“When adjusted for cost of living, Austin tech workers make more than San Francisco peers,” cites a Texas policy analyst as an example of salary shrinkage that awaits babes-in-the-woods college graduates who can be lured to California jobs by apparent high salaries. A downward-spiraling cultural shift also awaits those finishing college in South Dakota who have been dazzled by Hollywood movies and broadcast coverage which glorifies life in the Golden State.
The traffic out of California should be instructive. Former California politician Chuck DeVore, another policy analyst, cites a Berkeley poll that “A full 74 percent of the state’s very conservative voters say they’re looking into moving, and 84 percent of those cite California’s political culture as their rationale for leaving.” Cost of living is way out of proportion to the rest of the country except in other deep-left states. FoxNews has picked this up today in an interview with DeVore.
Places to live, food prices, and all other expenses are astronomically higher in states ruled by the Democratic Party, owing to over-regulation and high taxation in the form of “land use restrictions, environmental regulations, anti-development lawsuits, and development fees have a significant effect on the cost of housing and rental prices. Housing market studies indicate that restrictive land use policies can account for from 30% to as much as 60% of the price of a house.”
Of course, some South Dakota young people will welcome finally arriving in the liberal mecca that has tantalized their gullibility for decades. Anything to get away, even if it means becoming like the proverbial farmer’s daughter who ends up on a Hollywood casting couch. As with illegal aliens and other social misfits, sometimes social insecurity is motivating: “It could be that people moving to California also have political reasons for it. Maybe they move to California rather than a state that isn’t as progressive or doesn’t have as big of a social safety net.”
Perhaps the students who actually learned something in college will wonder why “California’s increasing ideological dominance by the left is driving conservative dissatisfaction within the state.” Freedom should mean more than being able to pick one liberal television show or movie over another. Hopefully they won’t end up like the “increasing numbers of California conservatives self-censoring at work or in other public places, for fear of being accused of thoughtcrime. Living for long under those oppressive conditions can be stressful and depressing.”
Conversely, South Dakota should “Watch Out for California Transplants and Ballot Measures on the Way to South Dakota.” Lots of California conservatives self-identify with the title, but have been unknowingly turned into liberals through years of indoctrination. They’ll bring a leftist superiority complex and think nothing of lobbying for the same big government they’ve just escaped from.
California governor Gavin Newsom is the best example of the Hollywood Effect in politics, where actors like Robert De Niro are paid to pretend to be something they’re not. Sometimes voters can get lucky, mostly not.
The gullible will vote for the prettiest face regardless of the candidate’s beliefs or values. Canada now has Justin Trudeau for the same reason, a dangerous and perverse form of Platonism. Same with Mitt Romney in Utah, as if having once been Governor of Massachusetts doesn’t say everything.
Shallowness is entirely de rigueur within both parties. This is one symptom of television-reared generations, appeasing those who will be seeing a particular image perhaps up to hundreds of thousands times during a lifetime. Then again, are yard signs or TV attack ads much better? What does this say about Western democracy? Watch the following to see exactly how the Democratic Party elites do business today, while enjoying no-coverage shielding by big city media, the only kind we have in America:
Brief video about Newsom, Brown, Pelosi, & Feinstein