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State of Resistance: What California's Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Means for America?s Future
“Concise, clear and convincing. . . a vision for the country as a whole.”
— James Fallows, The New York Times Book Review
A leading sociologist’s brilliant and revelatory argument that the future of politics, work, immigration, and more may be found in California Once upon a time, any mention of California triggered unpleasant reminders of Ronald Reagan and right-wing tax revolts, ballot propositions targeting undocumented immigrants, and racist policing that sparked two of the nation’s most devastating riots. In fact, California confronted many of the challenges the rest of the country faces now—decades before the rest of us. Today, California is leading the way on addressing climate change, low-wage work, immigrant integration, overincarceration, and more. As white residents became a minority and job loss drove economic uncertainty, California had its own Trump moment twenty-five years ago, but has become increasingly blue over each of the last seven presidential elections. How did the Golden State manage to emerge from its unsavory past to become a bellwether for the rest of the country? Thirty years after Mike Davis’s hellish depiction of California in City of Quartz , the award-winning sociologist Manuel Pastor guides us through a new and improved California, complete with lessons that the nation should heed. Inspiring and expertly researched, State of Resistance makes the case for honestly engaging racial anxiety in order to address our true economic and generational challenges, a renewed commitment to public investments, the cultivation of social movements and community organizing, and more.
— James Fallows, The New York Times Book Review
A leading sociologist’s brilliant and revelatory argument that the future of politics, work, immigration, and more may be found in California Once upon a time, any mention of California triggered unpleasant reminders of Ronald Reagan and right-wing tax revolts, ballot propositions targeting undocumented immigrants, and racist policing that sparked two of the nation’s most devastating riots. In fact, California confronted many of the challenges the rest of the country faces now—decades before the rest of us. Today, California is leading the way on addressing climate change, low-wage work, immigrant integration, overincarceration, and more. As white residents became a minority and job loss drove economic uncertainty, California had its own Trump moment twenty-five years ago, but has become increasingly blue over each of the last seven presidential elections. How did the Golden State manage to emerge from its unsavory past to become a bellwether for the rest of the country? Thirty years after Mike Davis’s hellish depiction of California in City of Quartz , the award-winning sociologist Manuel Pastor guides us through a new and improved California, complete with lessons that the nation should heed. Inspiring and expertly researched, State of Resistance makes the case for honestly engaging racial anxiety in order to address our true economic and generational challenges, a renewed commitment to public investments, the cultivation of social movements and community organizing, and more.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 3, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 14, 2020
As a new Californian, this book was interesting and instructive, but it's probably incomplete. It covers some of the successes of recent years, but there is no "theory of the case." How does Orange County flip to progressives after decades of being a conservative stronghold? And do we know that the move is permanent? It's fascinating how conservatives see California as this radically liberal state, but it's actually like 10 different states and some of them are to the right of Mississippi.
May 9, 2018
A terrific primer for aspiring progressives or anyone new to politics and wants to know what liberals need to know in order to get involved and make necessary political change. It's all in the context of California but the information can be just as easily applied to the whole nation.
July 20, 2018
Manuel Pastor believes that our nation can learn much from the experience of California in the past half century, and he makes a fascinating and forceful case. The unraveling of the California Dream is an object lesson in what happens when the social compact falls apart, and it is happening now on a national scale. California has begun to repair the damage, and Pastor eloquently spells out the lessons learned. He all too briefly lists them in the final chapter, but these stood out for me:
"...offer a compelling, practical and progressive economic vision"
"...be clear about analyzing and building power"
"...change the electorate"
I highly recommend this book not because it has all the answers but because it offers much to think about.
"...offer a compelling, practical and progressive economic vision"
"...be clear about analyzing and building power"
"...change the electorate"
I highly recommend this book not because it has all the answers but because it offers much to think about.
June 2, 2018
I abandoned this one after reading about a third of it. It’s more of a handbook for labor organizers and activists than the sort of illuminating overview of California’s recent bounce-back than I had hoped. Definitely written for progressive members of the choir with not a lot of insight or nuance beyond what you’d expect, say, Dolores Huerta or Rebecca Solnit to write.
February 19, 2025
Read this for my CCS class and really enjoyed it. I think his analysis of California’s potential to lead the U.S. to a brighter future is a much needed realistic optimism.
