How California, land of Nixon and Reagan, turned blue and changed American politics

news.yahoo ^ | 06/04/2023 | Mark Z. Barabak

[ChicagoConservative27]

Bill Clinton was busy filling Cabinet positions and shaping his economic agenda when a memo landed from a team of political advisors. Although Clinton was still more than a month away from becoming president, the topic was his reelection nearly four years off.

Marked confidential and spilling over nearly eight pages, the document outlined a strategy considered vital to Clinton’s hopes for a second term: Lock down California and its generous share of electoral votes so his campaign could "concentrate its energy on other, more tightly contested, states.”

In 1992, Arkansas’ five-term governor became the first Democratic presidential candidate in nearly three decades to carry California, the political birthplace of Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Few, if any, considered Clinton’s victory in California the start of a political realignment; he won just 46% of the vote.

[al baby]

B1 Bob is still alive at 90

[LouAvul]

No kidding. One pic from Woodstock '69 after the scum went home. I'll bet Yasgur was not pleased.

[dfwgator]

And then there was the Washington Mall after “Erf Day”. They said it took two days to clean up all the trash they left behind.

[rdcbn1]

Asians are awesome and their immigration is one of the best things that has happened to the US in the last 50 years.

[Faith Presses On]

There were so many things going on at the same time, though. And that’s the problem when people try to find *the* cause of anything, or even the handful of causes.

Illegal immigration and the defense industry markedly being downsized in CA at that time are definitely two factors.

But another is the transformation in the 1990s from our “old economy” to the new global, WTO economy where just about everything was Made in China.

Walmart went national in the early ‘90s, just as Bill Clinton became president. Coincidence or no. Walmart probably didn’t need an Arkansan in the WH, but it probably didn’t hurt.

And California is our front door to China, with no small clout, especially in CA, and probably preferring it to be dominated by Democrats.

Then there is the country being remade towards ungodly liberalism by cable TV, PCs and the internet. Since cable and VCRs came along, socializing has plummeted in many respects.

[wardaddy]

That’s great

But they vote lib

Wonderful

Same shit I heard here 23 years ago

Let’s keep importing people who vote left

You forgot what used to be the big excuse for Latino immigrants

“But wardaddy they’re catholic you know good people social conservatives”

We voluntarily changed our demographics

Without that no woke nation and a fundamentally transformed America

[Pelham]

I moved to SoCal in 1966 so I’ve had a front row seat to watch the transformation from ‘Leave It To Beaver’, ‘Beachboys’ America to the multicultural, white American natives as a minority society that has replaced it.

Legal immigration from the 3rd world was the driving force and it still is. Illegal aliens from Mexico get all the press but other than the misguided and destructive 1986 amnesty they aren’t what turned California into a woke post-America.

The problem for the rest of you is that the transformation isn’t going to be confined to California.

[Alberta's Child]

I’d like to see some evidence of that.

In 2020, Asian voters supported Biden over Trump by a wider margin than any racial/ethnic group other than black people.

In my experience, even the best educated Asian-Americans have the political outlook of peasants.

[alstewartfan]

Good man, good sub host for Rush. Cut his own throat.

[Fiji Hill]

California hasn’t been solidly Republican since the 20’s.

Many Republican leaders in California were what we now call RINOs. Governors included:

• After winning the governorship in the "Democratic year" of 1934, Frank Merriam pulled a George Bush and established a state income tax. He also jacked up the sales tax.
• Earl "Rabbit" Warren was to the left of many Democrats.
• Goody Knight, a liberal Republican, joined the "Dump Nixon" campaign in 1956, making a brief run for Vice President. Then he switched parties in the next decade.
• Petie Wilson was a militant pro-abort who pushed through massive tax increases that sent the state into a four-year-long recession.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger made a half-hearted effort to push some conservative reforms and then gave up.

On the other hand, Gov. George Deukmejian, California's last conservative governor, did a fine job.

