Monterey Press Media Arrogance: Republicans No longer Relevant in California?

The Santa Cruz-Monterey News Groups issued the following editorial three months ago:

Editorial, April 4, 2017: Republicans no longer relevant in California

After witnessing six months of Trump's winning policies, proposals, and orders working their way through the country--even into California--it's worth reflecting and perhaps rejecting these hollow attacks.

California is increasingly a one-party state.

The demise of the Republican party in the state has been advancing for years, but has now become an accepted fact. While this has also been the relativley [SIC] recent rule in Monterey County, the GOP continued to have an influence in state legislation and politics until the end of the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010.

But no more.

Prop 14 had a lot to do with it. I also recognize that the citizens redistricting commission threw the California GOP off guard. They didn't realize that many seats would end up being more competitive for Democrats, not just Republicans.

The recent report on voter registration in the state showed that Republicans hitting the truly endangered list with just under 26 percent of 19.4 million potential voters.

Yes, that is not good. How has the registration plummeted so rapidly?

Leadership and donorship has emphasized inclusion at the expense of principle.

The party had a nearly 35 percent share in 2000.

Democrats now have nearly 45 percent of potential voters, though the party actually lost about a half point since 2000. The biggest increase came from potential voters who declined to state a party preference — 24.5 percent, up from 14.4 percent in 2000.

Decline to state registration is exploding because the California Republican Party has not been taking a firmer stance on key issues.

This trend would amaze Californians from a generation ago, since Republicans once dominated the political landscape in California. The only two presidents coming from the state — Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — were both Republicans. But no Republican has won the state’s presidential votes since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Except for Schwarzenegger, no Republican has held statewide office this century, and the former governor was something of an outlier as a politician because of his celebrity.

Two reasons why: illegal immigration.

Two more reasons why: voter fraud.

As for the argument that no Republican has held statewide office--they have forgotten Steve Poizner, Insurance Commissioner.

WOW--The media is just dedicated at all costs to smear conservatives and promote Democrats as much as they possibly can.

Some of the move away from the party can be associated with the deeply unpopular presidency of Donald J. Trump, who lost the state to Hillary Clinton by more than 4.2 million votes, receiving only 31.5 percent of the vote.

That is true for now. It's been six months already, and Republicans along the more moderate, centrist, and establishment wings are starting to recognize that their best chances to be effective depend on respecting and working with President Trump.

And this antipathy to all things Trump undoubtedly means Republicans will do miserably in the 2018 midterm elections as well. Democrats already have a supermajority in the state Legislature — meaning they can approve tax increases and regulations to their hearts’ content without needing any GOP votes. And some prognosticators say Republicans will fall even further back in the next election.

LIE! Trump is becoming a more popular commodity, even in California. I do no believe that he will drag down the ticket at all. In fact, Republicans are more likely to come out swinging for their President. The seven seats which Democrats are targeting in California will not flip into Democratic hands.

The failing, falling Democratic Party is going the way of the same perverse, liberal media: closing its doors while losing integrity, trust, and relevance.

So what happened?

The party’s decline is often traced back to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s support for Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure that cut public benefits to undocumented immigrants. The measure so antagonized the state’s growing Latino voting population and other immigrant communities that they began voting as a bloc for Democrats.

Another lie. Prop 187 was popular among all voter demographics.

Another trend was the virtual end of the aerospace industry in the Los Angeles area in the 1990s, which resulted in an out migration of defense industry workers, many of whom voted for Republican candidates, from the state’s biggest population center, and an inflow of immigrant workers, who mostly voted Democratic.

There is more truth to this assessment. The aerospace industry went into moderate decline because the United States outlasted the Soviet Union. Part of the reason why the South Bay section of Los Angeles county took on a decidedly Democratic hue in 1992 was because of this.

The rise of the tech industry in the 1990s, which continues today, also gave Democrats a boost, as skilled workers from other countries have mostly voted Democratic.

Let's see how long this lasts.Most of the tech and Silicon industries are located in Democratic areas to begin with.

And while Republicans are still somewhat viable in the state’s rural and agricultural areas, the population-rich coastal areas are solidly blue.

That could change. Anything is possible. Wisconsin was considered an untouchable state for Republicans. Trump won the Dairy State, the first time in over 30 years that Wisconsin went red. Why? The power of big labor was taken down through Governor Scott Walker's strategic reforms, thus cutting of the chief funding source for the Democratic Party.

The same reforms could be coming to California following another high-profile Supreme Court case.

And speaking of Big Labor:

The upshot is that legislation increasingly favors the public employee unions who give heavily to Democratic candidates, and to left-of-center initiatives that would not play well in the Rust Belt or the southern United States, but are unquestioned in California.

This fact of life, according to liberals, is about to change. Bet on it.

The lack of debate on many issues, however, is not healthy. One-party rule historically has led to overreach and even corruption among elected officials, who have no need to moderate positions to appeal to centrist or conservative voters.

Of course the lack of debate on issues is not healthy. The first offenders in this regard is not the political process, but rather the corrupt, left-wing media, which has gone to great lengths to shame conservatives and criticize Republicans with abandon, like in this report.

It has come to this: Trump has only sounded what for now seems like the death knell for a once-relevant and viable opposition party.

The corrupt media was convinced that Donald Trump would never announce a bid for President.

Then they predicted that he would not win the Republican nomination.

Then they were assured that he would never win the general election.

He beat them down at every turn.

I am prepared to see him beat down the arrogant California media in the same way.

The liberal press in California has become a wasteland, a shell of its once grand influence in local and statewide elections. All of that is changing. The newspaper industry has become increasingly centralized into limited, overreaching corporate hands.

The stories have less to do with what is going on in everyday lives, and more to do with pushing a distance, out of touch false narrative. No wonder the newspaper industry is in such decline, all while conservative activists, writers, and politicos are filling in the vacuum with stories of local and statewide successes. Conservative groups are becoming more effective at overwhelming and overcoming the political process which has been too-long dominated by the Democratic Party and its illiberal leanings.

The truth is that as California conservatives, specifically the growing phalanx of Trump supporters and activist patriots, get engaged and demand change in the political and moral culture of the state, expect to see YUGE changes at the local level and growing shift of legal and juridical change at the state level.

The press has gotten it wrong so much in California, that they should be more concerned about their growing irrelevance, not that of the Republican Party of California.