California was once a byword for freedom, tolerance and economic dynamism. Today, it is the sick man of America, blighted by soaring poverty, racial strife and record emigration. Here, spiked columnist Joel Kotkin explains how the maddest ‘progressive’ ideas have brought California to its knees. An elite obsessed with gender, climate and race has replaced children’s education with woke indoctrination, has smothered industries with green diktats and plans to splurge billions on racial reparations. The so-called left has produced a society as unequal as any since the feudal era, where Big Tech oligarchs and public-sector fat cats crush the working classes beneath them. The fall of the Golden State is a warning to the world.
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