Kamala Harris, Californication and American Elections

Back in 1999, the American rock group “Red Hot Chili Peppers” described degenerative social trends in the song Californication. Melodic, original, with an easy-to-understand chorus, the song about the phenomenon of Californication spread quickly and stayed at the top of various charts for a long time. Paradoxically or not, this song is today more relevant than when it was released, even though it has not been on the top charts for a long time.

During the good part of the twentieth century, California was synonymous with the American dream, it was portrayed as the most beautiful place to live in the world. To some extent, it was. The first half of the century was marked by the appearance of Hollywood and the entry into the television era, as well as the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, which became a symbol of continuous development and incredible achievements. The second half began with the establishment of Silicon Valley and the production of the first hard disk, which later continued to unimaginable proportions. In parallel, the university centers of Stanford, Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego have become the best in the world in various scientific fields. Looking at it separately from the viewpoint of statistics and indicators of nominal gross domestic product, California is the fifth largest economy in the world in the twenty-first century. At the same time, it is the most populous federal state in the USA, and – what is significant for the presidential elections – it gives by far the largest number of electors – 54 (out of a total of 538). In fact, California provides the same number of electors as the 15 smallest states combined.

However, at the same time, California has become one of the biggest “challenges” for the USA. Today, quite contrary to the stated data on the “fifth economy of the world,” California is facing great, possibly even unsolvable tests. In the last two years, the number of inhabitants has decreased by a record half a million, emigration continues, even in conditions where the illegal entry of migrants from Mexico has increased (it is estimated that close to 4 thousand migrants cross the border with the USA every day, some of them end up in California as a temporary or permanent destination). So, realistically, the population outflow is even more massive, but this is not visible in the official data, since there is a continuous influx of newly arrived immigrants.

At the same time, the number of homeless people has increased by more than 50 percent in the last half decade (a third of the American homeless are in California), despite the fact that since 2019, $17 billion has been spent on their care. Food prices are higher than in the rest of the USA, and housing costs should not even be mentioned (this topic has been discussed and often analyzed, since the price of real estate is even two and a half times higher than, for example, in Texas). Infrastructure works are delayed, the once thunderously announced high-speed railway has been under construction for 14 years, has not been completed, and the costs are already three times higher than projected. A key concern is that significant companies are also leaving with the outflow of the population. As many as 414 large companies have moved their operations to other federal states, among them Elon Musk with the X platform (formerly Twitter) whose headquarters are now located in Austin, Texas. The reason for this is that California has the highest income taxes (currently over 13 percent), while, for example, this category does not exist in 9 US federal states. The increase in taxes did not contribute to the improvement of living conditions, the improvement of the business environment, the construction of strategic infrastructure, or the solution of accumulated social issues (such as the problem of the homeless, which in Los Angeles is taking on alarming proportions). Why?

Californication is not only a song that describes the “social bottom,” but also a warning that all this “rot” will rise to the surface and represent the mainstream of social life. What was socially unacceptable three decades ago has become not only acceptable, but to a large extent also exemplary. The author of these verses concludes that neither earthquakes nor tidal waves “can save the world from Californication.” Whether the world will be saved or not we are yet to see, just the picture of California itself is different today because of that. Instead of the myth of the American dream created in the “golden age,” a Woke culture is now taking root here, paired with the legitimization of greed and basing value principles on utilitarianism (maximization of usefulness).

Possibly the most important promoter of the Woke culture and the deconstruction of all previous definitions of basic social categories is the Hollywood spectacle industry. Hollywood, not prestigious California universities, establish ethical norms and moral frameworks. The family no longer represents what it used to (there is no need to talk about the notions of nation, tradition, religion – they were dismantled at the end of the 1990s), and man is not what he used to be. The sexes have been overcome, genders have been inaugurated instead, and genders can change during life, according to the needs of satisfying the current mood. The project of establishing Woke as a dominant cultural pattern comes at a cost in every aspect: political, financial, institutional… Nothing happens spontaneously here; the framing of cultural patterns must be organized. The logical outcome of such an organized process in the political field is manifested in continuous support for the Democratic Party. The exception is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who as a representative of the Republicans won the election for governor twice (after his departure from office in 2010, the Democrats won again – twice each by Ferry Brown and Gavin Newsom), but as far as other elections are concerned, Democratic candidates for president of the USA have been “taking” the 54 electoral votes since the beginning of the nineties (Hillary Clinton won almost twice as many votes as Donald Trump in 2016), senators have been elected from the ranks of that party for decades, as well as most congressmen (when it comes to congressional elections, currently the ratio is 40 – 12 in favor of the Democrats).

In the current presidential election, California also has “its own candidate,” Kamala Harris. Quite in line with everything that has been done so far, Kamala Harris is the candidate with the task of Californicating the entire United States. Since Hillary Clinton didn’t even get a chance to make it happen, and Joseph Biden wasn’t able to pick up where Barack Obama left off, Harris might be the “last chance” for something like that. Progressive polarization in American society is taking place due to the imposition of Californication both at the federal level and in a whole series of states, so the circumstances for the projected success of the Democratic Party’s initiative are changing. One of the (un)spoken arguments of the Republicans is the fact that Californication costs, in addition to being socially unacceptable, are to be paid from budget funds.

On the other hand, perhaps these elections are the last chance for Republicans to prevent an unwanted process. Because, if Harris embarks on a more ambitious Californication of American politics, the Republican Party will no longer have much chance of achieving anything in the next election cycles. The political manifestation of Woke(ism) is that the Democrats win, there is no room for their opponents. Neoliberal doctrine in politics and Woke culture go hand in hand, mutually support and depend on each other. For the USA, the upcoming presidential elections are important in many ways. One of the battles that is being fought concerns the “grafting of the Californian sprout” across the country (in fact, in some states like New York, this has already happened a long time ago). The candidacy of Kamala Harris (re)actualized this issue, although the application of the concept in California itself led to dramatic consequences. Simply, it is a matter of ideology, explanations based on facts play little role. Instead of the American dream, with Kamala Harris the USA will offer the world the Woke culture, new ethical norms, and moral frameworks. Or you can say the old norms but now slightly redesigned and very aggressively imposed in political practice. With an emphasis on aggressive imposition in political practice, at the cost of ruining people’s lives, delaying strategic projects, and not solving the accumulated problems of society. Wokeism helps in creating new majorities and winners in elections. The society of Hollywood spectacle helps keeping the ideological discourse, which politically, financially and institutionally discourages the rebuke of the Woke culture. After Kamala Harris, there can be only someone similar. The same thing will happen in European countries, in which Californication is also being spread. The logical end of the conceptualization of postmodernist deconstruction of literally everything and insisting on new interpretation of human rights and freedoms that are defended at all costs. This is how the circle is being closed.