Not surprisingly, this year’s presidential campaign pitting Vice President Kamala Harris against former President Donald Trump includes a sharp conflict over whether California is a shining model of prosperity and inclusiveness to be emulated or a dystopian hellhole of crime, squalor and oppressive politics.
While deeply blue California has long been a rhetorical punching bag for Trump and other Republicans, it’s even more so this year because it’s Harris’ home state.
“We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California,” Trump trumpeted during a weekend rally in Coachella, referring to the state as “Paradise Lost.”
Trump ticked off the well-worn list of California’s supposed sins — its embrace of undocumented immigrants, its huge population of homeless people and its regulatory thicket that makes doing business difficult.
Trump was especially scornful of illegal immigration, an issue that resonates in other states. “Your children are in danger,” Trump told the rally. “You can’t go to school with these people; these people are from a different planet.”
In reality, Harris had almost nothing to do with any of those issues while holding office in California, or the others that Trump and other Republicans often cite, such as crime. Even though she was a local prosecutor before becoming attorney general in 2011, she shunned public involvement in the sharp battles over criminal justice reform a decade ago that fuel this year’s Proposition 36.
Nevertheless California’s size, uniqueness and global cultural impact make it a lightning rod for political, media and academic attention. In singling it out, Trump is hoping that it will help him with swing state voters who hold dark thoughts about California.
By default, Gov. Gavin Newsom, rather than Harris, is California’s defender when Trump issues his periodic denunciations — a bit ironic, given that Newsom is widely viewed in political circles as a Harris rival rather than an enthusiastic supporter. Indeed, if Newsom harbors presidential ambitions himself after his governorship ends two years hence — which he denies — they could only succeed if Trump defeats Harris this year.
During his Coachella rally, Trump referred to Newsom as “New-scum” and repeated his threat to deny firefighting aid if the state doesn’t side with farmers in the decades-long conflict over flows in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
A few days before the rally, Newsom predicted that Trump would tee off on California and to counter it repeated his own mantra about California having the world’s fifth-largest economy and more Fortune 500 companies than any other state.
The nation is politically polarized over seemingly countless issues and California’s image is obviously one of them, although the reality about the state is much more nuanced than the versions either its critics such as Trump or its advocates such as Newsom peddle to the public.
That’s particularly true about California’s economy.
Yes, California does have an economy equal to that of a major nation, and it is home to many Fortune 500 companies, as Newsom brags.
However, it also has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates, as well as its highest levels of poverty and homelessness, twin crises rooted in very high housing costs. Moreover, the California economy is growing slowly, has been losing population to other states and nearly six million students in its school system fare poorly vis-à-vis those in other states in academic achievement tests.
Newsom often seems unwilling to concede that California’s critics have some valid points, however politically motivated they may be. Continued failures to deal with existential issues such as housing and educational shortcomings could result in California’s becoming the dystopia Trump and others portray.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.
