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Comment by jacobolus | Hacker News Reader

It used to be somewhat ungovernable when there were >1/3 Republicans in the legislature, since Prop 13 imposes severe constraints on the ability of any governments in the state to raise taxes for any reason, and the CA state GOP made it their mission to be as obstructionist as possible (my former state rep sent out mailers proudly proclaiming that he had something like a 95% record of voting No on every motion that came to the floor, interspersed with various racist stereotypes). Didn’t help that we had a string of bad and ineffective (for various reasons) governors in Pete Wilson, Gray Davis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Since the Democrats achieved a supermajority in both chambers, and with the seasoned and very effective Jerry Brown as governor, everything has been comparatively smooth.

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Smooth as long as you are an ubanite. There are large swathes of California that are tired of being ignored and having their concerns invalidated. There is only so long people can be told that they are too insignificant to matter before it all blows up.

I have been a Sili Valley engineer for years. But I grew up in rural America. I can speak both languages. The half of the USA that voted Trump is simply tired of the abuse, disdain, intolerance, and complete disregard for their interests. They are no less human than you.

I suspect you are surprised at my reaction. Think about what that means. Ignoring the seething anger of those who don't think things are going well now that there is a supermajority in both houses is not going to end well.

So what do they want that they're not getting? And besides, not getting what you want is not the same as the state being ungovernable.

I'm not sure what Trump has to do with any of this or why literally anyone but his close family would think anything good would come from that conman no matter what your politics are.

From what I can tell they’re most mad about the idea that water isn’t an infinite resource during a drought, and the suggestion that it should maybe be allocated using a market.

That and some of them are unhappy about living in the same state with people who have different skin color or sexual orientation and having their government pay for schools that teach science, women’s reproductive health, social safety net programs, and so on.

The less populated parts of the state get dramatically disproportionate state and federal resources spent on them. Support for their schools, infrastructure, medical care, fire protection, etc.

That's in the southern part of the central valley. In the northern part, the counties that make up the overtly racist separatist movement "State of Jefferson" what they want is to just clearcut every tree in the state. This will provide a total of roughly nine full-time jobs, but some of the people who live there can remember when logging wasn't totally automated, and actually employed a lot of people.

Most counties in California should be very pleased to be thrown in with the coastal urban areas, because without them the state economy wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. All of the resource extraction industries (logging, oil, quarrying) and agriculture+fishing combined are worth about 5% of the state economy. The "State of Jefferson" counties wouldn't even be able to afford to pave their highways, much less fight their wildfires, and certainly not rebuild Oroville Dam.

Driving down I-5, I keep seeing cryptic signs saying "Congress Created Dust Bowl". It seems to imply that the government is at fault for worrying about sustainable use of water.

If this is representative of rural California, I fear they will feel disenfranchised for a long time to come, because you cannot fool Mother Nature. When the water is gone, it will be gone, and no amount of politics will bring it back. Ditto for other natural resources.

Educate yourself: http://video.valleypbs.org/video/3000761059/

If the majority of the population is concentrated in urban areas why shouldn't the rural areas be marginalized.

Shall we count the trees and squirrels as part of the population in order to make it more fair?

I guess that depends on if the people in the urban areas want to eat...

We need the rural areas to be well run to survive...

That argues against your point. Rural areas in California are voting against their interest regarding water rights and ecology, for example. Digging more wells to deplete non renewable groundwater and draining the rivers to grow almonds is trading the future for the present. Accurately pricing water to respect externalities and long term needs would be more sustainable.

Replace "rural areas" with any other minority of your choice and see how that first sentence sounds.

Minorities are protected classes. Rural areas aren't. You can't change your race. You can change your location.

Oddly enough, moving from a very poor rural area to one of the richest counties in the country hasn't magically changed my political views.

> The half of the USA that voted Trump is simply tired of the abuse, disdain, intolerance, and complete disregard for their interests.

No, they're tired of having their feelings hurt and tired of imaginary threats. Rural voters (nationally anyway) already have an outsized influence on State and Federal government. Without gerrymandering in favor of rural voters (and the 2-senators per state which also heavily favors rural voters) the cities - and by extension Democrats - would have a complete lock on a majority of states and Congress.

Rural America is over-represented and wields far too much control over the country. I grew up there too and they have a disregard for their own self-interest. It's mostly complete ignorance and a complete disregard for reality, followed by seething anger at imaginary wrongs. To Rural America all our problems are simple and can be solved with a soundbite. Rural America is the epitome of the interviews with Trump voters who claim "we are losing our country" and when asked to name how or why they draw a blank. When asked how Obama's presidency hurt them they hem and haw.

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