix that nightmare is to let Judge Dredd loose on it.
Southern California is Northern Mexico now. We cannot judge it by First World standards.
Certain small parts of it come pretty close. Otherwise, no.
Getting rid of the lawyers and politicos is one thing, but solving the problems created…? Still, first things first.
“In California’s two biggest cities, the signs of progressive retreat are everywhere.” Not true. San Diego is showing few such signs as it has not gone total apeshit left. San Francisco is the third biggest city in CA if I’m not mistaken.
It seems the author believes that San Francisco is still the 2nd biggest city in California. It’s not, but rather 4th. LA is 1st, San Diego 2nd, and San Jose 3rd.
Think in terms of metropolitan areas, not incorporated cities.
Yes, but San Fran isn’t the biggest city in its metro area, the aforementioned San Jose is. Besides, does either LA or SF’s actions really say that much about their respective areas? The other cities and suburbs may have entirely different policies.