Can California Be Saved?

Moshe Hill

With the beginning of a New Year, new state laws are going into effect all over the country.  Given that 36 states in the union have been completely controlled by one party in 2019, many partisan policies are becoming realized.  No state, however, is doing more to control every aspect of its citizens lives than California.  With the current downward trajectory of the Golden State, Californians need to address how they can right the ship going into a new decade.
California itself is a study in dichotomy.  The state is simultaneously home to the wealthiest people in the world and 130,000 homeless people (around a quarter of the nations homeless population).  Silicon Valley boasts the greatest technology, yet the state has as many droughts and power outages as a third-world nation.  
While the state fancies itself the role-model for the rest of the country, they cannot get their act together long enough to have accomplished anything.  The proposed bullet train has exceeded its budget by more than 100% and is decades behind schedule.  Diseases that have been absent since medieval times have come back.  The sidewalks are littered with human feces and drug needles.  California residents are leaving in droves.
The political make-up of the state’s government is a Democratic supermajority.  The state Senate is 73% Democrat, and the state assembly is 76% Democrat.  The Governor is a Democrat.  The cities are run by Democrats.  The billionaires are Democrats.  The poor people are Democrats.  In the U.S. House of Representatives, 45 of the 53 Congressional districts of California are Democrats.  
These Democrats are using their legislative mandate to cram down leftist political priorities with a complete disregard for the consequences or fallout of those policies.  The Los Angeles Times published a breakdown of all the laws that have taken effect at the beginning of 2020, and it’s enough to make any conservative who is on the fence about remaining in California think about jumping.  
Red flag laws are being expanded to Employers, co-workers, and teachers.  California residents can only buy one rifle per month.  There will be an individual mandate for health insurance in California.  The power to create a charter school is handed over to the very school districts that don’t want them to exist.  The independent contractor laws are putting a stranglehold on Uber and Lyft.  What a landlord can charge and who they can rent a property to are even more regulated.  Law enforcement is being hampered.  Environmental priorities are preventing the easy flow of essential energy throughout the state.  
Perhaps the most dangerous of all the new policies is the solar panel policy.  This mandates that all new homes built in California must include solar panels.  This plan is unfeasible that even the leftwing Vox.com wrote a piece explaining how awful it is (while covering their leftist bonafides by including why it is good as well).  This policy is endemic to how Californian lawmakers are failing the constituents that they are representing.  
Solar panels are extremely expensive to install and have little to no impact on carbon emissions.  The only thing this legislation will accomplish is increase housing prices in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country.  As mentioned, the homeless population is 130,000, and has been increasing every year.  At the same time housing is becoming more expensive, the minimum wage is rising, which historically leads to job loss.  
All of this is occurring in the best economy the United States has ever had.  If the economy takes a downturn in the next few years, California will have no money to pay for all the programs that are being put in place.  California will attempt to raise taxes on the wealthy, but that will lead to either more flight from the state or use of loopholes to avoid such high rates.  
California must enter survival mode, and every Californian must engage their “fight or flight” response.  If they choose to flee the state, like many others, that is always an option.  However, California, like every other state in the country is worth fighting for.  This can be done on the cultural level, and can bleed into the political arena.
Southern Californians in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas can support conservative movie studios, like Rebeller Media.  Silicon Valley can support the conservative ideologies pushed from within its largest companies, like Google and Facebook.  Conservatives should support these endeavours, even if there is some disagreement on method or content.
It is also time for conservatives to gather and attack the policies that are harming the poor communities in California.  President Trump reached out to the black community in 2016, saying “what do you have to lose?”, and has some of the best poll numbers in the black community that any Republican has had in years.  Republican should follow that lead and reach out to the Hispanic community as well.  Conservatism has no skin color, and the stangehold that the Democrats have had in California are yielding horrific results.  
This is not an easy fight, but it is a winnable one.  Breakdown of political affiliation among Californians has Republicans at a deficit, but the independents who lean Republican combined with the Republicans can overwhelm the Democrats.  Combined with the fact that California has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation, many things can change if the population has the political will to do so.  
It may be laughable in 2020 to imagine a Purple California, but that should not dissuade Republicans.  If Democrats are trying to take over a Republican stronghold like Texas, Republicans cannot afford complacency or a prevent defense.  It’s time to take the fight to the Democrats, and there is no better place than in California.  
Moshe Hill is a political analyst who has written for The Daily Wire, The Queens Jewish Link, The Jewish Link of New Jersey and JNS.org. He is regularly featured on ‘The Josh M Show’ podcast. Subscribe to aHillwithaview.com for more content from Moshe Hill. Like him on Facebook at facebook.com/ahillwithaview and follow on Twitter @TheMoHill.

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