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I’d Like to Believe California Can Be Saved from the Left

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In the coming weeks, the conservative media will have a field day thanks to the seemingly strong primary election performances of Republican Steve Hilton in the race to become the next governor of California and of Spencer Pratt in the Los Angeles mayor’s contest.

Hilton, a former advisor to David Cameron in the UK, as well as a Fox News commentator, is certainly a brainy candidate, with personal appeal and a constructive platform. Pratt, a former reality-TV star, has run an eye-catching campaign.

But however much the Right will enjoy the notion of a Californian rebellion against its entrenched establishment, it very much remains a one-party state. Conservatives may party during the so-called “Pratt Summer” or tout “the revenge of the bourgeoisie” but the Republicans’ chances are between middling to non-existent.

It’s not even certain that either of them will reach the general election. California’s insanely slow-moving vote count leaves the possibility that one or another will fall behind once the union-led “ballot harvesting” of late ballots alters the result. This has become increasingly common, with conservative candidates often eliminated weeks after election day.

Indeed, political, demographic, and economic trends are against the Republicans’ chances. The state that spawned Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan is now reliably Democratic. Overall registration in the state is almost two to one Democratic over Republican. There has not been a Republican elected statewide for two decades.

California’s demographic profile is increasingly bad for Republicans. The state has been consistently losing its Anglo population, as well as the middle class, particularly families of all ethnicities, to Texas, Arizona, and Nevada. Those most likely to stay, notes the Public Policy Institute, tend to be young and often underpaid professionals, the very class that elected New York mayor Mamdani, public workers and their wards.

Long gone are the days when California was a job-producing machine in everything from manufacturing to logistics as well as tech. These constituencies were the ones who cared most about brutal income taxes, the nation’s highest unemployment (as well as youth unemployment), unaffordable housing, poor roads, mediocre schools and ever fewer good jobs. Increasingly, these constituencies and the companies they work for are just choosing to leave.

In the governor’s race, Hilton will also be up against the full power of current governor Gavin Newsom’s political machine, largely financed by public unions and Left-leaning oligarchs. Shawn Steel, the state’s irrepressible GOP National Committeeman, told me that Hilton’s financial resources are paltry compared to what his thoroughly mediocre opponent, former Biden cabinet member Xavier Becerra, will be able to draw on.

Read the rest of this piece at Yahoo News.
The piece first appeared on Telegraph.

Joel in the Media: Is Fascism the Wave of the Future?

RealClearInvestigations Podcast hosts, J. Peder Zane and James Varney speak with Joel Kotkin about his recent article for RCI exploring how and why fascism hasbecome a buzzword of American politics.

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, follow him on Substack and Twitter @joelkotkin.

Homepage image: composite of election results from Wikimedia data accessed June 7.

The Strange Afterlife of Fascism

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There’s hardly a ruler in the world who would identify as fascist, but if you trust the mainstream media, you will assume fascism is on the march. Mentions of the term have skyrocketed ever since Donald Trump emerged from the land of chandeliers; fascist mentions on cable reached unprecedented levels in the run-up to the 2024 election. Now, almost anything Trump does – from cracking down on illegal immigration to proposing construction of a victory arch – is seen by the Washington Post and others as fascist.

Tellingly, the term has not just been applied to Trump. It has, for decades, been slapped on almost everyone progressives don’t like. George W. Bush, John McCain, and even meek Mitt Romney have all been called the F-word. Same goes for the former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who is running for mayor in Los Angeles.

The net has been widened by using the term to describe the millions of people who support such figures. One Canadian economist claims to have identified 1,000 words – including rebirth, liberalism, ethnic, and Jewry – he says are indicative of “fascist jargon.”

Given that fascism’s heyday was from the early 1920s until the end of World War II and that the last fascist leader of a major country, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, died in 1975, the endurance of this term may seem surprising. This is especially true in the American context, given that fascism – unlike socialism –never gained a foothold here, largely remaining a European and Latin American phenomenon. Read more

Steve Hilton’s Rise Won’t Kill California Progressivism

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California, a place not known for its psychological normality, went crazy last night. Two separate elections show the political direction of travel for the state, with many of the details still far from certain. In a gubernatorial race that was always slated to be close, overnight results point to Republican Steve Hilton narrowly leading Democrat Xavier Becerra, while Left-wing billionaire Tom Steyer trails in third. Read more

Tom Steyer proves things can get worse than Gavin Newsom in California

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Tom Steyer proves one thing about California politics: As bad as things get, they can always get worse.

After Jerry Brown, a true intellectual whose ideas were often at odds with reality, we got Gavin Newsom, an ideological fashionista driven by vainglory and ambition.

The two combined to create a California reality that worked for their friends — greens, oligarchs, nonprofits and public employees — at the expense of pretty much everyone else. Read more

Socialism Once Again Rears its Ugly Head

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Could Canada someday become a thoroughly red country? This may not be as absurd as it seems.

Although by American standards Canada is already socialist, given its strong social safety net, the country has a market-based economy, with residual commitment to property rights and basic civil liberties. Yet underneath this comforting picture, the emerging reality is frightening. Read more

Is Spencer Pratt the Hero LA Needs?

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Reality TV stars have been fixtures of Los Angeles for decades, but now there’s a chance one could run the city. Spencer Pratt — who appeared in The Hills, among other series — may not succeed in his mayoral bid, but his candidacy has produced a social media campaign that is taking apart the progressive rot long embedded in LA’s politics.

Read more

Iranian Americans Want IRGC Regime Gone

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The Trump administration has been cracking down on a handful of Iranian residents who have ties to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and have even allegedly been involved in gun-running while living lavish lifestyles in LA. That may leave the impression that this community might not support attempts to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Read more

Canadians Must Stop Romanticizing a Failing Europe

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s mindless, and frankly pointless, comments about Canada becoming the 51st state have stirred up latent Canadian patriotism. But it also may result in Canada, which is already economically moribund, further aligning itself with the permanent European Union bureaucracy. Read more

Make the Gulf Irrelevant Again

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Whatever one thinks of the current war in Iran, allowing the fundamentally unstable Islamic Republic power over the world economy is truly a fool’s errand. In many ways, Iran’s attempt to control the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea is playing out in waters long shaped by piracy and imperial rivalry. Read more

California Governor’s Race Declares War on Big Tech

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The fall of Eric Swalwell following accusations of sexual misconduct has turned the California governor’s race on its head. To pick up Swalwell’s scraps of support and funding, each contender is now scrambling to appear more progressive than their rivals. A hard-Left candidate winning the Democratic nomination seems increasingly likely, and the result could have a devastating impact on the state economy — especially Silicon Valley. Read more