“California is the future, always about 15 years ahead of the rest of the country,” touted Peter Leyden, CEO of a media startup called Reinvent, and Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, in a 2018 essay. They contended that California represented America’s political future of a one-party state and that Republicans needed to be booted out of all government across the entire country.

That sounds a whole lot more like a dictatorship than a democracy to me, but that has long been the aim of the so-called Democratic Party.

If a one-party system like California is America’s future, then we’re in big trouble. Let’s see how this 2018 essay has aged.

It seems that some California Democrats may finally be realizing that political domination by one party over a state for decades has some negative long-term ramifications. With only minor interruptions, Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislature since 1970. During that time, to be fair, the GOP has held the governor’s mansion about half the time, though not since 2011. However, over the last two decades in particular, state Democrats have developed a culture of laziness, entitlement, and corruption. Without competition in elections, you breed weakness and have no mechanism for holding elected officials accountable for bad policies.

This is why California now has a lackluster field of candidates for the 2026 Democrat gubernatorial primary. There’s Xavier Becerra, the former member of Congress, state attorney general, and HHS secretary, who is nicknamed the “cardboard box candidate” because he’s just an empty vessel for whatever progressive activists want. How about the “illustrious” Representative Eric Swalwell, who was literally and figuratively in bed with the Chinese? There’s the always “patient” and “transparent” Katie Porter, who will willingly answer all your questions, except for the ones that make her angry. There’s also former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who hasn’t met a reporter he doesn’t like and is often very passionate about his relationships with them.

Even Melanie Mason of Politico admits how uninspiring the field looks and asks whether we’re “entering the era of the Incredible Shrinking California Democrat.” She writes that Willie Brown certainly thinks so, and he has an idea as to why that is: “The situation in the state of California is it’s a one-party state,” says Brown. “There’s no competition quality-wise, philosophically-wise. That’s why we’re stuck with no great quality Democrats running.”

I suppose even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. It is doubtful, though, that this will get other Democrats to self-reflect; they are more likely to double down.

Granted, California is the richest and most populous state (for now), and it has many significant advantages that other states don’t — productive farmland, Silicon Valley, two of the biggest ports in the country, Hollywood, and plenty of top universities, to name a few. But when you have leadership that squanders these advantages, it starts to take a toll. As National Review’s Jim Geraghty wrote two weeks ago:

U.S. News and World Report ranks each state on a wide variety of categories. In the most recent assessment, California ranked dead last in opportunity, dead last in affordability, 47th in employment, 47th in energy infrastructure, 46th in air and water quality, 45th in growth, 42nd in public safety, 42nd in short-term fiscal stability, and 37th in K–12 education. The Tax Foundation ranks California 48th in its most recent State Tax Competitiveness Index. For five straight years, California has ranked highest in people moving out of the state, according to U-Haul’s data. BankRate found California was the 47th-best state for retirement. California ranks fifth-worst in roads and third-worst in drivers, second-highest in accident rate, and second-worst in drunk driving.

Make that six straight years with yesterday’s new data.

Despite California having the highest GDP in the United States, people have no opportunity, and they can’t afford to live there. Another telling sign is GDP growth. You can have all the wealth, but if your economy isn’t growing and is instead stagnating — or worse, declining — you have a problem. It’s no surprise that Florida’s GDP growth ranks #1, with Texas at #2. California, with its massive economy, comes in all the way down at #28, along with Alabama, for GDP growth. Ouch! The idea of a one-party state as the model for our country’s future has not aged well. It has, in fact, predictably been disastrous.

Does Governor Gavin Newsom think that the lack of competition in the general election in California is going to help him in a presidential election or hinder him?

It certainly didn’t help Kamala Harris. We all know her path to power had nothing to do with her skills and qualities and everything to do with the color of her skin (and some sleeping around with Willie Brown didn’t hurt). If anything, Newsom has reduced the competition even more by convincing voters to get rid of the last vestige of anything “bipartisan” in the state — the Citizens Redistricting Commission. It was created specifically to prevent any single political party from gerrymandering legislative districts to protect its incumbents. The moment this got in the way of Democrats holding power, they tossed it out.

History and other third-world countries have proven that shutting down the ability to oppose a leader or policies leads to a dictatorship. We threw off the yoke of tyranny in 1776 because the only future it offered was slavery. America was not founded as a one-party system for a reason: there would be no mechanism to hold elected officials accountable for bad policies. If leaders cannot be held responsible by those whom they lead, it is not leadership.

In order to keep the flame of freedom burning bright and not end up looking like China or Cuba, we cannot allow our country to creep down California’s calamitous path.