What do you think?
Rate this book
Failed State: A Portrait of California in the Twilight of Empire
California was once the crown jewel of the American prosperous, innovative, egalitarian, and aspirational. Today, it stands as a dystopian warning of what happens when nihilistic, radical ideology consumes the foundations of governance. In Failed State, Christopher Moritz dissects the unraveling of the Golden State with the precision of a lawyer, the depth of a historian, and the heartbreak of a California native son who has witnessed its collapse firsthand. Through disturbing, relentless detail drawn from whistleblowers, law enforcement insiders, and classified reports, he exposes the corrosive and deadly impact of progressive policies that have prioritized criminals over victims, cartels over citizens, and ideological dogma over law and order.
Moritz reveals the architects of this rogue prosecutors bankrolled by anarchist billionaires, open-border zealots who have transformed California into a cartel haven, and policymakers who have gutted public safety in the name of equity. The 2025 Palisades Fire, a man-made disaster, epitomize this descent into chaos. Fire hydrants ran dry while organized looters turned evacuation zones into war zones. Resources were squandered on symbolic virtue-signaling as ordinary citizens were left defenseless in the face of destruction. These failures are not isolated—they are the inevitable result of policies designed to dismantle civic order and empower anarchic forces at the expense of law-abiding Americans.
Yet, Failed State is more than an autopsy of California’s collapse. Drawing on historical parallels—from the Bolshevik Revolution’s destruction of Christian Russia to the ethnic cleansing of Rhodesia by Mugabe’s communists—Moritz warns that California’s crisis is not contained to the Golden State. It is a harbinger for America’s future if these radical trends metastasize nationwide. His searing analysis reveals the systematic dismantling of civil society and the betrayal of a state’s duty to its citizens, all in service of an anti-civilization agenda cloaked in the language of progress.
Unflinching, provocative, and unapologetically honest, Failed State is a rallying cry for those who refuse to stand by as America’s most prosperous state spirals into lawlessness and disorder. For those seeking clarity amid chaos, Christopher Moritz delivers a blistering indictment of failed leadership and a warning that the unraveling of California could signal that unraveling of the nation itself.
Moritz reveals the architects of this rogue prosecutors bankrolled by anarchist billionaires, open-border zealots who have transformed California into a cartel haven, and policymakers who have gutted public safety in the name of equity. The 2025 Palisades Fire, a man-made disaster, epitomize this descent into chaos. Fire hydrants ran dry while organized looters turned evacuation zones into war zones. Resources were squandered on symbolic virtue-signaling as ordinary citizens were left defenseless in the face of destruction. These failures are not isolated—they are the inevitable result of policies designed to dismantle civic order and empower anarchic forces at the expense of law-abiding Americans.
Yet, Failed State is more than an autopsy of California’s collapse. Drawing on historical parallels—from the Bolshevik Revolution’s destruction of Christian Russia to the ethnic cleansing of Rhodesia by Mugabe’s communists—Moritz warns that California’s crisis is not contained to the Golden State. It is a harbinger for America’s future if these radical trends metastasize nationwide. His searing analysis reveals the systematic dismantling of civil society and the betrayal of a state’s duty to its citizens, all in service of an anti-civilization agenda cloaked in the language of progress.
Unflinching, provocative, and unapologetically honest, Failed State is a rallying cry for those who refuse to stand by as America’s most prosperous state spirals into lawlessness and disorder. For those seeking clarity amid chaos, Christopher Moritz delivers a blistering indictment of failed leadership and a warning that the unraveling of California could signal that unraveling of the nation itself.
512 pages, Hardcover
Published March 25, 2025
4 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 11, 2026
This book was both insightful and thought-provoking, but at the same time it was also highly repetitive and at times jarring.
