You know what's wrong with California?

A Democrat, at least that's what I hear.

When I write Broken Sidewalk In Los Angeles, readers have written to say Democrats are to blame.

Homelessness, crime public transport, Poverty — in both cases, Democrats are to blame.

Recently, I Langer's DeliHe is considering retirement due to the issues at MacArthur Park.

“Good. I hope he shuts down and runs out of the state,” wrote a reader named Thomas. “The Governor, Mayor and Democrats have ruined our state.”

Former President Trump also likes to slam California, labeling Vice President Kamala Harris a home-grown extremist, if not a communist. She destroyed San Francisco As district attorney, he would destroy the whole state, as attorney general, he would destroy the whole state, and as his colleague George H. W. Bush said, he would turn the whole country into a California-style hellhole. Mark Barabac It has recently been in the spotlight.

A reader named Steve summed it up like this: “The democratic experiment has failed,” he wrote. “Study history, you're stuck in the liberal quagmire.”

Okay, I'll join in. Let's study history and current events.

People are gathering in an alley in MacArthur Park, where drug use is rampant.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

First of all, I acknowledge that the Democratic Party is right to be in trouble.

They control every statewide elected office and the legislature of a wealthy state with the fifth-largest economy in the world (not bad for a place of hell), yet California has sky-high poverty rates, high housing costs that force people to flee, and a shamefully high number of homeless people, many of whom suffer from addiction or mental illness or both.

But it didn't happen overnight, nor did it happen only under Democratic leadership.

“The larger issues and challenges surrounding us locally, state and nationally are more complicated than simply looking at the people running the political show and pointing the finger.” Jaime Regalado “Historical context is important,” said Pat Brown, former director of the Pat Brown Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, a suburb of San Francisco, back when the state had a population of 10 million (today, 10 million people live in Los Angeles County alone). Many of the people I went to school with went on to work for the major local companies, like U.S. Steel, Dow Chemical, Allied Chemical, and Johns Manville.

The money these jobs earned allowed them to buy homes, raise families, and send their children to California's well-funded colleges and state universities. But these jobs only lasted because after World War II, much of the world was in ruins and the United States had little competition. In the decades that followed, domestic blue-collar industrial, manufacturing, and aerospace jobs dried up, largely because of shifts in the global economy and cheap foreign labor.

The new economy, primarily technology and services, has widened income inequality, and neither Democrats nor Republicans in California or elsewhere have found a plan to rebuild the middle class.

“There are simply unrealistic expectations about what different levels of government, particularly local governments, can do.” Jack Pitney “You could have the best mayor in the world, and he or she wouldn't be able to solve poverty,” said the Claremont McKenna College political science professor.

I'm not saying we should forgive Karen Bass or turn a blind eye to the homeless problem, but again, these problems start way up in Los Angeles City Hall.

On a cold, rainy day in February 2023, a man sits outside the Fred Jordan Mission.

(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

For decades, under Democratic and Republican leadership, California made the mistake of not building enough housing to accommodate the influx of people moving to take jobs in the state's booming economy — one of many factors contributing to today's skyrocketing home prices and homelessness problems.

Another reason is that in the 1960s, civil liberties advocates and others alleged that mentally ill people were being neglected and mistreated in the state's psychiatric hospitals. Three California state legislators (one Republican, two Democrats)Lanterman-Petris-Short ActThe law, signed by Republican Governor Ronald Reagan, placed limits on involuntary psychiatric treatment and led to the closure of hospitals.

But the promised community treatment centers never materialized, and for decades untreated mentally ill people have been confined to prisons, jails, the streets and morgues. Federal mental health funding is Destroyed by Reagan At the time he took office, local governments were struggling with the effects of Proposition 13, a property tax abatement that had drained city coffers.

“Not much is talked about the homelessness crisis of the '80s under the Reagan administration.” Regina Freer“We always want to flatten and simplify really complex issues,” said , who teaches urban politics at Occidental College. “That's why I'm in the classroom, because I don't want my students to fall into the same trap of oversimplification.”

Another oversimplification is that Democrats are solely responsible for the number of illegal immigrants in California and elsewhere.

Many of them come here to work for the conservative agribusiness industry that turns a blind eye while giving campaign contributions to Republicans, and many more come to Mexico to escape drug violence. 70% of guns Made in the USA

It's a bit hypocritical to blame California for insanity and recklessness toward public safety in the wake of any mass murders happening around the country, such as the shopping mall shootings and school shootings (which left two students and two teachers dead on Wednesday). Georgia High School) could loosen the gun lobby's deadly grip on Republican lawmakers.

“What's changed in our society is that instead of people sitting down and trying to solve problems, they're just pointing the finger,” he said. Marc Baldassarre Researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California say people place all the blame on “parties and political groups to which they do not belong.”

You're probably reading this and saying, “Okay, but Reagan and Nixon and economic transformation are ancient history. California Democrats have been in control for years, they've been soft on crime and the border, they've made lots of empty promises, and they're too woke.”

In July 2022, Mario Blanco was living in a flood control channel in Downey.

(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Fine, but if that's your view, then who is to blame for Democrats being in power in California?

I have the answer.

That's the Republican Party.

An out-of-touch Republican Party is hell-bent on shrinking the power of a state that proudly celebrates inclusion and diversity and leads the resistance to the politics of race-based scapegoating, climate change denial, and the stripping away of women's reproductive rights. Reagan, who signed an abortion rights bill as governor and an immigrant amnesty bill as president, would be ostracized by today's Republican Party.

California Republican Party It alienated many Latinos In the 1990s, Proposition 187, which banned services to illegal immigrants, and Republican Gov. Pete Wilson's “They Just Keep Coming” TV ads Republican Fall Convention Last year, attempts to remove opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage from the party platform were rejected.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican, left Sacramento in 2011, and no Republican candidate has won statewide office since. No candidate has offered winnable solutions to deep-rooted problems, and with Republican voter registration falling to about 25% as the electorate becomes more diverse, it may be too late for the party to revive.

You can't blame the Democrats for that.

Email: steve.lopez@latimes.com