The golden city state
by digby
This LA Times op-ed by Harold Meyerson is a terrific insight on what makes California different than other places these days:
California’s transformation over the last 35 years is closer to that of America’s cities than it is to that of any other state. As Republicans have won statehouse after statehouse, Democrats have prevailed in most major cities. Today, a record number — 25 of the 30 largest U.S. cities — have Democratic mayors. In most major cities, even in conservative states, Democrats command so overwhelming a majority of elected offices that business interests that routinely support Republicans for state and federal office seek out more centrist Democrats to back in local elections.
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Two factors that should sound familiar in California have moved the cities leftward. The first is racial recomposition. Between 1980 and 2010, census data show the percentage of whites in New York City dropped from 53% to 37%; in Los Angeles, from 48% to 29%; in Houston, from 53% to 26%; in Phoenix, from 78% to 47%; in Columbus, Ohio, from 76% to 59%.The second is the emergence of new urban coalitions, with unions, immigrant rights groups, African American community organizations and environmental groups at their core, and bolstered by the growing support of white millennials.
The forces that underpin the progressive ascendancy in cities — unions, environmental and immigrant groups — play an outsized role in California. In most states, the political conflicts between business and labor are fought out between the two parties. In California, as in most large cities, they’re fought out in Democrat vs. Democrat elections.
In recent years, it is America’s cities that have taken the lead in enacting ordinances to raise the minimum wage, promote clean energy and protect undocumented immigrants from random deportations. With Washington encased in gridlock and most states controlled by Republicans, liberals look increasingly to cities as harbingers of the nation’s multiracial and (they hope) progressive future. And to California — the mega-state that, politically, is effectively a mega-city.
Fascinating, no? (more at the link.)
California and the liberal cities have a big problem on their hands though and it’s going to be interesting to see how they deal with it: police violence and a rise in crime rates. That’s always been a fault line in progressive politics and if Trump and the rests of his pack are any example we’re going to see a return to “law and order” rhetoric. (Hey, he’s already channeling Nixon saying “the silent majority is back!”)
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