I spent the first half of my life on the East Coast, putting up with long, dark winters and imagining life in sunny California. Hollywood convinced me, with entertainment like “CHiPs” and “L.A. Story,” that the Golden State was a place I wanted to live. Venice Beach, the Santa Monica Pier, and the Hollywood sign all fed into what California was.
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My dreams encompassed San Francisco as probably the most beautiful city in America, before its embarrassing slide included a famous poop app warning walkers where not to step. Yosemite National Park is still one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Of course, no place is perfect, and I knew California had its share of issues, including traffic congestion, earthquakes, and smog.
I moved to California in 1996 with romantic visions of sun-soaked palm trees and endless possibilities. I didn’t know California had already begun its tragic fall from grace.
The romantic view I’d nurtured mostly survived contact when I moved to Southern California in 1996. Los Angeles had a Republican mayor at the time, which might be hard to believe given the recent mayoral primary fiasco. For more than a decade, I participated in the illusion that California was unbreakable.
For those willing to look, fractures caused by illegal immigration, identity politics, and a radical “green” agenda that stifled infrastructure development and economic opportunities were starting to show. Power plants, reservoirs, and aqueducts were no longer proposed. Instead, California opted for what became a $14.6 billion railway boondoggle that still hasn’t resulted in a usable rail system.
California’s siren song was a magnet for generations of pioneers, dreamers, and entrepreneurs alike. Hundreds of miles of scenic coastline, abundant natural resources matched only by abundant natural beauty, and a dynamic economy made it seem too fortunate to fail.
Gems like Huntington Beach reinforced this belief.
Located in North Orange County, with miles of beaches facing the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean, the city appeared to defy the grim pull of gravity emanating from Sacramento. Huntington Beach felt like an isolated enclave pretending the marauders weren’t at the gate. They didn’t breach the walls right away, but they kept at it.
California couldn’t prevent wildfires, but it could certainly have mitigated the human and environmental costs with responsible forestry policies and serious efforts to collect and store water. There is nothing fashionable or sexy about brush clearing and reservoir building.
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These programs required adults to exercise power in Sacramento instead of unserious, empty suits like Governor Newsom. California’s chief executive exhibited an almost tragic mix of smugness and incompetence that was breathtaking to behold.
More than two decades of one-party rule in the state’s legislature allowed California’s Democrat party to become not only foolish but ominously detached from the priorities and concerns of the middle class. The Democrats’ death grip on the governor’s mansion was loosened briefly when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected in 2003 after Gray Davis was recalled. Arnold was reelected in 2006 and was term-limited out in 2011.
He did what he could, but his efforts were stifled by a Democrat majority in the legislature. He wasn’t popular because he was a Republican; he was Arnold—an icon, a brand that sold confidence, competence, and optimism that transcended politics.
The voters must accept blame for what became of California after Arnold. They continued to saddle themselves with more taxes, regulations, and bureaucrats who treated them as pigs at a trough, scrounging for scraps.
Speaking of pigs, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” warned us that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Some animals in California increasingly behaved as overlords, dictating to a troublesome underclass that was supposed to be grateful for the scraps. For their trouble, Californians enjoyed a 42 percent higher cost of living than the national average.
I moved out of California at the end of 2022. I should have made the change years earlier, but the California that lived in my mind had a hold on me. Governor Newsom’s arbitrary dictums and hypocrisy during his Wuhan Flu shutdown saga were the last straw.
I was one of those malcontents who refused to wear a mask at the grocery store and the gym. I finally realized that the bureaucrats who ruined California didn’t want me there, so I left for Arizona and haven’t regretted it for a second. I haven’t forgotten California, but memories fade like dreams upon waking.
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