Michael Shellenberger, a heterodox Democrat who is running for California governor on a platform that includes building new nuclear power plants, has a fascinating and provocative essay at Forbes on why the Golden State isn’t as “progressive” as its boosters believe.
Comparing California’s progressive elite to the residents of the science-fiction film “Elysium,” Shellenberger writes:
[T]here will always be an external enemy upon which “progressive” residents of Elysium can displace their guilt. As such, if California is ever to live up to its ideals, change must come from within—not just from within Elysium, but from within the progressive movement itself.
And that starts with acknowledging that California’s tragic poverty and widening inequality aren’t the result of racist policies imposed from without but rather progressive policies embraced from within.
Obviously, he’s not a Trump fan and so he takes some obligatory shots. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that Trump isn’t the problem but one response to the problem.
Some of Shellenberger’s statistics, especially on barriers to homeownership and academic declines among blacks and Latinos, are utterly damning for Democrats . . . if they would pay attention. Read the whole thing.