California gets trotted out in the conservative media sphere as “liberalism run wild”, a place where being what they consider to be a “real American” is illegal but crime is subsidized by the state, where everything is expensive and dangerous, and homeless people have gay sex in the street. There’s an entire industry focused on filtering for the most extremely awful news they can find in a state of almost 40 million people, packaging that news as though it’s the typical experience everyone there goes through, and then blasting that news into the brains of Americans 24/7. That image, carefully crafted to be as extremely negative as possible, is the only experience most people have with California.

California is the target of conservative fear mongering.

There’s a large amount of perceived haughtiness from the residents of California. They have a lot to be proud of though - it’s a great state in a lot of regards.

Full disclosure, I’m Canadian but travel to San Diego often for work.

Downtown San Diego is not as I remember it from before the pandemic. It’s quite clear to me that California is struggling with a massive mental health and addiction issue. The cost of living compounds these issues and amplifies the worst in people. Even “normal” working class folk are quick to anger and explode at the slightest inconvenience and people just do not give a shit about each other. I pin it to everyone being stressed out because they live paycheck to paycheck and the future is always uncertain.

Things that I think could help: universal healthcare, increased public housing, and the execution of the sackler family.

It’s a left-leaning, progressive state. Everyone who talks shit about this state in anything other than the cost of living generally doesn’t have an answer because their actual reason for disliking the state is that it’s not a republican state.

california is the largest “sub-national” economy in the world. if california was a country, it would have the fifth largest economy. bigger than the uk, or bigger than india.

if i had to guess, the answer is “success breeds jealousy”

Funny enough for the right wingers that don’t like the gun control in California, it was first brought in because Reagan was fearful of the Black Panthers who were openly carrying fully legal assault rifles and those white politicians couldn’t handle that second amendment applying to black gun owners.

As a very left leaning individual who does not like California my reasons basically come down to all the benign neglect of the homeless (leaving people to rot in the streets with their fentanyl addictions isn’t progressive, assholes) the militant oppositions to building housing anywhere (progress is being made but it’s like pulling teeth) and the huge focus on performative laws that effect 0 actual change.

… Notably these are all problems in other states too. Most of them just use police to lock them up instead. Not better.

But California rubs me the wrong way because they act smug about it.

Because its a right-wing dogwhistle.

I think this is mostly due to the highly polarized political climate. California is the most populous state and it’s policies frequently end up spreading to other states and therefore is frequently focused on because if it’s major influence. This is similar to how Texas and Florida are in the news a lot for their more conservative policies. While there are people out there who take the time to inform themselves and make their own decisions most people are only able to parrot back talking points they hear from the news or their friends. I suspect your coworker is one of those people and probably leans conservative so all he hears all day is how California’s policies are making housing too expensive and it’s too “woke” etc.

Most people out of the state who complain about California, never lived here, they are just repeating what they heard on conservative media.

If it was a hell hole like they say, the property prices would be cheap, no one would want them.

Most people that are leaving, are leaving because they got priced out and cannot afford to stay.

From what I’ve observed it has to do with the fact most people do not know how to party, something California knoes how to do very well.

Republican deflection and propaganda. Next questions.

Okay, let’s start with the environment: most of California doesn’t have enough water, and they’re not doing anything to directly remediate that. Environmentally, a lot of the farming is going to be a disaster when the consequences of climate change really set in. Most of SoCal is a desert, but you wouldn’t know it from the expanses of lawns that you see in wealthy enclaves. (…But you’ll figure it out really fast when you try to go mountain biking without puncture-resistant tires.)

The gun control policy is awful, and likely illegal in light of the last few SCOTUS rulings. But here’s the kicker: California has a Democratic supermajority, and they could do things about the underlying conditions that lead to violence in general, and don’t. They’ve consistently failed to seriously address the economic issues that are closely tied to violent crime, things like economic inequality and poverty, criminal justice reform, systemic racism, and so on and so forth. Instead they’ve opted for policies that make wealthy white people happy without fixing the issues.

Housing; this is where wealthy “liberals” are directly to blame. Dems say that they believe in housing that’s affordable, but wealthy elites–which are overwhelmingly Democratic in California–oppose zoning changes that would allow for high density, affordable housing. The result is shithole houses that can cost over a million dollars, studio apartments in sketchy parts of town (see point #2, above) are thousands of dollars a month, an exploding homeless population, and fuckin’ awful sprawl.

Taxation: California has long had the chance to show that it’s progressive with taxation, and to institute wealth taxes. They don’t.

Education: California still relies on funding largely through property taxes, which ensures that school districts with a poorer tax base will have less funding. Again, this is the product of wealth elites–who are overwhelmingly Democratic in California–working to oppose funding changes that would have the effect of making schools in super-rich neighborhoods less desirable, but would also improve schools everywhere else.

Public transit: California barely has it, and it’s consistently underfunded. Combined with point #3, it leads to traffic gridlock that’s famously awful in major metro areas.

Most of these problems can be solved. The problem is that Dems are being hypocritical; they have a NIMBY attitude that means that, even though they say the right things, they don’t do shit.

From my small sample size experience as a customer service rep for an internet and cable TV company, California customers are some of the most obnoxious ever. People in LA seem like some of the angriest people ever. The slightest inconvenience and it’s like you killed their fucking dog.

California is cool, I just don’t like LA. It’s dirty, crowded, has traffic 24/7, and everything is expensive just to name a few reasons.