Gavin Newsom’s California delusion

In his pretaped State of the State address Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) claimed that California is the “only state in America with a dream.”

And apparently that dream is to leave California because no state saw more of its population leave for other states than California did last year . And the year before that . And the year before that .

Despite all Newsom’s talk about California “values” being the “antidote to the poisonous populism of the Right,” the reality is that the top destinations for California families fleeing Democratic Party dysfunction are the Republican-controlled states of Texas and Florida.

And it is no mystery why.

California currently leads the nation in unemployment . It has the nation’s highest gas and energy prices . It is the least affordable state for housing . It has the nation’s highest percentage of homeless people . And despite the fact that California has the nation’s highest budget deficit , the state is still pouring billions of dollars into a high-speed train to nowhere . Not only can’t California manage to build new infrastructure, it can’t even stop thieves from stripping its existing infrastructure for parts .

At one point early in the video, Newsom says that California and the country are facing “a choice between a society that embraces our values and a world darkened by division and discrimination.” While reading these words, video of men carrying tiki torches in Charlottesville, Virginia, flashed across the screen.

And the Charlottesville riot was one incident. What about all the incidents of violence and discrimination against Jews across California this year, including the attack against a synagogue in Los Angeles just this past weekend ? If California is such a peaceful and tolerant state, why are Jews being hunted down in the streets of LA?

It would take a thousand words to fact-check every distortion in Newsom’s half-hour diatribe. But substance aside, the tone was striking. Newsom was clearly on the defensive throughout the presentation. The fact that California is losing population to red states like Texas and Florida, and that the Republican governors of both those states constantly remind Newsom of the fact, has gotten under his skin.

Newsom wants Californians to feel under siege from Republican states. He talks constantly about “women’s rights” and “reproductive rights” — both code words for “abortion” — a word Newsom doesn’t have the courage to actually say.

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But Texas can’t stop California women from aborting their babies. Neither can Florida.

The only way red states threaten California Democrats is by offering those fed up with Democratic rule a place to escape to.