The GOP loves to hate the Golden State, but needs it too
It still depends on the state for its campaign contributions, tax revenue and innovative thinking.
Elon Musk’s threat Tuesday to move the headquarters of Hawthorne-based SpaceX and X, the social media platform based in San Francisco, to Texas is just the latest example of the rich and powerful trying to score political points by bashing the Golden State.
Musk blamed the move on the law signed the day before by Gov. Gavin Newsom protecting LGBTQ+ students from being outed by banning school districts from requiring teachers to notify their parents about their gender identification or sexual orientation. He also include the oft-repeated canard about the crime-ridden streets of San Francisco by saying he “had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building” at X headquarters.
Trashing California has become a go-to refrain for Republican politicians and wealthy business tycoons who don’t like its liberal-leaning policies. San Francisco venture capitalist David Sacks described his city as a “cesspool” in a speech Tuesday at the Republican National Convention. Former President Trump frequently portrays California as a dystopian hellscape, calling the state “failing” and a “symbol of our nation’s decline.” The rhetoric is sinking in enough that a national survey conducted for The Times last year found that nearly half of Republicans believe California is “not really American.”
But here’s a question for Musk, Trump and other GOP politicians and supporters who love to rag on our state: If California is so terrible, why can’t you bring yourself to actually kiss it goodbye?
We have a few ideas why.
Let’s start with our economic strength. California is the fifth largest economy in the world, mightier than India, Brazil or Canada. We’re a massive market with more than 39 million people, whose consumers and businesses are responsible for an outsize share of the nation’s economic growth, trade and innovation. We’re No. 1 in revenue from tourism and number of business startups. We have the nation’s largest tech industry by far, and lead the country in manufacturing jobs and agricultural production.
California is also a piggy bank for politicians, who fly in to rake up campaign cash, even if they don’t do much actual campaigning here. Trump’s disdain for California hasn’t stopped his trips to mansions and estates in Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and San Francisco to ask rich donors for money. Trump has raised more donations for his 2024 presidential run here than from any other state, including his own.
We’re also a fount of money to red states such as Texas, Kentucky and Mississippi that depend on us because Californians send more tax revenue to the federal government than we get back. The largesse is due to our large, relatively young population and abundance of high-income earners.
And what about our universities, which Republican politicians have criticized as “woke” and for allowing students to exercise their free speech rights by protesting the war in Gaza? Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA and Caltech and other world-renowned institutions have produced many dozens of Nobel Prize laureates and innovators who have started thousands of successful businesses that have shaped the global economy.
California also sets the agenda for environmental protection. And though detractors in big business and politics regularly attack our stringent rules as a strain on their profits, they ignore how frequently those same regulations spur investment and growth in clean, renewable technology that doesn’t wreck the planet.
Musk should know. His companies were built using billions of dollars in government subsidies. Tesla alone has received more than $2.5 billion in California zero-emission vehicle credits, and benefited from $436 million in consumer rebates for Tesla buyers and hundreds of millions more in other state tax credits to help eco-friendly businesses that want to stay in California. The state’s climate policies are a big reason why California leads the nation in electric vehicle sales, with more than one-third of the nation’s EVs — many of them Teslas — registered in the state.
It’s hardly the first take-my-businesselsewhere threat that Musk, now a Trump endorser, has made, citing California’s labor protections, environmental standards or its enforcement of pandemic health restrictions. Whether it’s bluster or substance remains to be seen. Musk previously announced he would move Tesla’s headquarters to Texas and shut down its Fremont, Calif., electric car factory only to later expand its operations in the Golden State.
Of course California faces the same issues as other places, and our problems with affordable housing, homelessness, drug abuse and pollution are magnified because of our size. But we’re proud to live in a place that’s trying to equitably address our shortfalls and where freedom isn’t defined solely by the ability of the wealthy and the business interests to do what they want. In California, we know that freedom also comes from other priorities we value: safe workplaces, decent pay (our $16 minimum wage is more than twice Texas’), abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, a healthy environment and safety from gun violence.
The GOP’s California bashers will no doubt keep spouting their supposed revulsion for our state for as long as they think it’s to their benefit. But they won’t ever quit us. We have too much to offer.