October 19, 2018
I'm agnostic about this book, and I think that I'll need to do a more careful, critical read of it to fully elucidate my thoughts. While Pastor takes a nuanced approach to California that is not reflected in the title (and was one of my greatest skepticisms of this book) by outright acknowledging the ways in which the "California approach" cannot be used as a blanket approach to every state in the federal system, and while I admire his focus on the local/community as a nexus for change and mobilization, rather than the federal, I am skeptical of some of his other contributions. Particularly, I am skeptical of Pastor's main claim in this book, that it was when California "succumbed to racism" -- or, in a broader sense, succumbed to difference-making -- that California "fell" in its broad arc of history. As a settler-colonial state project, difference-making and the enforcement of difference was and is part of the core of the California identity, not a diversion from it. While I understand why this is Pastor's framework, and the optimistic logics that he operates within, I have trouble accepting this account of California, and its role as an "example" from which the federal system can learn from.
However, I must give Pastor his due credit in how well-written this book is, from a stylistic perspective. As someone who is not a Californian, with only limited knowledge of the state's racial and legislative history, I worried about following this, but Pastor does a very good job at making this information accessible to readers, while still getting across his analytical and theoretical contributions. I can see why this book is getting much praise, both outside of and within the academy, my disagreements with and skepticism of this book notwithstanding.
However, I must give Pastor his due credit in how well-written this book is, from a stylistic perspective. As someone who is not a Californian, with only limited knowledge of the state's racial and legislative history, I worried about following this, but Pastor does a very good job at making this information accessible to readers, while still getting across his analytical and theoretical contributions. I can see why this book is getting much praise, both outside of and within the academy, my disagreements with and skepticism of this book notwithstanding.
November 2, 2025
(2.5)
“State of Resistance” is a political history of California, from the 1950s through 2018. It focuses on the shift from a seemingly progressive political economy to regressive and back to progressive over that time period. It also heavily feels like a history of California propositions.
If I wasn’t reading this for book club, I would have DNF’ed it early on.
The ’50s saw economic boom. The book, while highlighting the prosperity of this early period, acknowledges the dark basis of it. In the ’50s, 1/4 of U.S. defense contracts went to California, a prosperity founded in violence and oppression of other countries (and the root of why Silicon Valley is what it is today). And then there was the subservient role of the black population: “Race was, in fact, central to managing growth; the economic system could not accommodate all comers and so exclusion was part of the recipe.” (34)
Starting in the ’70s, highlighted with Prop 13, the state takes an extremely regressive turn. It was nice to see the book draw a direct connection between Prop 13 and increased homelessness in the ’80s. The property tax restrictions led to an emphasis on local sales tax and away from home building and factories, since these were not a good tax investment from a municipal point of view. The ’70s and ’80s saw a huge growth in foreign-born residents in the U.S., and at times more than half of it was in California. By the ’90s, the white electorate in California passed Prop 187 with 59% approval, seeking to bar immigrants from public services. Prop 184, the three-strikes law that ushered in cruel and unusual punishment against primarily black and Latino residents, passed with 72% support.
We also see the toxic attitudes of the Democratic Party, like Feinstein railing against “illegal residents” in 1993. Their “opposition” argument against 187 was that “illegal Immigration is a REAL problem” (76–77), but that 187 wasn’t the right solution. Even when the party would opposed reactionary propositions, it was usually couched in terms that demonized minorities, including teenagers. Or, with their “opposition” to ending affirmative action, their goal was to win white “swing” voters by focusing on how it would affect white women in education.
The final part of the book focuses on what it took for activists to turn the tide, such that by the 2010s more progressive propositions were passing at the state level. (Many of the activist groups mentioned are backed by corporate-originated philanthropy groups.) There is an emphasis on effective electioneering, particularly with regard to propositions. This 2010s progressive turn, though, feels like a rather narrow window from our current vantage point. The book calls out Prop 47 (2014), a crime reform which passed with 59.6% of the vote. But then Prop 47 was partially overturned by Prop 36 (2024) with 69% approval, all in the name of harming homeless.
This book was written in the first Trump presidency to motivate Democratic Party activists to spread the turnaround “success” of California to the U.S. as a whole. It is odd to read this now, in Trump’s second term. For example, when the book argue that a pillar of building an effective resistance it to bring in part of the business elite. “The task ahead is to translate the obvious corporate commitment to diversity and difference—because it leads to innovation—into more solid support of inclusion.” (196) We saw that “obvious” commitment collapse in 2025, when the shifting tides inspired the wealthiest people in California to gleefully throw diversity under the bus. There are millionaires and billionaires in California openly advocating for fascism or monarchy, and were already doing so before this book was written.
