California has been a beacon, a vacation spot, a paradise and promised land ever since its headlong enlargement in a rush of gold fever.
It’s additionally been a perennial supply of envy, mockery and contempt.
That naysaying has gained a lot better foreign money in recent times as California’s inhabitants has contracted for the primary time in additional than a century.
The “exodus” has turn into an trade, stoking actual property markets from Nevada to Tennessee, fanning the red-versus-blue political flames and launching a thousand what-went-wrong analyses.
The newest insult — or bracing actuality test? — got here final week in a Los Angeles Instances ballot that discovered 50% of adults nationwide consider California is in decline. (Bummer, man.)
Practically half the Republicans surveyed stated the state is “probably not American.” No matter meaning.
L.A. Instances columnists Mark Z. Barabak (a proud California native) and Anita Chabria (a contented Ohio transplant) talk about the ballot, the hating by haters and the state of their troubled however nonetheless much-loved state.
Barabak: So first off, Anita, are you OK? You haven’t choked to dying on the noxious air air pollution, or been run over by some smash-and-grab robber making a getaway by way of your pothole-filled neighborhood?
Chabria: To paraphrase Mark Twain, stories of our dying are significantly exaggerated — once more. The Golden State stays alive, kicking and, dare I say it, a thriving a part of america.
However I’m troubled that just about 30% of respondents agreed with the assertion that California is “probably not American.” Practically half of Republicans thought that, which is much less surprising. However inexplicably, 21% of Californians did, too. That’s extra than simply the Fox crowd regurgitating the right-wing narrative of California because the spawning floor of social evils.
Folks, we joined the union in 1850 — forward of Kansas, West Virginia and Nebraska to call a couple of. We’ve been American longer than most of the so-called heartland states. I’ve been puzzled for days over whether or not a 3rd of America is horrible at geography, or historical past — or in the event that they assume it’s some form of dig at California.
What do you assume, Mark? Are we in reality not American in some elementary manner I don’t perceive?
Barabak: I suppose it relies upon the way you outline American.
For those who’re speaking a few sure sort of America — one that’s overwhelmingly white and conservative in its social, political and cultural values — than, no, California fails to measure as much as that, er, normal.
We’ve been a majority-minority state now for greater than a era. Politically, the state has leaned strongly Democratic for many years, after supporting Republicans for a lot of our historical past.
Culturally, we’ve all the time tended towards broadmindedness — or being overly permissive, within the eyes of critics. Recent begins and reinvention have been a lure for the reason that first gold seekers — those digging precise nuggets — flocked right here from the extra straitened and class-conscious East Coast.
As you recommend, it’s not simply Fox Information. There are many alienated Californians — the state has greater than 5 million registered Republicans, which exceeds the inhabitants of many states — who really feel neglected in Sacramento and regarded down upon by the supposed sophisticates in San Francisco and Los Angeles. That most likely accounts for the 21% that had you scratching your head.
However to be clear, loads of of us interviewed within the ballot are clearly viewing California by way of a partisan lens. Or, maybe it must be stated, whereas carrying a thick set of blinders.
I imply, 3 in 10 Republicans stated the state has a worse pure atmosphere than different states. Actually? Go shout that from the highest of Yosemite Falls. Or in Santa Barbara at sundown. Or on a sunny winter day in Joshua Tree Nationwide Park, as of us within the Midwest thaw their snow shovels to allow them to dig their vehicles out of the drifts.
That stated, we’ve acquired loads of issues, no?
Chabria: Each place does and, in fact, we are not any exception.
The survey highlighted one downside most of us agree on: The price of dwelling in California is just too excessive. Greater than 80% of California residents felt that manner, and it’s no shock.
I’d enterprise to guess that has lots to do with the value of housing. Folks can’t afford hire, which results in a complete host of different issues — including older individuals being compelled into homelessness.
I genuinely consider that California’s future relies on discovering a option to construct huge quantities of latest housing, not just some items right here and there. We’d like the psychological well being beds promised by Proposition 1 on the March poll and to search out methods to create extra inexpensive properties for the broad swath of middle-class Californians.
And that’s only for starters.
However the survey additionally identified that almost all of Californians, together with myself, are pleased dwelling right here.
So the Huntington Seashore Metropolis Council can rant all they need, and the haters can hate. California will all the time stand for range, freedom and tolerance — all values that sadly appear to be rising scarcer east of the Sierra.
The place do you see the brilliant spots, Mark?
Barabak: Aside from its unsurpassed bodily magnificence, California continues to be a spot that attracts innovators and entrepreneurs. It’s nonetheless a harbor for the politically persecuted and those that really feel undesirable or unwelcome dwelling elsewhere as their real selves.
Sure, our gross sales and revenue taxes are excessive in comparison with another locations. Housing, as you instructed, is obscenely costly and we desperately want extra of it.
However try life in different cheaper, supposedly higher locations. Look into the value of insurance coverage in Florida. Get nickel and dimed each few miles on toll roads again East. Sweat your manner by way of a summer season in Texas and hope the facility grid — and your air con — doesn’t exit.
Certain, our authorities regulates with a heavier hand than elsewhere, and it’s not onerous to search out examples of extra. However isn’t it good, for example, to breathe clear air and be spared the teary eyes and clenched chest that smog-suffocated of us in Southern California skilled not so many a long time in the past?
Talking of seeing by way of the gloom, right here’s one heartening discovering in that in any other case dismal ballot: The perspective of younger individuals.
Seven in 10 of these ages 18-34 see California as a trendsetter and, at 43% of respondents, had been twice as seemingly as different People to say they might contemplate shifting to the state. They consider California’s future is shiny. Me, too.
I’ve moved round lots, together with the compulsory stint — for a political hack like me — in Washington, D.C. I assumed I’d spent my profession overlaying our nation’s capital, however lasted simply seven years. Like Dorothy, who went all the best way to Oz to know she actually needed to be in Kansas, California tugged at me the entire time I used to be away.
For all of the state’s difficulties — or challenges, if you happen to choose — I can’t think about ever dwelling anyplace else. California resides deep in my coronary heart.
How about you?
Chabria: I really like California.
As a mixed-race girl with mixed-race children, I worth its tolerance and variety. I worth its willingness to combat and lead at this essential time when democracy is fragile. I worth that it’s really a live-and-let-live sort of place, even when individuals don’t agree.
To me, the ballot outcomes say much less about life in California than the unhappy effectiveness of right-wing political propaganda and the facility of fearmongering over fact. MAGA wants California to be a villain, to signify the supposed failures of the Democratic Celebration, particularly round crime and immigration, and actuality be damned.
If nobody else desires them, we’ll take the drained and poor, the huddled plenty. California all the time has and all the time will embody the American dream, that every of us issues and every of us belongs.
That respect for fairness and equality is what makes us the Golden State.
