Has California Become A Third-World State?
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton discusses whether voters have finally had enough with the Golden State's political machine.
Gavin Newsom’s California is like a Third World country—a one-party state run by cartoonish, incompetent leaders, rife with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of waste, fraud, and abuse. Can anything be done to fix the catastrophic mess that Democrats, after 16 years of wielding unchecked power, have made in the Golden State? Steve Hilton, the leading Republican candidate for governor of California, joins us to discuss the immense scale of damage Democrat governance has wrought on California, and whether a Republican really has a shot to win.
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Rufo: I’m very excited to talk with the man of the hour in California, Steve Hilton. Some of you might recognize Steve from his Fox News days. He had a great show on Fox, and now he’s going into the lion’s den as he runs for governor of California.
He’s currently leading in the polls—at least among Republicans—but it’s a wide field. So, Steve, why don’t you just start out by telling us what exactly is happening in California? What on earth is going on?
Hilton: What’s happening in California is a complete disaster. We’ve had 16 years of Democrat one-party rule. That’s what’s going on. And that’s why you have me, a Republican, leading in the polls ahead of all the Republicans—and all the Democrats as well.
The basic story is that California today is what you get when Democrats get everything they want. It’s a very important lesson for the whole country, because for sixteen years now they’ve controlled everything. They’ve had all the statewide elected offices, from governor and attorney general on down. They’ve controlled both chambers of the legislature with a supermajority, and that means that they can pass anything that they want without any kind of Republican input. They’ve controlled all the big counties and the big cities.
What have the results of one-party Democrat rule been? Today, we have in California the highest poverty rate in the country—tied with Louisiana. We have the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states. We have the highest cost of living—gas, electricity, groceries, and housing are all more expensive here than anywhere else in the country.
