California, the land of sun, sand, surf and other accoutrements of the good life.
But America’s one-time promised land is now known for less enticing things – such as sky-high taxes, excessive government regulation, sanctuary cities, rising crime, insufferable political correctness, unsolvable homelessness, unaffordable housing prices, and interminable COVID-19 lockdowns, even as the Golden State is among the hottest of coronavirus hotspots globally.
People are voting with their feet. During 2020, tech titan Elon Musk, podcaster, and MMA guru Joe Rogan, and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro all announced they were leaving the state.
But a year ago, Calmatters, a nonprofit journalism group, noted, “U.S. Census Bureau numbers show that the middle- and lower-classes are leaving California at a higher rate than the wealthy. Many who have left in recent years say they simply couldn’t afford to stay.”
Where once people took legendary newspaperman Horace Greeley’s advice to “Go west,” people on the West Coast are saying, “No West.”
But last week, following the elections of Democrats in two Georgia Senate contests, the right-leaning website Issues & Insights warned that, to paraphrase a slick marketing campaign, with Democrats running the show, what happens in California won’t stay in California.
“While (President-elect Joe) Biden made the election all about battling COVID-19 and ‘healing the nation,’ that is not what the far left that controls the Democratic Party cares about,” I&I commented.
“It has bigger plans – namely, to turn the nation into a California-style one-party state.”
“We’re not talking about things like huge tax hikes or Obamacare,” I&I continued, “which is what they imposed the last two times they controlled both branches.”
“The stated goal today is to ensure a permanent Democratic majority so they can finally get their far-left agenda enacted. In other words, they want to replicate what Democrats have already achieved in California.”
“This isn’t some right-wing conspiracy. This is what Democratic leaders have already stated as their plans,” maintained I&I, referring to plans such as ending the Senate filibuster, packing the Supreme Court, making Democratic strongholds Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico states and implementing on the federal level the voting “reforms” that created chaos and controversy in several swing states.
“Californians are witnessing the fruits of the Democrats’ relentless determination to control government. After having successfully shoved Republicans off to the fringes, the state has imposed a seemingly endless series of tax hikes, intrusive environmental regulations, and costly mandates on businesses,” I&I noted.
“Californians at least have the ability to pick up and move to another less politically monolithic state – as they have been doing in droves over the past few years. But where are Americans supposed to flee should Democrats succeed in expanding California policies across the rest of the country?”
In short, unlike disenchanted Californians who seek refuge and sanity in places like Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Idaho, there is nowhere to run in America if Democrats are able to impose their agenda.
I&I said this train of awful ideas could be derailed if Biden commits to his pledge to find common ground with Republicans, or if the few moderate Democrats stand up to the radicals.
“We hope those happen,” I&I offered, before adding, as most sober conservatives would agree, “but we’re not overly optimistic.”
“The next best thing is that Biden and his fellow Democrats try to do too much too fast, alienate voters with their leftist ambitions, and lose their congressional majorities in the mid-term elections,” I&I stated. “But by that time, it might be too late to fix whatever damage they manage to inflict in those two years. History has made clear that once Democrats get a law on the books, it stays on the books. Anyone notice that Obamacare is still the law of the land?”
Instead, the segment of the public that wants to retain some semblance of the America we now know and cherish must man the final fallback position, and, as I&I put it, “do everything in its power to stop Democrats from making good on their plan to turn this country into the United States of California.”