Another thing that dates the book are the references to several political figures. Kevin de León is mentioned several times, and Gil Cedillo is also highlighted. In 2021, these two along with two others were secretly recorded having a racist conversation that ended up tanking their careers. The book highlights Karen Bass several times, and her track record as mayor of Los Angeles now is nothing to be proud of, with the continued war on homeless people and de facto capitulation to the terrorist immigration raids carried out by the federal government within her city.
I’ll end with a few turns of phrase in the book that caught my attention.
It states that the Watts uprising in 1965 was “initially triggered by perceived police brutality.” (39) Perceived? Giving the benefit of the doubt, this might be a statement about the specific incident, just poorly worded. But then it reminds me of a lyric by Ice-T, “All these people out here tripping off police brutality like this shit is something new. Give me a f**king break. I’ve been talking about this shit for over 20 years.”
In praising the efforts of activists in the 2000s and 2010s: “Strikingly, the tendency to take a clearer and less ambiguous stance did not lead to what one often associates with progressive opposition: a sort of shrill, leftist shout from the outside.” (148) If “one” is a reactionary or the media voices speaking for them, then it IS typical to denigrate and dismiss the voices of opposition, whether female or leftist, in this way.
In another dig at leftists: “At the same time, the IVE proponents realized that the traditional language—that is, jargon—of the left on these issues was not winning a growing number of converts.” (158) I’m not sure how to take this. It could be a statement that being popular is more important than being right? Anyone who dives deep into a subject, and not just academics, tends to refine terms and wording in order to be precise, to provide clarity. Being adept at shaping that understanding to a larger audience is a separate issue.
When reviewing the ’70s: “Discomfort with the shifting hue of the California populace was exacerbated by worries about a society under challenge: civil rights militancy, Vietnam War protests, and urban riots fed into concerns about ‘law and order.’” (177) That passive “fed” makes it sound like a natural and obvious process, instead of the concerted effort by racists to divide those with privilege from those asking for their rightful share.
“State of Resistance” is a political history of California, from the 1950s through 2018. It focuses on the shift from a seemingly progressive political economy to regressive and back to progressive over that time period. It also heavily feels like a history of California propositions.
If I wasn’t reading this for book club, I would have DNF’ed it early on.
The ’50s saw economic boom. The book, while highlighting the prosperity of this early period, acknowledges the dark basis of it. In the ’50s, 1/4 of U.S. defense contracts went to California, a prosperity founded in violence and oppression of other countries (and the root of why Silicon Valley is what it is today). And then there was the subservient role of the black population: “Race was, in fact, central to managing growth; the economic system could not accommodate all comers and so exclusion was part of the recipe.” (34)
Starting in the ’70s, highlighted with Prop 13, the state takes an extremely regressive turn. It was nice to see the book draw a direct connection between Prop 13 and increased homelessness in the ’80s. The property tax restrictions led to an emphasis on local sales tax and away from home building and factories, since these were not a good tax investment from a municipal point of view. The ’70s and ’80s saw a huge growth in foreign-born residents in the U.S., and at times more than half of it was in California. By the ’90s, the white electorate in California passed Prop 187 with 59% approval, seeking to bar immigrants from public services. Prop 184, the three-strikes law that ushered in cruel and unusual punishment against primarily black and Latino residents, passed with 72% support.
We also see the toxic attitudes of the Democratic Party, like Feinstein railing against “illegal residents” in 1993. Their “opposition” argument against 187 was that “illegal Immigration is a REAL problem” (76–77), but that 187 wasn’t the right solution. Even when the party would opposed reactionary propositions, it was usually couched in terms that demonized minorities, including teenagers. Or, with their “opposition” to ending affirmative action, their goal was to win white “swing” voters by focusing on how it would affect white women in education.
The final part of the book focuses on what it took for activists to turn the tide, such that by the 2010s more progressive propositions were passing at the state level. (Many of the activist groups mentioned are backed by corporate-originated philanthropy groups.) There is an emphasis on effective electioneering, particularly with regard to propositions. This 2010s progressive turn, though, feels like a rather narrow window from our current vantage point. The book calls out Prop 47 (2014), a crime reform which passed with 59.6% of the vote. But then Prop 47 was partially overturned by Prop 36 (2024) with 69% approval, all in the name of harming homeless.