[ronnie raygun]

Rat cheating

[Faith Presses On]

Net domestic migration for California has probably averaged more than 100,000 people a year LEAVING the state during the last decade, according to Wikipedia. That is a lot of Californians going elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California

[ansel12]

“””Walmart went national in the early ‘90s, just as Bill Clinton became president. Coincidence or no. Walmart probably didn’t need an Arkansan in the WH, but it probably didn’t hurt.”””

By the time Clinton took office, Walmart was the nation’s # 1 retailer and was in at least 45 states and many countries.

[Faith Presses On]

“8 Californians who left for Texas share thoughts 1 year later”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IakAyNtrE_E

[Faith Presses On]

I know, but I meant something different. In 1990, when it was the largest retailer by revenue, it still wasn’t national in the way I meant. I’m from the Northeast, and my city had no stores then. We’d only heard of Walmart. As the Wikipedia article says:

“Prior to the summer of 1990, Walmart had no presence on the West Coast or in the Northeast (except for a single Sam’s Club in New Jersey which opened in November 1989), but in July and October that year, it opened its first stores in California and Pennsylvania, respectively. By the mid-1990s, it was the most powerful retailer in the U.S. and expanded into Mexico in 1991 and Canada in 1994.[44] Walmart stores opened throughout the rest of the U.S., with Vermont being the last state to get a store in 1995.[45]”

My city got several stores in a short span during the early ‘90s, and that’s when Walmart became “the most powerful” and dominant retailer in the nation.

So that’s what I mean. The national business conquest of Walmart (when we’d say we became a “Walmart nation,” generally coincided with Bill Clinton becoming president, and NAFTA agreement too. Then the WTO in 1995 as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart#1990%E2%80%932005:_Retail_rise_to_multinational_status

[Faith Presses On]

“Walmart Growth Map Animated in R: Watch the growth and spread of Walmart across the US in an animated map using ggplot2 in R and ffmepg.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adm3RB4ieXU

[ansel12]

I don’t know how you keep saying that Walmart only went national and international starting in 1993 because of Clinton.

It doesn’t match reality.

[Republican in occupied CA]

Thanks Bush I and Bush II.

They are the ones who screwed California.

But of any immigrants, I’ll take Koreans. I think you might be mistaken as to how they break politically. The Chinese who assimilate are HEAVILY GOP from what I’ve seen since so many of them are business owners.

[Faith Presses On]

Oh, please. Give me a break. WHERE DID I SAY, “Walmart only went national and international starting in 1993 because of Clinton”?

CLUE: I DIDN’T!!

It’s not only liberals who are truth-challenged, apparently.

OBVIOUSLY, Clinton wasn’t the force behind Walmart.

Also OBVIOUSLY, I was referring to the “Walmarting of America.” The Walmart Revolution. Whatever. I assume you lived through it. When Walmart replaced many small businesses across America.

I NEVER said Clinton caused Walmart to “go national.” I even DID SAY, “Walmart probably didn’t need an Arkansan in the WH, but it probably didn’t hurt.”

AND AGAIN: WALMART WAS ***NOT*** IN THE NORTHEAST OR ON THE WEST COAST UNTIL 1990. IT DIDN’T “CONQUER” THOSE MARKETS, EITHER, UNTIL THE MID-’90s.

I also didn’t argue that it wasn’t the largest retailer in 1990, though.

Stop WASTING our time, though, with arguing over things WHERE THERE IS NO ARGUMENT.

GO WATCH the video showing Walmart’s national expansion year-by-year if you feel like arguing with me about what’s RIGHT IN the video again.

[ansel12]

“”Walmart went national in the early ‘90s, just as Bill Clinton became president. Coincidence or no. Walmart probably didn’t need an Arkansan in the WH, but it probably didn’t hurt.””

The facts don’t fit that description, they went national and international and were America’s #1 retailer before Clinton.