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Left-wing Civil War Threatens LA’s Future

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Nithya Raman’s come-from-behind victory represents a challenge from the Left to an LA establishment that also regards itself as progressive.

Such conflicts are becoming more common as coastal cities evolve into de facto one-party systems, split between establishment Democrats and a newer, generally younger cohort of socialists. Even moderate Democrats — and Republicans, including Spencer Pratt, whose much-hyped effort ultimately failed — are increasingly outliers in their own cities.

Raman, a council member representing a diverse district with a large middle-class electorate, could benefit from the shortcomings of her fellow progressives. Angelenos across political lines are increasingly frustrated with the condition of the city; public services are strained while concerns persist over crime and homelessness.

As one campaign adviser to Raman tells me, Mayor Karen Bass is not widely popular, with nearly two-thirds of Angelenos voting for other candidates. This allows Raman to position herself as a “change candidate” against Bass, who is more closely associated with the city’s status quo power structures, particularly municipal unions.

Raman’s most significant challenge is likely to come from those same unions, which dominate fundraising and ground operations in city politics. She also carries the baggage of her earlier progressive positions on policing, Israel, and particularly homelessness, which opponents may seek to use against her.

According to Tim Campbell, a longtime Angeleno and former government auditor, Raman’s record on homelessness is “worse than Bass — if that is possible”. She has opposed encampment clearing and has been accused of being linked to dodgy NGOs. “She’s incompetent and arrogant, which is a fatal combination,” he concludes.

To be sure, the progressive label may thrill Raman’s core supporters in LA’s version of New York’s “commie corridor” — progressive communities such as Echo Park, Silver Lake, parts of Hollywood, and less affluent areas of the Westside form her natural base. But it may not be the hipster Left that ultimately decides the race; instead, it could be Pratt voters — around 25% of the electorate — who prove pivotal.

Winning over voters who did not participate or who previously supported Pratt will be central to Raman’s prospects. However, the Pratt constituency, already suspicious of what it sees as machine influence over electoral processes, is unlikely to respond positively to her characterization of Pratt as a fascist. The prospect of an LA version of New York’s Zohran Mamdani may also sit uneasily with parts of the electorate, including segments of the city’s large Jewish community.

Raman, a close adviser suggests, can emphasize her efforts to rein in what she sees as excessive public-sector pay increases, as well as large allocations to projects such as the city’s Convention Center, which critics have long described as inefficient or wasteful. In this framing, her lack of backing from the unions and from the three other DSA members — widely seen as aligned with Bass and their union backers — on the council gives her room to present herself as a steward of a strained municipal budget. “The most important issue is the budget,” one of her top aides tells me. “If the focus is on competence, Karen becomes the defender of a failed status quo.”

Given the internecine nature of the race, much may come down to the ground game. Raman has built a strong grassroots organization and brings an energy that reflects her age and political style. Bass, while far from doddering, is 72 and appears to belong to an earlier political era.

All of this suggests that, even without the media-savvy Pratt in the race, Angelenos can expect plenty of fireworks in this Left versus Left contest. With relatively little disagreement on issues such as Trump and ICE, the candidates are likely to compete instead on personal attributes, which are always fertile ground for a hard-fought and often acrimonious campaign season.

“It’s going to be one of the ugliest campaigns ever,” says Dave Gershwin, a longtime city council aide and now a Democratic political consultant. “It’s Karen’s race to lose but Raman is not to be underestimated.”

This piece first appeared at UnHerd.

Joel in the Media

 

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: Nithya Raman, via Wikimedia in public domain composite with Los Angeles skyline.

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.

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

Tech Bros Are Getting What They Deserve

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California’s tech oligarchs are portraying themselves as victims, as the left clamors to tax their wealth away.

Perhaps they should take some responsibility.

Once widely admired as feisty disrupters, these super-rich moguls now define the establishment in California, a state with more billionaires than any other. And it is an establishment under threat. 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

The Roots of Recession

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A review of Recession: The Real Reasons Economies Shrink and What to Do About It by Tyler Goodspeed, 320 pages, Basic Venture (March 2026).