This book was written in the first Trump presidency to motivate Democratic Party activists to spread the turnaround “success” of California to the U.S. as a whole. It is odd to read this now, in Trump’s second term. For example, when the book argue that a pillar of building an effective resistance it to bring in part of the business elite. “The task ahead is to translate the obvious corporate commitment to diversity and difference—because it leads to innovation—into more solid support of inclusion.” (196) We saw that “obvious” commitment collapse in 2025, when the shifting tides inspired the wealthiest people in California to gleefully throw diversity under the bus. There are millionaires and billionaires in California openly advocating for fascism or monarchy, and were already doing so before this book was written.
Another thing that dates the book are the references to several political figures. Kevin de León is mentioned several times, and Gil Cedillo is also highlighted. In 2021, these two along with two others were secretly recorded having a racist conversation that ended up tanking their careers. The book highlights Karen Bass several times, and her track record as mayor of Los Angeles now is nothing to be proud of, with the continued war on homeless people and de facto capitulation to the terrorist immigration raids carried out by the federal government within her city.
I’ll end with a few turns of phrase in the book that caught my attention.
It states that the Watts uprising in 1965 was “initially triggered by perceived police brutality.” (39) Perceived? Giving the benefit of the doubt, this might be a statement about the specific incident, just poorly worded. But then it reminds me of a lyric by Ice-T, “All these people out here tripping off police brutality like this shit is something new. Give me a f**king break. I’ve been talking about this shit for over 20 years.”
In praising the efforts of activists in the 2000s and 2010s: “Strikingly, the tendency to take a clearer and less ambiguous stance did not lead to what one often associates with progressive opposition: a sort of shrill, leftist shout from the outside.” (148) If “one” is a reactionary or the media voices speaking for them, then it IS typical to denigrate and dismiss the voices of opposition, whether female or leftist, in this way.
In another dig at leftists: “At the same time, the IVE proponents realized that the traditional language—that is, jargon—of the left on these issues was not winning a growing number of converts.” (158) I’m not sure how to take this. It could be a statement that being popular is more important than being right? Anyone who dives deep into a subject, and not just academics, tends to refine terms and wording in order to be precise, to provide clarity. Being adept at shaping that understanding to a larger audience is a separate issue.
When reviewing the ’70s: “Discomfort with the shifting hue of the California populace was exacerbated by worries about a society under challenge: civil rights militancy, Vietnam War protests, and urban riots fed into concerns about ‘law and order.’” (177) That passive “fed” makes it sound like a natural and obvious process, instead of the concerted effort by racists to divide those with privilege from those asking for their rightful share.
February 7, 2020
I really appreciated the history of California's ups and downs, and how much Prop 13 changed the funding available to the state. However, the book breaks down a bit in talking about the recovery of the state and lacks hard data to back up many of the assertions about the role of community organizing in the change. How much of it was just demographics and self-selection of who lives in the state (like other solid blue states)?
June 20, 2021
For a liberal this book has quite a positive message.
The author argues that everything that is currently happening in America previously happened in California from the 70s to the 90s.
In the 40s, 50s and 60s, California WORKED:
(1) It invested in infrastructures, especially highways and water distribution
(2) It invested in education, developing on of the best systems of higher education in the country.
(3) There was a feeling of "we're all in this together"
But by the late 70s the social fabric had frayed. Older white citizens were not happy with changing demographics so they started agitating for lower taxes. In the 90s there was a rash of anti-immigrant referendums passed. The state was in constant fiscal crisis.
But then in the 2010s, things turned around.
Citizens actually voted to RAISE taxes. The state budget now has a SURPLUS.
But Manuel Pastor argues that this was not just an inevitable result of changing demographics:
-Activists had to work hard to figure out ways of organizing the people affected by conservative policies, (mainly ethnic minorities and younger people) who were generally alienated from the political process.
-They had to build alliances between different groups who did not see their struggles as being the same, such as blacks and gays.
In order to be successful progressives have to do more than just try to be "less awful than the Republicans. They have to be:
-authentic
-Offer a positive vision
-Have a realistic strategy for how to achieve their goals
Too often Democrats try to "triangulate" and focus their appeals on the "moderate white voter". The problem is that the issues are still in the conservative frame and now they are alienating their own supporters.
In general this left me feeling more optimistic. Will the US as whole follow the same trajectory? I hope so.
The author argues that everything that is currently happening in America previously happened in California from the 70s to the 90s.
