California is doomed

Why is anyone even remotely interested in regime-changing a nasty, far-away foreign country that hates America when there is a nasty country much, much closer that hates us, too? OK, technically California is not a country, but it’s about the same size as Japan and Sweden. Its GDP – $4.1 trillion – is the fourth-highest in the world, behind the other 49 combined United States, China and Germany. It has as many residents as Canada. More people live here than in Spain or Saudi Arabia (and more than in our 22 smallest states combined).

California is a monster in every way. That used to be a good thing: its powerful allure and economic might attracted the best and brightest from all over. Einstein taught in Pasadena, at Caltech. All the sexiest, hottest people came here to snort coke, party with rock stars and work as waiters looking for their big break – which usually meant having sex with Harvey Weinstein. The iPhone was invented here, the boob job was perfected here, the entirety of Star Wars was dreamed up here and the first skateboard was made here. We’ve got the best climate in the world, the real-life Top Gun school, miles of spectacular coastline, incredible ski resorts, Yosemite, the Redwoods and the deserts. What a country!

Today, California is a monster in all the bad ways. We’ve got the highest numbers of botched Brazilian butt lifts, for example. That may not sound like a big deal, but when you are forced to walk behind one, it’s terrifying to watch two unnaturally spherical boulders banging against each other inside white Lululemon yoga pants. It also has the largest homeless population in the country, the worst schools, the highest taxes, the largest open-air drug dens, the most gang members and endless crime. Families and businesses are still leaving. One family friend moved to Connecticut yesterday. Others are planning to go soon.

In recent years I have survived the 2020 George Floyd riots, the 2025 ICE riots and getting caught in a Bloods vs Crips drive-by, when I witnessed people being shot in front of me. In May, my sister-in-law, a mother of three, had her house ransacked. My childhood Pacific Palisades home burned down – and so did my mother’s house in Malibu. By some miracle, she’d just sold it after 23 years and fled Los Angeles for the safety of Tennessee, following in my sister’s footsteps. Last month, a close friend of ours – and a colleague of my husband’s – was driving home from LAX with his son in the car. He was on the 105 when someone hurled a giant chunk of concrete right into his path. It hit his front bumper head on and destroyed the grill on his truck. Six inches higher and it would have killed him. “Just leave!” everyone tells me. But my husband’s career and the weather are not so easy to transplant. To quote the great Chazz Palminteri, sometimes “youse can’t leave.”

California is doomed, for real, even if the Marxist mullahs in Sacramento and the Governor are removed and replaced. Here’s why: the problem with California is not its terrible, wretched leaders. It’s Californians. Or at least, most of them. It’s almost beyond belief that California used to be a glorious paradise of tennis-playing, churchgoing, hard-working patriotic Republicans, and I’m old enough to remember those days!

Now it’s a teeming sea of sanctuary seekers, who aren’t seeking sanctuary so much as they’re seeking a dingy street corner where they can make mystery-meat street tacos. The locals who hunker down in their plush bunkers in Bel Air, Carmel, Marin, Atherton, Los Feliz, Brentwood, and Beverly Hills, or their more bohemian (but just as plush) bunkers in Venice, Silver Lake, Berkeley and Laurel Canyon, are the only ones that matter in state politics. And these people are nuts. They push French bulldogs in $500 doggy strollers and walk boy toddlers around in rainbow tutus. When you see them in public it’s almost impossible to discern through the arm-sleeve tattoos and ratty tank tops with no bra if they’re about to take a crap in the gutter or head to a $50 hot yoga class. These are your elites, California! They don’t know what gender they are, they celebrate Pride month year-round, and their children are simply pincushions for the political ideology du jour. The solution to California therefore is to ignore the leadership and change the people. We need a Great Replacement, and we need it fast. Mother Nature started this process with the fire that wiped out Pacific Palisades and Altadena. The Big One will clear millions out of the cities, but we can’t wait for that. What scares liberals enough to make them flee the state? Could we fake an environmental hazard and shut down all the Erewhons? Deport all the housekeepers?

I have a better idea. The thing that terrifies California liberals more than literally anything else is proximity to gun-toting right-wing Trump supporters. They’d rather live next door to an obese nudist sunbathing club run by Hitler. There are six million Trump voters here, compared to Kamala’s nine million. Here is my plan: all we need to do is make ourselves look bigger and they’ll run. Hang two MAGA flags for every trans flag you see on your block. Park your Tesla (SpaceX bumper sticker and all) in front of their homes before their next get-together.  Use your latent powers well – and be gentle. A tasteful MAGA hat on a dog walk past a hipster coffee shop. Wear a “Two Genders” T-shirt at the independent bookstore. Host a pro-life Christian prayer group in the playground in their neighborhood.

Now imagine California once they’ve all gone – and after ICE has rounded up all the illegals. There will be no traffic. The beaches will be clean. In one election we can clean out the vipers in Sacramento! That’s the only plan I’ve got, folks. And if it can’t be done, please save me a seat on the last flight out.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s August 2025 World edition.