Roughly 5 million people left California in the last decade. See where they went.
This is fascinating on a number of levels.
First, and foremost, is how many people have fled the People’s Republic, and how much income they took with them. Those of us behind enemy lines know only too well why they left. The joke among conservatives here is that there should be a sign at the stateline informing those entering California that they are now leaving the American sector.
But second is support for my longheld (and oft-repeated) contention that (even now) a substantial proportion of California liberals are in fact transplants from the Northeast and Illinois (rather than natives from back when) looking for a new host.
Too late, comrades, the first N waves of liberals from those states have already pretty much wrecked the state already. You’ll have to work your magic on some other, as yet untrashed state, but the number of candidates is dwindling. The vexing thing is that states once infected with liberalism never seem to recover and return to sanity, even after the disease vectors move on to a new victim.
Six years ago, I left California, first for Texas, then to Massachusetts. I’m planning to return ASAP: to Texas.
What the Sacbee doesn’t want to tell you is that there are many like me who didn’t bring liberal ideas away with them. We left to escape the pathetic job market, the relentless tide of illegals — and subsequent elevation of them to Special Snowflake status — the high costs, crippling taxation and a truly reprehensible state government (see: Brown, Moonbeam).
If ever Paradise on Earth has been destroyed by the Democrat party, it is in California. It has taken a long time, stretching back to tenure of the current Governor’s Daddy, Edmund “Pat” Brown. Reagan was an aberration, BTW.
I would love to go back for a long weekend some day. The climate is exquisite, and the scenery — where it hasn’t been paved over — is as beautiful as you’ll find in any of the other 49. Man has destroyed it. Democrat man.
Oh, and I must reply to one of JG’s contentions. It was not out-of-staters who destroyed California. It was natives. The state is riddled with long-running political dynasties who did just fine all on their own. Add a few Eastern liberals and a whole boatload of illegals from South of the Border (yes, “Down Mexico Way”) and the result is, clearly, chaos, bankruptcy and misery.
Sorry, gotta disagree. California used to be conservative, much like AZ or UT is now. It was, after all, the state that elected Reagan governor – twice, and used to be generally conservative in Presidential elections.
And it wasn’t just “a few” Eastern liberals – it was a boatload of them. As a personal anecdote, I was at a business lunch here recently with eight people, of which I was the only Californian. That is typical, in fact, of any number of social occasions, where a common icebreaker is asking someone when they moved here.
The Mexican invasion has only really picked up speed as the state has moved further left, so it is a consequence of liberalism, not a cause of it. Forty years ago there were illegal aliens, but nothing like this.
And I’m not clear on what dynasties you’re referring to. The only one of recent history would be Pat and Jerry Brown.
The very same problem that is currently affecting, e.g., Colorado – the ingress of liberals from elsewhere – is exactly what brought down California.
Hell, as the map shows, they’re still moving here now.
Pat Brown actually was a good governor – nothing like his spawn. Pat oversaw the building of a lot of freeway and irrigation infrastructure, and generally good government that laid the foundation for California’s explosive economic development. California ranked as one of the best states in educational results then, too, again under his aegis. I’d be thrilled if he were governor today, but he was much too conservative.
Jerry, OTOH, is totally different. As one of his first official acts on becoming governor, he scotched the master plan for construction of irrigation infrastructure. His thing is “smaller is better,” and it has caused a lot of problems.
Even with the liberal infestation, there have been other Republican governors. George Deukmejian (1983-1991) followed Jerry Brown, and Pete Wilson (1991-1999) followed him. So from 1967-1999 California had three Republican governors, plus Moonbeam. Even Pat Brown (a kind of Scoop Jackson Democrat) would be a Republican today.
No, it’s the accelerating pace of Northeastern liberals moving here who’ve ruined the state. Trust me – it’s totally different now than it was 40 years ago.
Re natives, I should also point out that until relatively recently, it was rare to encounter a California native. It was like coming across a native in Wyoming now.
Lived in Cali from ’71 to ’89. It was a beautiful place and a beautiful time. Went back to see friends for the first time in 20 years last year. Hardly recognized my old stomping grounds. Everything was very expensive, it wasn’t as clean as I remembered, and the roads were horrible.
To my point about the change in political climate here:
I just looked it up: during the 20th century, Pat Brown was only the second Democrat to be elected governor (and Moonbeam the third).
In fact, for the period 1900-1999 there were three Democrat governors – and fourteen Republicans.
Similarly, in the last 10 Presidential elections, California went R every time from 1976-1988, and Democrat every time from 1992-2012.
Florida is in many ways a similar story to California, but a relative latecomer to the Leftward shift (evidenced by voting for Obama twice). During the late 70s through the present, internal immigrants from New York, Ohio, Illinois, and other blue states have been swamping the state and bringing their bad ideas with them.
My parents left Tennessee for FL in the 70s and observed the strange phenomenon on their own. New Yorkers would move to FL for lower property taxes, then start whining about all of the “free” things they didn’t get. Then they’d get elected, promise “free” things, and taxes would go up.
Fast forward a few decades and you’ve got New Jersey costs of living combined with Alabama wages, almost much of the state’s economy revolves around continually selling more “cheap” (read as, unaffordable to locals who work for a living) houses to displaced Northerners. Or bilking tourists. The jobs that are available are all low-paying service and construction jobs, and construction never really came back after the housing bubble.
It became completely unlivable, so I told them that they could go to hell and I would go to Texas. To hell with that shit. Of course, now that I’m a Texan, I get to look at all the Californians coming in to do the exact same thing that the New Yorkers did to FL.
This is why Texas needs a fence that goes all the way around. The locusts from CA will destroy it. The locals in TX, if they knew what was good for them, would make it really unpleasant for CA transplants.