If you listen to The Other Podcast (every Saturday night at 7 p.m. ET), you have come to know and love the voice and laughter of the lovely Dianna Deeley. She’s a native Californian who worked for years in San Francisco, but now lives in Valdosta, Georgia. My other podcast partner, John Hoge, is a native Tennessean, but for years he also lived in California. So whenever the subject of California comes up on the podcast, I have to sit there and shut up while these two bemoan the tarnished condition of the erstwhile Golden State. John frequently congratulates himself on getting out early — before the L.A. riots — while Dianna gloats of her good fortune in selling a home for hyperinflated Bay-Area prices which gave her enough money to buy a historic Victorian home beneath live oaks draped in Spanish moss at the intersection of Toombs and Gordon.
The tide of refugees from California has increased steadily over the past decade, to such an extent that after the latest census, the state will lose a seat in Congress for the first time in history:
Slow-growing California is losing a House seat for the first time, setting off an unprecedented political reshuffle that will ripple through every level of government.
California’s elected officials and prospective challengers have spent months in a campaign holding pattern, waiting to see how U.S. Census Bureau data would reshape the state legislature and congressional seats. The announcement Monday was expected after trickling growth in a state with a severe housing shortage and high costs. . . .
While California remains America’s most populous state, its growth has steadily slowed as more people move elsewhere. One critical factor is the high cost of living — particularly exorbitant housing costs, which adults consistently cite as a major problem. Many Californians have shifted to lower-cost areas within the state, but some have chosen to depart: a third of adults told a recent Public Policy Institute of California that housing costs had prompted them to consider relocating beyond state borders.
“It’s largely a story of domestic outmigration, with some slight decline in immigration as well,” said PPIC Senior Fellow Eric McGhee. . . .
The state has undergone dramatic demographic change in recent decades. The shares of Latino and Asian American residents have grown as its white population has declined, reshaping the electorate and yielding an evermore diverse body of elected officials.
When Tucker Carlson talks about “replacement,” every liberal jumps up and starts screaming about a white supremacist conspiracy theory. But in California, “replacement” is not a theory, it’s a fact. Southern California is now just the northernmost province of Latin America. Only 14% of students in L.A. public schools are white. Sixty-six percent are Hispanic. To the south, in Orange County — which 40 years ago was the setting for Fast Times at Ridgemont High — half the public-school students are Hispanic and just 25% are white. There is no future for white people in California. They are persona non grata — an unwelcome presence in a state steadily taken over by Mexicans.
Every analysis of California’s demography always cites the high cost of housing as the reason Americans are leaving the state, but they never explain why high housing costs don’t discourage Mexicans from moving into California. About 10 years ago, I visited California a couple of times and resident explained what’s really happening. You see, Mexicans have no problem with moving eight, 10 or 12 people into a suburban three-bedroom, two-bath home. This isn’t “overcrowding” compared to what they left behind south of the border, so the Mexican immigrant can rent a 3BR/2BA house, then sublease space to another half-dozen Mexicans, and that explains something else you’d notice if you spent as much time as I do watching YouTube video of police chases. Every time TV choppers cover these pursuits in Southern California, you’ll notice that the streets in every neighborhood are lined with cars. Why is this? Don’t these houses have garages and driveways? Oh, wait a minute . . .
The garage has been converted to a fourth bedroom (rented out to three Mexicans) and there are six, eight or 10 adults living in that house, which means a lot more cars than you could park in a driveway. This phenomenon has a lot to do with the high cost of housing that Californians keep complaining about, but in a state that’s legalized marijuana, ceased to treat theft as a felony, and turns loose thousands of convicted criminals with barely the proverbial “slap on the wrist,” do you really expect them to enforce zoning laws? Sure, that 3BR/2BA ranch house is zoned as a single-family home, but if a dozen Mexicans want to move in, who’s going to stop them? George Gascón?
The impact of mass Mexican immigration on the housing market in California is not something media or politicians want to talk about, because it’s racist to talk about such things. Even conservatives hesitate to be specific about what has happened to California. Instead, you have a lot of white people speaking in euphemisms, the way they do, about their desire to live in “good neighborhoods” with “good schools,” the word good serving as a synonym for “mostly white.” But in a state rapidly filling up with Mexicans, such schools and neighborhoods are increasingly rare, and increasingly expensive.
Honestly, I’ve thought of becoming sort of a redneck version of Robin DiAngelo, writing a book called, You’re Racist, and That’s OK. Because once you strip away all that “critical theory” nonsense, there really is a point to be made that most people (including black and brown people) are more racist than they’d care to admit. Ethnic chauvinism is sort of wired into our DNA and affects our beliefs and behaviors in ways that may be uncomfortable to acknowledge. Have you ever wondered why, for example, certain European brands are associated with luxury? Like, the NFL first-round pick is not going to spend his signing bonus on an American car, nor is he going to buy a Toyota. Instead, he’s going to plunk down $100,000 for a Maserati or $200,000 for a Bentley.
Why do European products enjoy such prestige? Racism.
While you’re chewing on that idea, I’ll return to the discussion of California, a state run by Democrats who don’t want to admit they’re racist. There was an interesting article in 2019 with the headline, “SoCal’s Latino Kids Are Going To School With Fewer And Fewer White Kids.” If the goal of public education policy is racial integration (or “diversity,” as it is now more commonly called), a shortage of white children to participate in your social-engineering project is a policy problem.
It was Saul Alinsky, of all people, who observed that “integration” describes the time between when the first black family moves into a neighborhood and the last white family moves out. There was more truth in that observation than most Americans would like to admit, and you don’t need to use “critical theory” to see how Alinsky’s observation applies to the current situation in California. Many millions of Mexican immigrants have moved into California over the past three or four decades, and millions of white people have moved out.
Achieving racial “diversity” requires that white people cooperate with the progressive social-engineering agenda, and all you have to do is check the rental prices for U-Haul trucks to see that, in California, white people have “voted with their feet,” fleeing this lab experiment.
What has happened to California is not to be blamed on Mexicans, but rather on the white political leaders who supported the open-borders policy (including “sanctuary city” laws) that led to this demographic transformation. Even if the federal government were run by people who wanted to enforce our immigration laws, the politicians in California have done everything possible to hinder enforcement. It evidently never occurred to California’s leaders that the number of white people leaving their state might exceed the arrival of Mexican replacements to such an extend that the state would lose a seat in Congress. Oops.
In fact, if it had not been for the continuing influx of immigrants, California would have lost two seats in Congress. To put it bluntly, foreigners want to live in California; Americans do not.
When Ben Shapiro (born in Burbank) announced he was moving to Tennessee, I repeated what I’d first wrote in 2009, comparing California to the kleptocratic regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe:
The thievish, parasitical mentality of liberals, who view taxpayers only a source of plunder, eventually runs head-on into economic reality. Capital is portable, and predatory governments will eventually cause disinvestment, as investors seek opportunities elsewhere. As investment flees, private-sector employment stagnates and declines, and smart young people leave to find someplace where they have a chance to get ahead.
Once this trend reaches a tipping point — and Jerry Brown’s return to the governorship in 2011 seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back in California — the collapse accelerates.
The collapse of California is now irreversible, and policy makers must contemplate what this means for America’s future. But such contemplation is above my pay-grade, as I am a mere journalist, so I have the luxury of not thinking about the omens of looming catastrophe. Instead, I’ll be sitting quietly tonight while John Hoge and Dianna Deeley tell their California stories on The Other Podcast. Be sure to tune in.
