California Is Not A Democracy
It's a one-party state. They hold elections, but the Party always wins.
California is not a democracy. It’s a one-party state.
Because California Democrats do not hold competitive multiparty elections. No matter how the people vote, a Democrat always wins. The real election is thus actually a selection, where candidates are chosen1 before the primary in a smoke-filled room by the Party. And around the time one-party control was consolidated in the early 2010s, governance started to dramatically worsen, and California's growth rate suddenly leveled off:
Now more than one million citizens have fled2 the once-Golden state for other locales, voting with their feet because they’ve been stripped of the ability to substantively vote with their ballot.
ONE PARTY "DEMOCRACY"
California illustrates the gap between deed and word. Consider that Democrats managed to (a) build a one-party state that (b) a million people fled while (c) holding faux “elections” that a Party member always won whilst also (d) endlessly proclaiming their regime democratic!
This unmistakably resembles China. They've also (a) built a one-party state which (b) millions of people fled that (c) holds faux “elections" where a Communist Party member always wins while (d) endlessly proclaiming their regime democratic.34
There are other similarities, too.
Democrats5 ruthlessly censor internet speech, just like Communists.6 Democrats7 use the state as a battering ram against tech companies, just like Communists.8 Democrats9 tax citizens and hand the resulting funds to Party affiliates, just like10 Communists. Democrats11 encourage loyalists to move to contested territories to strengthen political control, just like12 Communists. Democrats13 funded gain-of function research, just like Communists. And most ominously, Democrats14 are now persecuting their political opponents15 on trumped up charges — just like16 Communists.
This is no small thing. When Communists talk about "communism", what they mean is rule by the Communist Party. And when Democrats talk about “democracy”, what they mean is rule by the Democrat Party. California is their desired end state — where blues never lose.
Now, let’s handle the objections.
FOR CHOICE...BUT AGAINST DEMOCRATIC CHOICE
The first objection is that Republicans do it too. Look at all the red trifectas, as per this quoted tweet!17 But this argument fails on three counts.
First, when Republicans overturned Roe, Democrats affirmed reproductive choice at the state level.18 They didn’t just copy Republicans — they did something different. So if Democrats actually believed in democratic choice, they would affirm competitive multiparty elections in their states even if Republicans pursued the opposite policy. They aren’t doing that. Which means Democrats genuinely believe in reproductive choice, but not democratic choice.
Second, Democrat control of blue states is much stronger than Republican control of red states. For example, even within a “Republican stronghold” like Texas, Austin is a deep blue city. There is no equivalent of red cities within blue states.19 This alone means blues have significant political power within red territory, but not vice versa.
Third, Democrat control of national institutions — both elected and unelected — is overwhelming. As the graphs show, Democrats control academia20, media21, US government agencies22, and even 70%+ of GDP23. In the language of diversity, Republicans are vastly underrepresented. They’re not even close to 50/50.
So: Democrats have more control at the national level, more control within red states, and total control within their own blue states — yet have not used that control to restore democratic choice.
Actions speak louder than words.
NO COMPETITION = FAUX ELECTION
The second objection is that no really — Republicans do it too! They have one-party states, so Democrats are justified in having the same thing. You can’t expect Democrats to enable other parties to not just run, but win. That’s not in their political interest. And it’ll weaken the Democrat Party!
And now we get to the nub of the issue. Communists also have one-party states. Does it then follow that Democrats should have them too?
Because the whole theory of why democracy is supposed to be superior to communism is that it provides real alternatives, real feedback. Just like capitalism provides choice in the market, democracy provides choice in the electorate.24 So if you actually believed in democracy, you’d believe alternation of power strengthens society in a way one-party control never would. And you’d hold competitive multiparty elections even if the other guy didn’t, because it makes your society stronger.
This gives the game away. We know Democrats do not believe in democracy, because they’ve ended competitive multiparty elections in the states they control. Unless other parties are routinely taking political power, it is not a democracy.
VOTE BLUE, NO MATTER WHO
The last objection is around motive: ok, but why would Democrats destroy democracy?
It’s simple: once blues gain total control, they begin funneling tax dollars to Democrat affiliates. This is how you get a $100B train in California where no train is built but Democrat unions get paid25. And this is how the homeless industrial complex makes money26, by getting people addicted to drugs and then getting paid by the size of the problem:
This is also how BLM burned down black businesses while lining blue pockets27, and why student loan relief goes to Democrat voters28, and in general why so much public money produces so little today in the way of public goods29.
This, in short, is the blue business model. The purpose of the blue political machine is to fleece Americans while enriching Democrat loyalists.
However, they can only pull off this scam with total one-party control. Outside eyes would stop the gravy train. And that's how you get “vote blue, no matter who.”30
"Vote blue no matter who" came out of the mouths of Democratic presidential candidates31. It's a straightforward rejection of democracy as ideology in favor of Democrat tribalism. All that matters is that blue tribe gains power, so blues can get paid.