As we may be heading that way, now seems the perfect time to consider what creates a recession. In his new book, Recession, economist Tyler Goodspeed dispels many of the more mechanical notions, such as the idea that there is a causal tie between expansions and downturns, embracing instead the view that most recessions are caused by sudden shocks to the system. 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

The Italian Dilemma

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Italy is by far my favorite European country, but what appeals to a visitor — the great museums, archeological sites and superb  food— may not provide a sustainable road to a prosperous future.

Tourism injects money into an economy, and produces some mostly moderate to low end jobs. But it cannot be the basis of a successful economy, particularly for the next generation. It’s youth unemployment rate is among the EU’s highest and approaching three times that of the US. Italy also has the highest percentage of people under the age of 30 as any major European country.

As is generally the case in Europe, as well as the UK, there is no clear path for  recovering economic dynamism that started to fade in the 1980s.  Western Europe’s GDP per capita is about $63,000 per year, adjusted for the cost of living. In the United States, it is $86,000. Italy’s is $40,000.

The problem, Veronica de Romanis, a leading Italian policy analyst and author of the recently released L’Economia de Paura, or economy of fear, lies in a kind of lazy welfare state regime   fundamentally opposed, left and right, to any meaningful change. “Italy is going backwards but Italians don’t see it,” she told me last month in Rome. She sees Italy as dominated by narrow “tribes” who protect their niches from competition.

Italy is also plagued by the lowest birth rates of any major EU country. Yet it may have   a weapon that could prove useful in the post-AI era— it’s traditions of artisanship. You see this  in food, fashion, urban design and art. But Italy is rich in creative talent, but lacks ways to exploit it. The low youth employment and high rate of   disengagement , despite an extreme slow rate of labor force expansion, is a natural reflection of this fact.

Another aspect on this dilemma is what Italians seem to prioritize. Americans tend to be instinctively mercenary, but in Italy the priority tends to be la dolce vita, a way of life that is far more relaxed and frankly more human-focused than most EU countries.

So, is there nothing to learn from Italy? In the work I am conducting with Professor Irene Lottini from the University of Iowa, we are examining Italy’s artisan economy. This includes interviews with firms in fields as diverse as furniture making, textiles, food, jewelry and stone masonry. Together these firms possess  a store house of talent that is worth Italy’s nurturing, and also our emulation.

As more of the information and high-end services sector face digitization, artisanal skills and the arts remain one area that the nerds cannot totally control. Tactile experience, as I wrote about for National Review, is in great demand, as we can see by the massive expansion of farmer’s markets and the growth of artisan industry even in the US.

As artificial intelligence entrepreneur Rony Abovitz told me, tasks that require physical skills like plumbers, carpenters, and custom design. These trades are growing rapidly while the computer-centric field has retreated to 2017 levels, notes economist Gad Levanon . Increasingly skilled workers are doing better than products of the diploma mills.

But it’s not just about economics. Italians may suffer from a stagnant economy but they also enjoy healthier food, notably less ultra-processed ones, with much production coming from local, small farms. Italians tend to live  longer, despite having less money, than Americans or Germany.

Can we find a middle ground between genteel decline and the kind of high-tech nihilism common among top  American tech entrepreneurs, who tend to promise us a dark future dominated by computerization and scientific hierarchy?

These are among the questions Professor Lottini and I are exploring for the Italian Institute and the Center for Demographics and Policy, both at Chapman University. Interested in your ideas on this subject as well. Please feel free to comment to my Substack.

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 photo: Cinqueterre, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, by Ian MacKay.

Thoughts On a Roman Legacy

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Ever since I was in high school, Rome has fascinated me. I studied Latin for six years, including two in college, and have kept my interest for the next fifty years.

In the past three years I also have spent considerable time in the Eternal City, and its history provides lessons, both positive and negative, particularly for a citizen of what is essentially the world’s pre-eminent empire, the United States. Read more

When the AI Revolution is Over, Trades May Be the Only Jobs Left

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The biggest long-range danger looming over the remaining liberal democracies does not come from U.S. President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin or the nutty mullahs in Iran now being pummelled. Instead, it comes from the seemingly inexorable force of technology that increasingly threatens not just to aid humanity, but replace it.
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