California now criticized by the left – Orange County Register

[ad_1]

California being what it is a very large state with a complex social and economic matrix and a unique political structure generates an endless stream of analysis and criticism.

Over the past several decades, as California veered politically to the left, it has garnered the attention of like-minded media, portraying the state as a harbinger of the nation’s future.

California politicians such as Gov. Gavin Newsom have fueled the notion. California is what America will be like, he boasted. California is the American attraction.

Understandably, applause from the media left generated backlash from those on the right, who described California as a miserable and failing dystopia whose policies, if implemented nationally, would destroy the nation. ‘America.

This year, however, the left-right media wrestling over California has taken a new turn with harsh criticism from experts and publications ideologically tuned in to the deep blue states’ politics.

New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, a Californian by birth and choice, set the tone in February with an article that cataloged the many social and economic disparities between states.

It is a remarkable place where the problems of tomorrow and the solutions of tomorrow compete for primacy, Klein wrote. California is the engine of technology, culture and ideas that shape the entire world. But for this very reason, our governance failures worry me.

While California claims to seek progressive goals, it has failed to match its words with effective action, Klein concluded.

California, as the largest state in the country and where Democrats fully control government, carries a particular burden, he wrote. If progressivism can’t work here, why should the country believe it can work anywhere else?

The Atlantic, a magazine usually filled with pro-progressive and anti-conservative articles, has joined the chorus of California leftist critics.

A recent article by Caitlin Flanagan castigates the University of California for dropping standardized testing as an entry factor in the name of racial fairness.

It’s a move so widely hailed by administrators and faculty that you know someone who gets pushed around, writes Flanagan, and in this case the marks are the low-income black and Latino students of the states, those same as the new policy is supposed to help.

The action, she argues, only covers the shocking failures of California’s public education system, which she describes as state-sponsored discrimination that has deprived 13-year-old students and given them little in the way. return.

California-based Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf offers a broader and even harsher critique of the state in an article titled The California Dream is Dying.

Despite the many attributes of states, he writes, I fear for California’s future. The generations who have benefited from California’s dizzying rise to global notoriety, he says, should strive to ensure that future generations can seek happiness as they did. Instead, they’re ready to take the California dream to their graves by betraying a promise the state has offered all along.

As California publicly celebrates diversity and inclusion, Friedersdorf continues, state leaders and residents are closing the door on economic opportunity, citing a chronic housing shortage, high poverty, poor education services, homelessness and other factors that limit upward mobility.

Echoing Klein’s previous screed, Friedsdorf warns that the Blue Americas model faces its biggest stress test in one of its most secure states, where a spectacular streak of nearly uninterrupted prosperity could be killed by a stingy approach to opportunities.

While Newsom still sees California as an upcoming attraction for the Americas, it is shocking that writers who share his ideological orientation are joining those on the right in warning the nation against imitating the state.

CalMatters is a public service journalism company committed to explaining how the California State Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories from Dan Walters, visit calmatters.org/commentary

[ad_2]