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Can America Really Afford a Gavin Newsom Presidency?

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To the surprise of no one this side of the Sierras, Gavin Newsom is gearing up for a presidential run — a move he’s been rehearsing since succeeding Jerry Brown as California governor in 2019.

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LA Failures Are Killing Its Tourism Industry

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For much of the past century, Los Angeles has been a magnet for migrants seeking a better life and tourists eager to see Hollywood up close. Yet the picture now looks very different. Since the pandemic, record numbers of residents have moved either to elsewhere in California or to the Sun Belt states. Read more

Gavin Newsom Trashed California. Worse, He’s Getting Away With It.

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For the past half century, California has been the driving force in American technology, culture and political development. After all, it was Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan who led the last great resurgence on the Right from the state, and Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown who largely created the green-oriented, high-tech progressive underpinnings of the Clinton and Obama regimes, even if he never reached the presidency himself. Read more

Why is California Losing Good Jobs to Other States? It’s Not Rocket Science

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For a century, it worked, and brilliantly. The “California model” rested on massive investments in higher education, development of industrial zones in places such as the South Bay and Silicon Valley, and persistent upgrading of basic infrastructure.

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The $130 Billion Train That Couldn’t

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In the annals of stupid and poorly run schemes, the California High-Speed Rail project ranks among the worst. Its future, even a dramatically scaled down one, has become ever more precarious since the Trump administration’s Department of Transportation rescinded $4 billion in funds already granted the project.

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ICE Backlash is Pushing LA Towards New York Style Chaos

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Los Angeles politicians have long dreamt of their city overtaking New York as North America’s dominant economic centre. Yet if LA is now becoming more like New York, it is for entirely the wrong reasons.

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Donald Trump is Saving California from Itself

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Gavin Newsom has changed direction once again. After a brief feint as a Maga-whispering moderate, California’s governor has “woken up” in the wake of the LA immigration riots to become the self-anointed leader of the anti-Trump #Resistance.

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Inside America’s Right-Wing Tech Armory

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At first glance, it doesn’t feel like the future will be made in El Segundo. A small city of 17,000, just south of Los Angeles International Airport, it’s the sort of place you glance at from your taxi as it whisks you on from arrivals to somewhere more exciting. Read more

Los Angeles Has Fallen

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Los Angeles is burning again, and it is not the Olympic flame. After riots in 1965, 1992 and 2020, Angelenos are bearing witness once more to a rash of violent unrest. Read more

Class Warfare LA Style

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The most recent Los Angeles riots reflect, among other things, the response of immigrant activists to President Trump’s crackdown, and the latest resurgence of organized left-wing activism, which had been relatively quiet in the early months of the new administration. A less widely remarked factor, however, is the emerging and complex nature of class in contemporary America.

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