In the 40s, 50s and 60s, California WORKED:
(1) It invested in infrastructures, especially highways and water distribution
(2) It invested in education, developing on of the best systems of higher education in the country.
(3) There was a feeling of "we're all in this together"
But by the late 70s the social fabric had frayed. Older white citizens were not happy with changing demographics so they started agitating for lower taxes. In the 90s there was a rash of anti-immigrant referendums passed. The state was in constant fiscal crisis.
But then in the 2010s, things turned around.
Citizens actually voted to RAISE taxes. The state budget now has a SURPLUS.
But Manuel Pastor argues that this was not just an inevitable result of changing demographics:
-Activists had to work hard to figure out ways of organizing the people affected by conservative policies, (mainly ethnic minorities and younger people) who were generally alienated from the political process.
-They had to build alliances between different groups who did not see their struggles as being the same, such as blacks and gays.
In order to be successful progressives have to do more than just try to be "less awful than the Republicans. They have to be:
-authentic
-Offer a positive vision
-Have a realistic strategy for how to achieve their goals
Too often Democrats try to "triangulate" and focus their appeals on the "moderate white voter". The problem is that the issues are still in the conservative frame and now they are alienating their own supporters.
In general this left me feeling more optimistic. Will the US as whole follow the same trajectory? I hope so.
November 24, 2018
State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America’s Future. Manuel Pastor, 2018
Lemmings are small rodents that were erroneously thought to fling themselves over cliffs in droves when stressed. In the late 1990s, California appeared to be following The Path of the Lemming. Riven by racial strife and economic inequality, hobbled by a government that ― starved by Proposition 13 ― could not respond to crises, California appeared to be teetering at the edge of the cliff. Making matters worse, it was governed by “a celebrity with a big ego and no experience.” The Golden State seemed to be transforming itself into dreck while the rest of the country was booming. Then, the impossible happened. California pulled itself back from the abyss and reinvented itself as a thriving, progressive powerhouse.
In this book, Manuel Pastor draws parallels between the state of California in the 1990’s and today’s national politics and attempts to show how California’s transformation over the last 20 years can serve as a roadmap for the rest of the county.
Drawing extensively from recent quantitative research, journal and newspaper articles, Pastor chronicles how California broke down, how it reinvented itself and how it can be a model of positive, progressive change for the nation.
Though this book was published in 2018, Pastor makes no mention of the cycle of wildfires and mudslides that threaten the sustainability of California’s renaissance.
Lemmings are small rodents that were erroneously thought to fling themselves over cliffs in droves when stressed. In the late 1990s, California appeared to be following The Path of the Lemming. Riven by racial strife and economic inequality, hobbled by a government that ― starved by Proposition 13 ― could not respond to crises, California appeared to be teetering at the edge of the cliff. Making matters worse, it was governed by “a celebrity with a big ego and no experience.” The Golden State seemed to be transforming itself into dreck while the rest of the country was booming. Then, the impossible happened. California pulled itself back from the abyss and reinvented itself as a thriving, progressive powerhouse.
In this book, Manuel Pastor draws parallels between the state of California in the 1990’s and today’s national politics and attempts to show how California’s transformation over the last 20 years can serve as a roadmap for the rest of the county.
Drawing extensively from recent quantitative research, journal and newspaper articles, Pastor chronicles how California broke down, how it reinvented itself and how it can be a model of positive, progressive change for the nation.
Though this book was published in 2018, Pastor makes no mention of the cycle of wildfires and mudslides that threaten the sustainability of California’s renaissance.
August 1, 2022
This book was fabulous, written 4 years ago in the middle of the Trump presidency, in the middle of an epic fight between conservative and racist backlash and an Era of change. Reading it in the middle of the Biden presidency, gives me reason to think and pause about what kind of movement building will be needed to actually effect the kinds of social change we need. On climate change and reversing it, on immigration, on taxes and education spending. Really great analysis on the last 30 years of California's politics and our decent to the riots of 1992 in LA to their current new system. It's not perfect but I think Manuel Pastor has a point that California is pointing a way for America as a whole to recover from the pain, separation, distrust and scapegoating of the Trump years.
August 1, 2021
As a lifelong Californian who came of age politically during the 1990s, this book went a long way towards explaining and giving context to my experiences. It also is extremely hopeful for California and for the nation. And while I will probably never given up complaining about the billionty propositions on each ballot, I gained a new perspective on the ballot initiative process and its role in transforming California politics. A weakness of this book is that anti-Black racism is glossed over and the leadership and struggle of Black activists is barely mentioned in favor of Latine and immigrant communities.
