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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026

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I read somewhere that the part of the reason California is blue is due to an immigration related ballot which caused backlash. That doesn’t spell short term memory to me

Texas has a stronger 'core' of conservative interests and historically much more conservative hispanics. It's reasonable to think that they can potentially be won back.

On the other hand, part of the reason Texas hispanics were so much more conservative had to do with low voter turnout.

It's not just that, but the fact that California wasn't that solid of a red state to begin with and the fact that conservative whites have been migrating out of California and vice versa for generations now such that the GOP doesn't win the non-Hispanic white vote there now and hasn't for a while.

I think the GOP losing California was a delayed result of the Southern Strategy - not in the sense that the Southern Strategy was racist and California is not, but in the sense that coastal California and Dixie are permanent hereditary enemies on culture war grounds such that bringing southerners into the coalition would eventually drive Californians out.

I note that being from California was an asset for Nixon and Reagan, but conventional wisdom is that being from California was a disadvantage for Harris.

Ok, as a non American- not a knock against you, you’re generally well informed but probably not up on the vibes- California is not the permanent hereditary enemy of Dixie. The permanent hereditary enemy of Dixie is the Yankees. Being from California hurt Harris in large part because of California’s high profile mismanagement. Not because of regional prejudice.

Interesting. UK media (whether sympathetic to the thing or hostile to the thing) consistently portrays coastal California as the spiritual home of the thing that makes the Blue tribe Blue. Actually you can probably drop "coastal" from that description - I know the Central Valley exists because I drove up it, but I doubt most Brits do.

The Dixie-Yankee enmity dates back to the 1850's. California first started to develop a bad reputation in the rest of the country in the 2000's. The horrendous mismanagement and outmigration made everyone dislike them. But that's contingent on California driving out UMC types that raise the price for everyone with their ridiculous mismanagement. No one cares about the Deep South sucking because people who move from Louisiana don't bid prices up. But even normie economic illiterates blame outmigration from California for raising prices 'because they'll pay it, they're used to it, they come here and they buy two houses at a markup and think they got a great deal on both of them, then they rent one out too high, everyone's taxes go up, they don't even notice because they're used to it, and prices at restaurants are crazy because they think it's normal...'.

Raggedyanthem had a post about them just not fitting in. California hate is contingent on decades of poor management driving outmigration, among whom the easily hated nouveau riche are overrrepresented.