Of course, not all blues get paid! Only the connected ones do, political consultants and union bosses and key interest groups and the like. Many blues pull the lever without getting the cheddar. They fall for the marketing.
After all, remember how much blue people pretended to care about black people in 2020, and how little they spoke about them afterwards? “Democracy” serves a similar role for the Party in 2024. It's just a marketing slogan, and can be discarded like BLM once it’s no longer useful.
Look how they pumped and dumped Ibram Kendi32. After the election, the Party can easily flip from declaiming for democracy to decrying populism, as it has before.
THE FUTURE
In short, if Democrats actually believed in competitive multiparty elections, they'd pursue them regardless of what others did. All their rhetoric revolves around democracy as stated principle, but in blue states where they have total power they've ended it in practice. The obvious reason for this is graft and tribalism: vote blue, no matter who.
It is only a matter of time before Democrats scale what they've done in blue cities and states to the federal level. That's certainly the goal. And it returns us to the original question.
Given that blues now unapologetically reject competitive multiparty elections at the state level in favor of faux contests that their Party always wins...given that they've created electorally unaccountable governments that steal billions from their citizens...given that California and China have both built one-party states...what might the future of blue governance look like?
It sure ain't multiparty democracy.
What it looks like is an exercise for the reader.
Appendix: The Mechanics
Many Democrats believe that if their company is all white, they’re doing something wrong. But if their state is all blue, they’re doing something right. Even though the far left is also far white.33
Specifically, partisan blues are not working to address the erosion of democratic norms and checks-and-balances within Democrat-controlled states. They are unbothered about total one-party control in states they control, and certainly aren’t looking to see how gerrymandering, redistricting, and the like are stifling democratic voice.
Yet if they were looking…here are a few specific examples of how California Democrats changed the laws to keep themselves in power.
Redistricting: The California Citizens Redistricting Commission creates boundaries that favor Democrats. ProPublica actually called out the extent of their partisan redistricting.
Cracking and packing. Relatedly, here’s how gerrymandering works in practice in California. As CalMatters notes, “packing is concentrating blocs of voters to limit their power to as few districts as possible” and “cracking is spreading like-minded voters among several districts so that their influence is diluted.”
Migrants. This is a huge topic with much denial, but in 2013 Pew found that “among Latino immigrants who are not U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents (and therefore likely unauthorized immigrants), some 31% identify as Democrats and just 4% as Republicans.” So, California Democrats encouraged illegal migration with various programs for the “undocumented” as they have a +27 point advantage among this group. Some of those programs include AB60, Medi-Cal, and CalEITC:
These examples can be multiplied. Laws were changed to benefit Democrats. And taxpayer funds were appropriated from Americans to give to Democrat affiliates. The obvious point is to get money and win votes for Democrats. It’s the blue business model, the blue political machine.
In other words: one-party Democrat rule in California did not happen by accident. The Party acquired control, and used its political capital to gain more power and lock out the competition. Its actions reveal that the Party does not care about competitive multiparty elections — namely democracy. It cares about remaining in power.
For example, the Los Angeles DCP endorsement is a candidate interview prior to the primary. In a one-party Democrat state, this endorsement carries significant weight.
California's growth trajectory dramatically slows from 2013 projections. And from 2021: "In the last decade, 1.3 million more people left California than came in from other states. And, it’s accelerating. Half a million people have left for other states in the last two years alone."
Surprisingly, China actually holds elections. Yes, the Party always wins.
Remember, they call themselves the "People's Republic" of China. Two out of the three characters in PRC are devoted to extolling how democratic they are.
Here's the Atlantic saying "In the debate over freedom versus control of the global network, China was largely correct, and the U.S. was wrong."
Here's NYT saying "Free Speech is killing us". I don't think I really need a citation on China's internet censorship, but you can look up the Great Firewall.
Here's one of many articles on the Democrat anti-tech turn.
Here's the Communist techlash, best illustrated with the regime's attacks on Jack Ma.
Here's an excellent piece on how elected Democrats send taxpayer money to their nonprofit affiliates. Here's another from Pirate Wires on the same topic.
Do we need a piece on Communist graft in the PRC? Xi announced a crackdown on corruption (“Tigers and Flies”) that likely also ensnared many of his political enemies.
The Emerging Democrat Majority is the Judis/Texeira playbook for how Democrats could rely on immigration to flip states blue.
Communists use similar tactics: "Over the decades, Beijing has...attempted to transfer large number of Han Chinese people into Tibet".
On gain-of-function research, news keeps breaking on this topic, but suffice to say that science funding is largely run by Democrats and the Wuhan lab was certainly run by Communists.
Are Democrats persecuting their political opponents? Even NYMag admits they are.
There's now a long list of Republicans being prosecuted. One interpretation is that they actually committed a crime. Another interpretation is that they committed the crime of being Republican.
Do Communists persecute their political opponents? Well, you wouldn't want to be Bo Xilai or Hu Jintao.
Nothing against Mr Bump. But his tweet implies that Republican trifectas (where Republicans control governor/house/senate at state level) are justification for why Democrats should enjoy decades of one party control in blue states.
However, if you listed Republican states where reproductive choice had been abrogated, that wouldn't justify symmetrical Democrat abrogation of reproductive choice.
By analogy, given that Democrats campaign on democracy, and claim to believe in it as a core principle that differentiates them from Republicans, you'd expect them to pursue a different policy. But they aren't.
Many blue states passed laws affirming reproductive choice after Roe was overturned.
Bryan Caplan discussed the dearth of red cities in blue states here. And you can see the list of party affiliations of city mayors here. You can calculate the stats, but in general, there are many more blue cities in red states than vice versa.
70%+ of GDP is blue too.
The relationship between capitalism and democracy as economic choice + political choice is a common topic. I should find the canonical scholarly citation, but here's a recent article.
California HSR is $100B. As of mid-2022, it hadn't laid a single mile of track. But it achieved the desired effect of paying off Democrat-affiliated unions. As the LA Times wrote:
"Unions are the powerhouse behind California’s troubled bullet train...organized labor supports the massive $100-billion project and wants lawmakers, rail board directors and other state officials to stick with it."
Here's the source of that graph showing homeless budget up and to the right alongside the homeless population. See also Pirate Wires and American Affairs on the nonprofit industrial complex.
BLM burned down black businesses, while the BLM foundation bought $6M mansions with donated funds.
Because student loan forgiveness disproportionately benefits Democrat voters, Republicans have called it a political bribe.
Again, that American Affairs is quite good as a tour d'horizon of where the public money goes. The short answer is that a lot goes to nonprofits, which produce nonresults.
Here's Edsall in NYT acknowledging that "vote blue no matter who" is a popular slogan and strategy, even as he questions its longevity.
Here's Kendi getting dumped in 2024, now that he's not useful to the Party. As much as I disagree with him ideologically, on some level I feel bad for Kendi. He was just used and abused by the Party.
As Jonathan Haidt showed years ago, the farthest left groups within the US (“Progressive Activists”) are significantly whiter than the population at large.
The state government of Florida has been controlled by Republicans exclusively for decades. You can point at blue cities all you want - they are increasingly powerless in this state.
In the past few years, the red legislature banned those cities from creating their own laws regarding rent control. They banned them from implementing mandatory safety breaks for workers in the summer heat. Hell, they even just prevented these cities from posting any Pride lighting displays on bridges. Why is their freedom of speech being denied them? Ironically, it is all done in the name of “Freedom Summer.”
Governor DeSantis has suspended multiple elected officials of their positions (Monique Worrell and Andrew Warren) simply because he disliked their views and the way they chose to carry out their duties. He dislikes the fact that places like New College might teach things that contradict his narratives, so he guts their boards, replaces them with people he owes political favors to, and re-allocates their funding to his donor base.
He attempted the same thing against Disney, one of the largest job centers in the state. Wielding the state’s power against them and creating a board of unelected officials that he owed political favors to. Yet because they’re not a precious tech company, you’re more than willing to overlook those particular transgressions, even though it’s exactly what you claim to hate when done on other locales.
People like you and Elon Musk can’t stand that California and the DoJ/FTC are cracking down on the tech monopoly’s iron hold over people’s lives and minds. The same monopoly that has made you rich beyond all imagination. So you present biased views against the people you dislike, give only cursory lip service to places like Florida and Texas, and act like this is a balanced view. It is not.
There is no doubt that there are things Governors like Newsom and recently Hochul are doing that are expressly against people's interests. They do these things because they are beholden to their political donors. Just like the Republican party (DeSantis, Abbott, Trump) is beholden to theirs. They also act in direct conflict with people's interests. That's the real problem here. Rich people like you buying political favor through the form of donations and SuperPACs from whichever side is more conveniently aligned. Certain elements of the left have figured out the damage being done by certain areas of tech, they are cracking down, and the people in tech don't like it. So they speak out and write biased, intentionally misleading articles like this one.
Dude, I was such a huge fan of yours after hearing your interviews with Tim. But (and I say this as a fan) you have gone off the deep end. If you had attacked gerrymandering and political engineering in general I would march into battle with you arm-in-arm. Instead you succumbed to your bias, cherry picking facts (and a little bit of fantasy) to write an unhinged, slanted political rant. My city is one of those blue cities in a red state you referenced allowing "blues (to) have significant political power within red territory, but not vice versa". After we elected a Democrat to congress, our state legislature promptly gerrymandered the district and ensured a republican won the next election (bestowing us with spectacle of Nancy Mace). Where is your rage? I'm not enthrall with either party, I want real competition at the ballot box every time I vote. You had the opportunity to use your considerable intellect and influence to take on the real problem. Instead you squandered your shot and influence with a political hatchet job.