Read
March 19, 2025There's a particularly straightforward and incisive history of how Proposition 13 came to be and the damage its caused -- the best I've come across so far. That's this book's greatest strength in my opinion. The history, in general, is really good and worth reading. When Pastor starts strategizing about what progressives should or shouldn't do, I think it's a real mixed bag, and some of it looks pretty foolish reading it in 2025. It's definitely well written and good to read for its history though!
March 11, 2023
I like the idea that issues that would usually be dismissed as niche can enter mainstream politics though organizing and empowering eligible voters who would otherwise have little motivation to be politically active. I'm also attracted to the author's idea that climate friendly causes can go together with economic development but I'm a bit skeptical about the outcome because I suspect the likely result would be the former being taken up for greenwashing without actual long term impact.
April 28, 2019
too many meandering passages and not enough of a streamlined story. the instinct of the premise seems right, but you get lost along the way in too many details. that said, if you read this and find yourself losing motivation, skip ahead and read the last chapter which is the strongest and clearest.
September 10, 2018
A searingly potent portrait of California's recent social and political history. Pastor draws insightful parallels between California's 'crack-up' and today's national meltdown, as well as pointing to a possible way out.
May 6, 2019
Great book on a brief history about California politics.
October 29, 2021
Not exactly the in-depth political history of California I wanted. I think I had hoped for a more chronological blow-by-blow narrative of how we got to where we are.
January 1, 2025
A little outdated and overly positive about California, but some important lessons I wish we had learned already.
April 12, 2025
4.5 stars. Interesting argument, great explanation. Gave me some hope for the future of our country :,)
February 27, 2025
If you are just awakening from a long slumber under our previous repressive regime, this book will engage you like no other. It will put a whistle in your walk and create a renewed sense of optimism.
What is it all about? Pastor starts by quickly reviewing the terrible propositions of which Californians overwhelmingly voted into law. Here are just three:
1978 Proposition 13: Marketed to the public as needed to keep retirees on fixed incomes from being taxed out of the homes they own, the proposition applied to ALL properties--meaning industrial complexes too.
1994 Proposition 187 - This was an anti-immigration initiative that masqueraded as a fiscal responsibility measure. Politicians for the most part jumped on board as anti-immigrant fervor was high around the nation.
2008 Proposition 8 enshrining only “traditional” (i.e. opposite sex) marriage in the state Constitution. Funded heavily by outside interests - particularly the Mormon Church.
Then fast forward 15 to 20 years. Currently, Californians have one of the best economies in the US. In addition, its standards for clean energy and a growing green environment have lead to actual job increases. California, along with Hawaii and New York, are alone in the top life expectancy chart--82 years compared to some states as low as 75 years.
While Pastor doesn't directly extrapolate this information to an analogy with the current set of Federal Policies that have gained currency during the last four years, one can only hope that California can continue to exemplify what it means to protect our earth, our children's future, our health and our new jobs.
What is it all about? Pastor starts by quickly reviewing the terrible propositions of which Californians overwhelmingly voted into law. Here are just three:
1978 Proposition 13: Marketed to the public as needed to keep retirees on fixed incomes from being taxed out of the homes they own, the proposition applied to ALL properties--meaning industrial complexes too.
1994 Proposition 187 - This was an anti-immigration initiative that masqueraded as a fiscal responsibility measure. Politicians for the most part jumped on board as anti-immigrant fervor was high around the nation.
2008 Proposition 8 enshrining only “traditional” (i.e. opposite sex) marriage in the state Constitution. Funded heavily by outside interests - particularly the Mormon Church.
Then fast forward 15 to 20 years. Currently, Californians have one of the best economies in the US. In addition, its standards for clean energy and a growing green environment have lead to actual job increases. California, along with Hawaii and New York, are alone in the top life expectancy chart--82 years compared to some states as low as 75 years.
While Pastor doesn't directly extrapolate this information to an analogy with the current set of Federal Policies that have gained currency during the last four years, one can only hope that California can continue to exemplify what it means to protect our earth, our children's future, our health and our new jobs.
May 4, 2022
Interesting academic take on California politics. I might have lived too much of California politics in the 2010s or experienced the national political mood in the 2020s but sadly the book seems too optimistic for the times.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews