LA Times Columnist: ACTUALLY, Republicans To Blame for Dem-Run California’s Problems Because They’re Too Far Right To Win Elections

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Steve Lopez , a columnist for The Los Angeles Times , blamed the Republican Party for the state’s issues with affordable housing, homelessness, poverty, and other issues in a piece he published on Saturday.

Lopez acknowledged that his state is run almost entirely by Democrats but reasoned the GOP’s inability to get candidates elected and sent to Sacramento is ultimately why California has faltered in so many aspects under one-party rule.

The columnist noted former Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Regan once embodied the politics of the Golden State and that Arnold Schwarzenegger governed effectively as a Republican until 2011. Lopez opined that with the GOP’s rightward turn over the last several decades, voters have had no other choice but to keep the state comfortably blue – which had created problems. Lopez wrote:

You know what the problem is with California? Democrats—or so I’m told. If I write about broken sidewalks in Los Angeles, readers write to say it’s the fault of Democrats. Homelessness, crime on public transit, poverty — in every case, blame the Dems. Recently, I wrote about the owner of Langer’s Deli, who’s considering retirement because of problems in MacArthur Park. “Good, I hope he closes and flees the state,” a reader named Thomas wrote. “Your governor, your mayor and the Democrats have run your state into the ground.”

Former President Trump also loves bashing the Golden State. He is branding Vice President Kamala Harris as a home-grown radical, if not a Communist. He says she destroyed San Francisco as district attorney, destroyed the entire state as attorney general, and will turn the whole nation into a hellhole like California, as my colleague Mark Barabak recently noted.

Lopez concluded some of California’s issues – such as rampant homelessness – are bipartisan as they date back to the days of Reagan and the shuttering of mental health facilities with no alternatives to replace them.

“First off, I admit that Democrats deserve to be on the hot seat,” Lopez wrote. “They hold every statewide elective office and dominate the Legislature in a rich state that stands as the fifth largest economy in the world (not bad for a hellhole). And yet California has massive rates of poverty, cuckoo housing costs that are forcing people to flee, and a shameful number of homeless people, many suffering from addiction, mental illness or both.”

The columnist wrote that in his estimation, California’s critics are not being unreasonable in blaming its major issues on Democrats. But Democrats, he said, only run the state because the GOP is too far right. In essence, if Republicans behaved more like Democrats, there could be more checks and balances. Lopez concluded:

Fine, but if that’s your perspective, whose fault is it that in California, Democrats are in charge? I have the answer for you. It’s Republicans.

[…]

The California GOP alienated many Latinos in the 1990s with Proposition 187’s ban on services for undocumented immigrants and Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s “they keep coming” TV ad. At the GOP’s fall convention last year, an attempt to remove opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage from the party platform was shot down… None of them has offered winning solutions to deep-seated problems, and it might be too late for a party resurgence because as the electorate has grown more diverse, GOP voter registration has dwindled to roughly 25%.

You can’t blame Democrats for that.