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California’s Wealth Tax is Testing the Limits of Progressive Politics

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Will California implement a wealth tax on its billionaires? The plan has been gaining traction in the state legislature — and while it is some way off becoming law, some billionaires seem to think it will. This week, real estate broker Julian Johnston told Fox News that he’s working directly with three billionaires moving from California to South Florida, where there is no income tax for those who reside there fewer than 183 days of the year. While it looks like California is finally ending its love affair with Silicon Valley, the question of a wealth tax — not just in the Golden State — won’t go away any time soon. Read more

How the West Became a Hostile Environment for Jews

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I now feel what earlier generations of Jews felt – a sense of belonging to a marginalised and constantly imperiled people. During Hanukkah, I went to as many public lightings as possible, my small act of defiance. But many others stayed away, particularly after the Bondi Beach attack in Australia.

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California is Ground Zero for American Descent Into Neo-Socialist Misery

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The election of Zohran Mamdani as New York’s first socialist mayor creates a dilemma for the still historically unpopular Democrats. Some elements of the party – notably those based around the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) – favour massive redistribution of income from the wealthy, while the traditionally dominant gentry liberals fear a loss of support from the oligarch class (particularly leading figures in industries like tech), who until recently had funded their campaigns. Read more

The End of Green Energy

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Not long ago, all right-thinking liberals were sure that fossil fuels would soon become “stranded assets” as The Guardian once put it. Hydrocarbon-based energy sources, the thinking ran, would become ever more worthless as the world entered a bright renewable future. Yet as President Trump’s takeover of Venezuela demonstrates, there is, in fact, a lot of life left in those deposits; as the progressive American Prospect recently lamented, the “fossil-fuel empire” has struck back. Read more

Gavin Newsom is Selling a California Success Story that Never Happened

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Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, when running for president in 1992, noted that Bill Clinton was “an unusually good liar”. But Big Dog has met more than his match in California Governor Gavin Newsom, rapidly emerging as a front-runner in some polls in the race for the Democratic nomination in 2028.

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Trump Aside, Canada and the U.S. Need to Cooperate

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“Living next to you, is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”
— Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, 1969. 

I have good news for Canadians, including my wife’s family — the grunting has a sell by date. Donald Trump is already on the way out. Even as he postures and shapes the world, sometimes for the better, often for the worse, Trump is rapidly becoming a “lame duck,” even losing his grip on his once loyal vassals in Congress, as well as the constitutional conservatives on the Supreme Court.

There have also been reports that suggest his health may be declining. Trump is 79, reportedly takes more aspirin than his doctors recommend, gets little sleep, sometimes has trouble keeping his eyes open at times during televised White House events, and his ankles swell. His diet of fries, Big Macs and sodas probably doesn’t help.

Yet losing Trump, before or after he slinks into the sunset, will not alter the fundamental realities shaping America’s future and that of Canada. The United States remains North America’s dominant power, standing as the world’s leading fossil fuel producer and military force, as seen recently in both Iran and Venezuela. Married to the country’s technological power — challenged seriously only by China — the U.S. will continue casting a shadow over its far less populous neighbor.

Trump has already changed Canada, even making it more Trumpian. Carney, the former apostle of the climate industrial complex, has rediscovered the importance of Canada’s natural resources, most of all oil and gas. And he is doing much of what Trump did to close the border, albeit with less savagery, as Canada too becomes more restrictive on immigration.

This is happening because our societies converge even as our political leaders squabble. Canada’s population, like that of the U.S., is starting to shrink due to low birthrates among the native-born and less mass immigration. The pervasive power of the supremely global oligarchic tech platforms remains unchallenged, informing — and often poisoning — the already desiccated body politic. And as in America, notes scholar George Dunn, Canada’s unique regions have been bowdlerized by mass communication and culture. Basically, we share the same dilemmas.

Read the rest of this story at National Post

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: U.S. and Canada flags together at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

California’s Next Governor Might Be More Irresponsible Than Newsom

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In a state facing a long-term budget crisis, massive out-migration, and the nation’s highest poverty and unemployment rates, you would think that voters would want to throw the bums out. But this November, Californians are poised to elect a new governor who will be, if anything, more irresponsible than Gavin Newsom. Read more

How MAGA Lost Its Way

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British readers may have a tough time with this question, but could Keir Starmer represent the future of America? To be sure, the UK prime minister is a world-class political fool, managing to trash his impressive electoral mandate in short order. But his cacophony of income redistribution, mass migration, censorship and draconian climate policies could soon be playing at full blast on the Potomac.

As with the Tories at the last UK General Election, the MAGA GOP is losing the support of much of its electoral base. Even the pro-Trump New York Post suggests the president’s bombast cannot ‘solve his very real economic problems’.

Claiming that the cost-of-living crisis is ‘a scam’ and a ‘con job’, as Trump does, is not a good look – and terrible politics. This is particularly damaging for a president who was elected with working-class support, yet projects a clear preference for his fellow magnates – his is by far the most billionaire-dominated cabinet in US history. Worse still, some of his key backers, particularly in the tech world, embrace the neo-monarchist, top-down ideology promoted by the likes of Curtis Yarvin and other equally noxious eugenicists. Yarvin wants a king, which is perhaps an appealing idea for Trump.

Caught in their billionaire bubble, the Trumpistas, like the elite Democrats of recent years, seem unable to comprehend the cost-of-living crisis, the roots of which lie in the Biden administration. Democrats ignored inflation to their own peril in 2024, and now Republicans are doing much the same. The fact that Wall Street bonuses are soaring and the number of billionaires increasing to record levels will be of little comfort to rank-and-file MAGA supporters struggling to make ends meet.

Disillusionment with Trump is growing fastest among those who, according to a study from the Manhattan Institute, are generally younger, less conservative on economic issues, and more susceptible to conspiracy theories. It is among this group that far-right ideology – including the noxious anti-Semitism of Nick Fuentes – has gained adherents.

Many young people who gave Trump surprising support in 2024 are also turning against capitalism. They increasingly support expanded government and greater income redistribution. A majority of under-40s strongly favours limiting wealth, and a large portion wants to cap incomes at one million dollars per year. Even in the US, then, the majority of young people now embrace a vague state socialism as a better model for society.

Wealth taxes and income caps may be flawed policies, but young people’s disillusionment is very real. It’s based on diminishing economic prospects, declining earnings and a job market getting tougher even for college graduates – a trend that could be further exacerbated by the rise of artificial intelligence. Today, barely half of all people under 30, according to one survey, have full-time jobs.

Read the rest of this piece at Spiked.

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: by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

Can Social Democracy Save Capitalism – Again?

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Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration this week as New York City mayor is a moment of reckoning for those who care about preserving the American way of life. As a matter of policy, Mamdani mostly represents a continuation of the lifestyle and identity Leftism of recent decades, rather than a turn to traditional socialism. Yet it’s a telling indicator that his pseudo-socialist message has resonated so deeply with many young New Yorkers, tracking a broader shift toward urban radicalism. Read more

Carney Faces Up to the Reality of Trudeau’s Climate Fantasies

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Sometimes policy change is necessitated by reality. The welcome new entente cordiale between Ottawa and Alberta, fast tracking new energy developments, marks a pleasant example.

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