Now, I can see both sides of the argument for this book. On the one hand, this book is a necessary critique of our political landscapes (not only on a state-by-state basis, but also nationwide) and it argues some valid points, but this book is not without its flaws, so lets start there. First of all, when I read a book (whether it be fiction or non-fiction) I expect there to be little to no mistakes (advocating for the occasional human error) but in this book I found repeated typos, misspellings, punctuation errors (almost like I was a high school English teacher editing and correcting a student’s book report). It got to the point where it took me out of the story that Moritz was trying to tell because I got frustrated that he needed a better editor. Speaking of better edits, this book could’ve been two times shorter without all the repetitiveness. I felt like I was rereading sentences over and over again (and I do that sometimes because I read so quickly that my brain will get jumbled and I will accidentally go back and read the prior sentence that I already read) but when I see the same point or sentence structured in a different way so closely together, it makes me wonder if this book ever went through edits. If Moritz cut down the repetitiveness, not only do I feel like it would’ve read a lot smoother and less choppy but it would also make the book shorter and more impactful since he wasn’t reiterating every little thing he said in the sentence before. I feel like the book would’ve been so much better received (and its point made even stronger) had it spent more time in the edit stage (and maybe with more sets of eyes on it than the ones that it had).
However, I digress and I am done making negative statements about a book that tried hard to discuss a topic that is mandatory and needs better coverage. I feel like the book was highly informative (even info-dumpy at times) and it really made me pause and think about the environments that I interact with on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis (you get the gist) and how I have both first-handedly and second-handedly seen the topics in this book play out. I really liked the structure of the book and how Moritz separated his chapters out into smaller sub-sections (it actually made it faster for reading because it felt like you were reading more with each section that you quickly completed) and while it was jargon heavy at times, it didn’t always feel like a textbook or required reading.
Overall, I think this book has merit it just needed to be edited, polished, and updated a bit more. I can appreciate the research that the author did and how much time it took to write this mammoth book. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a different tone in the political science genre and is wanting to know more about government systems and current events.
3.75/5 ⭐️
Now, I can see both sides of the argument for this book. On the one hand, this book is a necessary critique of our political landscapes (not only on a state-by-state basis, but also nationwide) and it argues some valid points, but this book is not without its flaws, so lets start there. First of all, when I read a book (whether it be fiction or non-fiction) I expect there to be little to no mistakes (advocating for the occasional human error) but in this book I found repeated typos, misspellings, punctuation errors (almost like I was a high school English teacher editing and correcting a student’s book report). It got to the point where it took me out of the story that Moritz was trying to tell because I got frustrated that he needed a better editor. Speaking of better edits, this book could’ve been two times shorter without all the repetitiveness. I felt like I was rereading sentences over and over again (and I do that sometimes because I read so quickly that my brain will get jumbled and I will accidentally go back and read the prior sentence that I already read) but when I see the same point or sentence structured in a different way so closely together, it makes me wonder if this book ever went through edits. If Moritz cut down the repetitiveness, not only do I feel like it would’ve read a lot smoother and less choppy but it would also make the book shorter and more impactful since he wasn’t reiterating every little thing he said in the sentence before. I feel like the book would’ve been so much better received (and its point made even stronger) had it spent more time in the edit stage (and maybe with more sets of eyes on it than the ones that it had).
However, I digress and I am done making negative statements about a book that tried hard to discuss a topic that is mandatory and needs better coverage. I feel like the book was highly informative (even info-dumpy at times) and it really made me pause and think about the environments that I interact with on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis (you get the gist) and how I have both first-handedly and second-handedly seen the topics in this book play out. I really liked the structure of the book and how Moritz separated his chapters out into smaller sub-sections (it actually made it faster for reading because it felt like you were reading more with each section that you quickly completed) and while it was jargon heavy at times, it didn’t always feel like a textbook or required reading.
Overall, I think this book has merit it just needed to be edited, polished, and updated a bit more. I can appreciate the research that the author did and how much time it took to write this mammoth book. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a different tone in the political science genre and is wanting to know more about government systems and current events.
3.75/5 ⭐️
Displaying 1 of 1 review