Poor Gov. Jerry Brown. He apparently still thinks it’s the 1970s.
He’s been saying lately that California’s progressive legislation – environmentalism, greater rights for immigrants, wealth redistribution – is setting the trend for the entire nation. A template for all to follow.
“We can do a lot of things in California to shift the (political) climate throughout the whole country,” Brown was quoted as saying last week.
Sorry, Jerry, but you may be stuck in a time warp. America doesn’t work like that anymore.
Oh, sure, there was a time, a glorious era that lasted a few decades, when California was indeed the shining example for the whole country. The state’s terrific (and affordable!) university system and its environmental legislation – back when the whole country was desperate for a clean-up – were models for the country. Believe it or not, California’s roads and highways were once the envy of America.
But everything began changing about 30 or so years ago. A group of states began drifting left and another group took a step or two to the right. Steadily, over the years, these two groups marched further apart. Today, Brown may look behind him and see Massachusetts, Illinois and some other states following California’s lead. But he apparently hasn’t noticed that other parade, the one led by Texas.
Increasingly, each group is made up of True Believers. The California-led group thinks their opposites are mostly benighted rubes who have hateful tendencies. The Texas ilk thinks the California types have come untethered from reality and are pushing their group of states along a tragic trajectory. (None of this is meant to be a judgment, by the way. Just a statement of obvious fact.)
Go ahead. See what happens if you get these two groups together to decide any…well, I guess they do that. It’s called Washington.
The point: America really has become two warring camps, worse even than Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards. And Brown’s California is leading only one of them.
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