A recent headline on the front page of the Los Angeles Times was a revelation for some folks.

“Half of U.S. says California declining, 30% of Democrats say ‘too liberal.’”

It wasn’t a revelation for me.

I have lived in California off and on for 19 years, beginning in the late 1970s. During those years, I have watched the so-called “Golden State” oxidize and corrode like fool’s gold as a result of invasive socialist policies inflicted on Californians by the state’s one-party monopoly rule.

For those who have been living under a rock for the past few decades, you should know that the Democrat Party exclusively runs California.

All statewide elected officials are Democrats, including both United States senators and the governor. No Republican has been elected statewide since 2006. Democrats also hold supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature and represent all but 7 of the state’s 53 congressional districts.

The result is a state in which Republicans now believe California is “no longer American” in its political policies and social values, according to the poll commissioned by the Times.

The facts speak for themselves. Democrat politicians in Sacramento essentially rule by fiat, with little or no challenges to their power.

Their one-party socialist policies have resulted in a troubling inventory of issues that are driving people out of the state. That list includes rising crime and radical prosecutors who allow criminals to run free, increasing homelessness, high taxes, the rising cost of living including housing, onerous government restrictions on businesses, the alarming decline in the quality of K-12 education, sweeping state-wide wokeness, and the incessant traffic gridlock in cities.

The result is a state whose population has declined by 500,000 in just the past two years and which has seen 8.5 million people exit since 2010 while only 6.3 million people have moved into California. This has resulted in a net loss of 2.2 million citizens during the last 10 years, according to the California Department of Finance.

Let’s take a look at what has happened in California since Democrats gained almost total control of the levers of power in the 1980s.

• The median price of a single-family home in California was $735,480 last month, according to the California Assn. of Realtors. That’s out of many people’s reach.
• California imposes by far the highest marginal state income tax rate in the country: 13.3%, and Democrat legislators are now seeking to raise that to nearly 17%. A person who makes $50,000 a year must pay $9,679 in state and federal taxes. A person who makes $100,000 a year must shell out $28,923.
• Businesses are moving out of California at an alarming rate. A 2022 report by the Hoover Institution shows 352 businesses leaving California and moving their headquarters to a different state between 2018 and 2022. High rent, high taxes, high employee living costs, and government red tape and regulations are just a few reasons cited.
• California’s schools—once the nation’s envy—are failing K-12 children. The percentage of California students meeting state math standards plummeted 7 percentage points to 33%, and the percentage meeting English language standards dropped 4 percentage points to 47% in 2023, according to California’s Education Department.
• Violent crime is on the rise. The state’s violent crime rate increased by 5.7% from 468 crimes per 100,000 in 2021 to 495 in 2022. The rates for robbery (theft with force) and aggravated assault increased by 9.9% and 5.2%, respectively.
• The state sales tax is already 7.250%, but with local taxes, the total sale tax rate is between 7.250 % and 10.750%. Plus, there is a 50-cent per gallon state gas tax.
• California has more than 175,000 homeless people, more than any other state. As a result, the state’s cities are filthy with human excrement, tents, and ubiquitous drug-addled junkies. San Francisco wins the award as “the doo-doo capital of the U.S.“
• Between 2020 and 2022, over 8700 wildfires burned almost 2 million hectares of land in California, making those two years the biggest wildfire season in California’s history. The reason: Pacific Gas & Electric’s poorly maintained infrastructure has sparked a number of large fires, and several blazes have spiraled out of control at homeless encampments.

This is the record California Gov. Gavin Newsom will bring to the table should he run for president if a brain-shattered and increasingly feeble Joe Biden were to drop out of the 2024 race.

It is a record of abject and colossal failure. No governor has done more to destroy the Golden State than Gavin Newsom—not even the four-term Democrat Governor Moonbeam, AKA Jerry Brown.

Of course, Newsom didn’t trash California by himself. He had plenty of help from his Democrat co-conspirators in Sacramento.

Nevertheless, if Gov. “Slick” Newsom ever makes it to the White House, every American should ask what many of us in La La Land will be asking:

“Will Newsom Californicate America?”

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