CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, May 22, 2023

The ongoing Californication of America

History is replete with political/cultural movements. For example: The Renaissance during the 15th and 16th Centuries. Now, fast forward to today and we are eyewitnesses to a massive out-migration from California due, in large measure to the Marxism that has infected California’s politics since the 1960s. Recall, however, in earlier times, California’s politics were guided by the Conservatism of the Hispanics who held landgrants from the Spanish Conquistadores, and were guided by the Conservatism of the high-born Mexicans who followed in the foot prints of the Conquistadores.

Unfortunately for California’s Middle Class of today, the turmoil of the 1960s began a slow but steady seismic shift from Conservatism downward into sanctuary-welfare-state Marxism. When Ronald Reagan left for Washington in November 1980, the last vestige of Conservatism left with him.

Consequently, California’s once-comfortable Middle Class can no longer afford high taxes on their homes, autogas, electricity, natural gas, and groceries. The Golden State is being left with the very rich in Silicon Valley and Hollywood and the very poor in the agricultural water-starved Inland Empire that lies between the Coastal Ranges and the Arizona and Nevada deserts. Consequently, between 2007 and 2016, California lost over one million residents to Texas, Nevada, Arizona and other lower-tax states.

Inexplicably, some of the fleeing Californians bring their socialist politics into other states, such as Colorado, and that begins the Californication thereof, sending property and other tax rates to unaffordable levels, prompting another wave of out-migration to states like Florida and Texas. But there may be a much larger movement at work of which Californication is merely a symptom. Looking down from Mount Olympus, we may be seeing a massive effort to marginalize the values of people born in the 20th Century and maximize the values of people born in the 21st Century.

Recall, the 20th Century contained The Greatest Generation that fought and won WWII and the Silent Generation that continued the values of the Greatest Generation were all born in the 20th Century. The Boomer Generation, that rejected those values during the Vietnam War, was also born in the 20th Century. But there still was a culture gap.

Ask a 20th Century person about Bluetooth and the more educated would tell you that Harald Bluetooth was a Scandinavian king who ruled between 920 and 987 B.C. A 21st Century person would more likely tell you that Bluetooth is a short-wave system for wireless headphones.

Carried to its ultimate terrible conclusion, the Californication Movement will divide the United States into Liberal Blue States and Conservative Red States. Unfortunately, Californication has a not-so-secret weapon: the one-person-one-vote concept which, combined with increasing urbanization, will eventually lead to a U.S. House of Representatives with a vast majority coming from the most-liberal U.S. cities and states. Recall, only the House has to power to tax, As Chief Justice John Marshall said, "The power to tax is the power to destroy."

Granted the non-urban areas will produce the food. But the big cities, with all the tax money, can hire armed mercenaries to confiscate the food. As Chairman Mao Zedong said, "Political power flows out of the barrel of a gun." Readers would be well-advised to find all this very scary.

NB: Currently, although California has the world’s fifth largest economy, California faces a $31.5 billion dollar budget deficit.

Suggested reading: McCulloch vs. Maryland, 1819. Quatations from Chairman Mao (Vest Pocket Edition), 1969.

©2023. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com