You can't blame Republicans for California's woes, and Dems need to grapple with that. There's a faction that is: the Abundants. And they see state capacity as critical to a fresh approach.
Supportive of your “broken fuels extremism” statements: my major concern, relevant for this fall, is that when Democracy fails to deliver, it justifies to many a strangulation of Democracy.
I think with California you do have to reckon with how our budgeting process, with its capital-gains driven boom and bust, is distorted by the legacy of a period where Republicans had a _lot_ more influence. This does not in any way excuse Dems for the last 20-30 years of mistakes -- a smarter CA Democratic legislature would've avoided over-promising when things are flush, set up a huge "rainy day fund" etc. But I think it still is unfair to say Dems are entirely to blame for the situation.
I also find it simultaneously hilarious and depressing that there are Republican states now talking about adopting something like Prop 13. In one breath they'll criticize CA's failures, and then in the next advocate adopting the one policy _most_ responsible for its failures. What's the point of being a cautionary tale if nobody takes caution from it?!
I'm not going to claim that democrats aren't responsible in some regards, but more than any other thing prop 13 is the reason for the homelessness stemming from the 'locked in' property values, and the underfunding of education. What you'll find is most lawmakers in california are deep in real estate, and have no interest in devaluing their own property. Prop 13 isn't what I'd call a 'democrat' led initiative. Californians got sold a bill of goods, and they've been paying for it ever since.
Excellent article. I believe this analysis also applies more generally to other countries grappling with similar problems generating discontent. Out-dated, layered processes that actually impede progress and change - instead protect the status quo for 'some' ensuring their self imagined entitlement.
For example, the lack of housing is a global issue for all the same reasons ...
Okay. We need to find ways to demystify these 'laws of nature'. One way is by including a very basic visual process flow with the simplified steps of the process in question and where the friction is. It seems like the gov can't gov because the failure state is all that is visible in our discussions right now, including this one. Frustrated discussions about failure outcomes without a basic level of detail about the steps of the process leading to that outcome are dangerous, and maybe are a big part of the overwhelming sense that gov just sucks and can't do anything. It may also be why "neither the reporters nor those reported on seem capable of imagining a world in which we had the capacity to, say, process asylum cases in days or weeks instead of years, or spend more than 17% of the funding allocated in Biden’s signature policy wins." People often don't have a basic frame of reference for any given problem, and maybe we need to provide one whenever we discuss a problem. We need to habitually include more detail than "we fail at asylum cases=massive human suffering"- we need to show, here are the five steps of an asylum process and here are the most burdensome steps, talk about how other countries do this process in weeks. If we don't, then the solution is gonna become "outlaw all immigration, human suffering is bad but inevitable so people seeking asylum are bad".
Refreshing perspective, Jen! "Extremism is a reaction to brokenness" is spot on; more accurately it is a response to brokenness. Focusing on fixing this brokenness by building state capacity is a timely and necessary pivot from much of today's discussion. Though we may still disagree on policy and its ends -- the nature of a constitutional republic -- the means of delivering on what is promised goes to the core of effective trustworthy government. As you hinted at, the "abundance" metaphorical has it's drawbacks and so does the somewhat mentally tortured neologism "supply-side progressivism".
Supportive of your “broken fuels extremism” statements: my major concern, relevant for this fall, is that when Democracy fails to deliver, it justifies to many a strangulation of Democracy.
Build. Build. Build. Thank you for this terrific post.
I think with California you do have to reckon with how our budgeting process, with its capital-gains driven boom and bust, is distorted by the legacy of a period where Republicans had a _lot_ more influence. This does not in any way excuse Dems for the last 20-30 years of mistakes -- a smarter CA Democratic legislature would've avoided over-promising when things are flush, set up a huge "rainy day fund" etc. But I think it still is unfair to say Dems are entirely to blame for the situation.
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/zocalos-connecting-california/joe-mathews-california-recall-republicans-democrats
I also find it simultaneously hilarious and depressing that there are Republican states now talking about adopting something like Prop 13. In one breath they'll criticize CA's failures, and then in the next advocate adopting the one policy _most_ responsible for its failures. What's the point of being a cautionary tale if nobody takes caution from it?!
I'm not going to claim that democrats aren't responsible in some regards, but more than any other thing prop 13 is the reason for the homelessness stemming from the 'locked in' property values, and the underfunding of education. What you'll find is most lawmakers in california are deep in real estate, and have no interest in devaluing their own property. Prop 13 isn't what I'd call a 'democrat' led initiative. Californians got sold a bill of goods, and they've been paying for it ever since.
Excellent article. I believe this analysis also applies more generally to other countries grappling with similar problems generating discontent. Out-dated, layered processes that actually impede progress and change - instead protect the status quo for 'some' ensuring their self imagined entitlement.
For example, the lack of housing is a global issue for all the same reasons ...
Okay. We need to find ways to demystify these 'laws of nature'. One way is by including a very basic visual process flow with the simplified steps of the process in question and where the friction is. It seems like the gov can't gov because the failure state is all that is visible in our discussions right now, including this one. Frustrated discussions about failure outcomes without a basic level of detail about the steps of the process leading to that outcome are dangerous, and maybe are a big part of the overwhelming sense that gov just sucks and can't do anything. It may also be why "neither the reporters nor those reported on seem capable of imagining a world in which we had the capacity to, say, process asylum cases in days or weeks instead of years, or spend more than 17% of the funding allocated in Biden’s signature policy wins." People often don't have a basic frame of reference for any given problem, and maybe we need to provide one whenever we discuss a problem. We need to habitually include more detail than "we fail at asylum cases=massive human suffering"- we need to show, here are the five steps of an asylum process and here are the most burdensome steps, talk about how other countries do this process in weeks. If we don't, then the solution is gonna become "outlaw all immigration, human suffering is bad but inevitable so people seeking asylum are bad".
You might like this podcast exposing the housing shortage deception:
https://open.substack.com/pub/soberchristiangentlemanpodcast/p/s2-ep-45-the-housing-shortage-deception?r=31s3eo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Understand the electric vehicle scam in this podcast, it is about control:
https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/Ics7vQ0EXKb
Refreshing perspective, Jen! "Extremism is a reaction to brokenness" is spot on; more accurately it is a response to brokenness. Focusing on fixing this brokenness by building state capacity is a timely and necessary pivot from much of today's discussion. Though we may still disagree on policy and its ends -- the nature of a constitutional republic -- the means of delivering on what is promised goes to the core of effective trustworthy government. As you hinted at, the "abundance" metaphorical has it's drawbacks and so does the somewhat mentally tortured neologism "supply-side progressivism".