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California Is Ripe for a Trump-Style Upset

California is dying.

We are currently being crushed under the weight of a nearly unbearable bureaucracy. It’s hard to even properly express to outsiders the level of insanity our policies have reached. It sounds unbelievable to almost everyone who is living in normal America. Lots of Americans joke about the Left Coast and it isn’t uncommon to hear people insulting our electorate for their self-punishing liberal bent; but when you actually break down the nuts and bolts of our policy situation for them, their ridicule often turns to horrified awe. It isn’t until you actually hear some of these things out loud that you realize just how dire the situation here has become.

Violent students can no longer be suspended from schools. Illegal immigrants now receive free healthcare, driver’s licenses, and free college. Criminals can steal up to $950 per day without arrest or receiving felony charges, so the addicts living on the streets steal to support their habits (and believe me, they know their rights), get their free needles at the needle exchange, pass out in streets in their own bodily fluids and wake up the next day to do it all over again. Police are not allowed to move tents off streets or even touch the belongings of a homeless person who may be blocking the entrance of a business or home.

A grossly inappropriate LGBT sexual education curriculum that includes lessons on things like anal fisting and masturbation (these are considered “safe sex” practices) has been forced on shocked parents and teachers.

A gas tax that was passed in the dead of night was hotly protested by millions of California. When we got enough signatures to get it on the ballot for a vote, the legislature held an emergency vote to change the rules for ballot signatures. When we contested that and won, they changed the language on the voter guide to purposefully mislead voters. The tax was “passed” by voters who didn’t understand their “no” was actually a “yes”.

Workers may no longer decide for themselves if they’d rather be independent contractors or employees. Plastic bags – banned. Plastic straws – banned. Short term lending – effectively banned. Water – almost banned…residents will be limited to usage that amounts to a load of laundry and one 8-minute shower per day.

The list goes on and on. It’s too soon for any solid data yet but, anecdotally speaking, the disastrous AB5 – which murders the gig economy – seems to have been the final (biodegradable) straw for a lot of people. The number of residents I’ve seen making plans to move out of the state over the last 3 weeks has been staggering. Those who are staying are beginning to take a good, hard look at what their legislators have been doing while they’ve been numbly plodding along, naively thinking their politicians only had their best interests at heart.

The electorate is exhausted. With AB5 and a new bill that promises to overturn the property tax limitations Californians voted in decades ago to protect themselves from an out of control bureaucracy, no one is quite sure which way turn or which flank to defend. Everywhere I go in this state, someone is complaining about the government and 9 times out of 10 there is not a whisper of ideology in their complaints. Outsiders are fond of blaming liberals here for their own stupidity, but at this point, we can’t even be sure their votes are being counted anymore. Between ballot harvesting and outright fraud, there is a good chance we no longer have any semblance of legitimate elections.

The CAGOP is an absolute mess. A sh**show of the highest order. They are feckless, useless fundraisers and nothing more. Californians of all political stripes find themselves looking for alternatives but the state GOP has nothing to offer. Worse yet, they actually seem proud of that.

The conventional wisdom is that the GOP needs to run centrist candidates to win…but that’s silly. They’re practically running a liberal platform already. If the choice is between a liberal Republican and a liberal Democrat, what liberal is going to vote for the Republican?

I don’t believe that this state is completely doomed just yet (although we are teetering on the edge). The current conditions here make this state ripe for a Trump-style candidate to sweep in, douse everything with overpriced gasoline and light a match.

What California needs right now is it’s very own #MAGA revolution… #MCGA? Doesn’t have the same ring, but you get it.

The conditions feel similar to 2016 – an electorate that is tired of voting for promises that only ever add up to more misery…a failing economy…an ever-growing group of people who are tired of engaging their representatives on issues important to them only to be summarily dismissed and ignored…an even faster-growing group of voters who are tired of being demeaned as racists and bigots every time they question a policy…an elitist political class who are so far removed from the people they serve they no longer have any connection to the average citizen…an anointed leader (Newsom) who looks good on paper but who has no real-world experience and no job experience.

A candidate as bold as Trump could come into this state and electrify those voters. It would rise far beyond party. As we now know, Trump won in counties and districts that had voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2012. His “I don’t give a fu**” machismo appealed to non-GOP voters who were over the status quo and looking for someone outside the typical political dynasties that Washington continually shoves down our throats.

Californians of all political stripes learned a valuable lesson from the gas tax debacle – the elites are not on their side and don’t seem to have any plans to be on their side any time soon. We may have a reputation for – to use a favorite MSM phrase – voting against our own self-interest, but things are different now. The streets are saturated in misery and human feces. Taxpayers are fleeing in droves. Small business is sinking under the burden of Sacramento’s tax fetish. Unions are so powerful that individual voices no longer matter in our electoral politics. We can’t even keep the electricity on.

We are a tinderbox in search of a match.

California needs someone with the bravado and arrogance of Trump…someone with enough life experience to understand what it means to earn a living but enough social credit to willfully ignore the haters. Our system is hopelessly corrupt, so we need someone from outside the system who doesn’t care about “conventional wisdom” when it comes to elections. We need someone who won’t be looking to make a career in politics but who will come in with a pair of scissors and a razor blade and just start slashing. We need someone who isn’t afraid to offend people and who will call out these worthless, bloviating California talking heads for what they really are to their faces.

I believe that person is out there somewhere and I truly believe that if we could get that person on the ballot we might see a shocking upset that could very well change our downward trajectory for decades to come.

 

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