For the last century, no state more epitomized the ideals of upward mobility and technological and cultural innovation than California. Once on the distant fringe of America, the Golden State has emerged as an economic powerhouse, with a gross domestic product larger than those of all but four nation states. As its economic influence swelled, California became a central locus of US political power. Its political clout arose first in the Nixon-Reagan era and later in the form of the progressive California elite—the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, George Clooney, and the tech oligarchs—who have now expelled “Scranton Joe” in favor of one of their own, Vice President Kamala Harris, at the summit of Democratic power.
Yet given the partisan fixations of most mainstream media, few look at the Kamalafornian reality. Since 2000, this state of unmatched attractions has managed to lose a net 3.5 million domestic residents. Critically, it ranks toward the bottom among US states in drawing newcomers, who have always been the critical fuel for its economy. Many of those leaving, according to an analysis of IRS data, are middle-income families in their childbearing years; many are college graduates. Forget Harris’s youthful “vibe”: The state, according to data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, is aging 50 percent more rapidly than the nation—gradually ditching the surfboard for the walker.
When Biden was elected in 2020, an overjoyed Los Angeles Times gushed that his goal was to turn America into California. This reflected the reality that the progressive power center lies not in New York, now only the fourth most populous state, or even in the wider Northeast, but in California. With all its problems, the Golden State has a far bigger economy and wields far greater technological influence.
California’s wealth nurtured the careers of both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Harris, who pulled key support from elite Golden State lawyers, tech oligarchs, progressive inheritors, Hollywood, and public-employee unions. Harris, as Dan Walters has noted, was anointed by the same San Francisco-based cabal forged by the onetime assemblyman and redistricting guru John Burton. It’s a tight-knit bunch that includes Pelosi, Newsom, and Willie Brown, among others. Many of these people are linked by personal ties, funding, and political alliance; Harris’s emergence also came courtesy of an affair with a key cabal figure, the much older, highly gifted Brown, a former California Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor.
The cabal operates in large part with funds derived from Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Newsom, lavishly sponsored by the Getty Oil heirs, was largely seen as the cabal’s most likely political standard-bearer. But history, in the form of South Carolina’s James Clyburn and the acquiescent Biden, broke in Harris’s favor. In the current race, Harris, not surprisingly, is crushing Trump on the fundraising front.
Of course, Harris’s pitch includes a self-portrait as a middle-class kid with a blended ethnic heritage, Jamaican and Indian. But despite having a Marxian economist for a father, she is no class warrior or socialist, as the delusional right continues to insist. Instead, she reflects the worldview of California’s ultra-rich elites: executives at the Apples and the Googles and the big studio directors. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Harris’s successful debate performance last month was coached by a top Google attorney, who is litigating antitrust business in front of her own administration.
Read the rest of this piece at Compact Mag.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: via Gavin Newsom on X.
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