Ask Lemmy

Learn the phrase and see it everywhere: negative partisanship. XBOX vs PS vs Nintendo vs mobile, Mac vs MS vs Linux, Rep vs Dem, white vs black, old vs young, etc. etc. etc. Stupid people love signalling to their ingroup how loyal they are by attacking the outgroup.

California is a big, shiny, undeniable counter-point to everything they claim is bad about liberalism.

More people choose to live here than anywhere else (in America) and we have more money than anyone else because our economy is more productive than anywhere else (in America).

It's California. Go anywhere in the world and say the word "California" and they'll know what you're talking about, even if they don't speak English.

California is concrete proof that liberalism isn't some failed ideology and they REALLY don't like that. Hell, we're responsible for some of these conservative states even existing, as they siphon money from us because we pay WAY more to the federal government than any other state.

Conservatives don't have a state as successful as California. And even most of their large cities are liberal.

It's hate based in jealousy.

Perceived as most left-leaning of the states , wen any one who knows just a little past surface level about USian politics , they'll realise there's no true "left-leaning" state lol

If California is allowed to look good, then it hurts the credibility of their ideology.

I think there are some criticisms about Californians leaving the state raising housing prices in their own state. That’s just how supply and demand works though when the supply of houses suddenly becomes more limited in your area.

They like to say things along the lines of: “Californians messed up their own state with their high taxes, fled here, are driving all the prices up, and are now trying to bring their fAiLeD PoLiTiCs to the state.” The real answer is that California is such a desirable place to live that there are not enough houses and well paying jobs to go around. People leave the state because of unregulated capitalist pressures, not because of the state’s strong social programs.

It’s not just Californians moving to other states that are driving prices up. Housing prices going up is also caused by private equity firms buying up available properties, a slowdown on building new houses capping supply, people from other states moving, and Not In My Backyard people trying to prevent lower cost housing in their towns since they don’t want the price of their house to ever drop.

Having strong social programs in their own states could actually help mitigate the impact of prices going up for housing as well as for other goods and services. For instance, they could have their own state provided healthcare coverage to help them have guaranteed healthcare. They could have better public transportation systems so they are not so car reliant to get to work. Rent controls in place to mitigate landlords pricing people out of the area. Affordable housing construction. Even things like public utilities could be offered for less by the state for gas, electricity, phone, and internet.

California is strictly better than every red state in almost every measure. They literally hate it because it directly disproves their worldview that conservatives are good for the economy.

An often overlooked aspect is that much of the rural US is experiencing pretty aggressive gentrification. "California" is the nebulous word used to describe that process by conservatives because actual understanding and contextualizing is "woke".

California being the stand in word due to the socio-economic reasons already stated.

I get the sense places like California and New York are seen as the homes of the rich elite. Which, they are - because that’s where everyone wants to live. Conservatives miss that they’re also the homes of hundreds of thousands of oppressed working class like themselves who also hate those rich elites, because states are big places.

There’s also racism. They hate sanctuary cities because they go against their narrative that immigrants are destroying America. (Signed, a white guy living in a sanctuary city that is proud of its low crime rate)

California is successful. It is the strongest economy of the US, and one of the strongest economies in comparison to other, complete, countries. And it dares not to be Republican!

On the other hand, most Republican states could not survive without federal handouts, mostly supplied by more successful Democratic states.

It is envy, plain and simple.

Because the entire concept of conservatism is based on having enemies.

It's heavily featured in Fox and other conservative ~~propaganda~~ media. So is the pacific northwest... my god, my dad will not stop talking about the homeless hordes of seattle or whatever.

TBH Texas and Florda are portrayed similarly in many leftist tabloids. Speaking as someone who has recently leaved in both, yes, they are conservative dystopias, but not uniformly and not like news would lead you to believe.

There are just blowing up grains of truth.

It holds a level of cultural and economic dominance over much of the country to the point where it can often feel similar to how America does to Europeans.

They make our art, they grow our food, and they represent us on a cultural stage to the world. And for a lot of middle America you will never be able to afford to move there, but some of your neighbors and friends will, and they'll love it.

There's a lot of sour grapes in California hate, because Iowa, Missouri, ohio, etc know they're flyover states, they know they're never going to be the powerhouses that California is. So you watch your Los Angeles media on a Silicon Valley device eating your San Joaquin vegetables thinking about your childhood friend who couldn't take it here and got into a UC and never moved back. There's some bitterness if you left your small town, but if you didn't even manage that…

Fear of the unknown. The unknown, in this case, is some semblance of a functioning society.

It's the fifth largest global economy...

It's hard proof that most of their policy is complete bullshit, because if they were right, liberal social policy and taxes would have chased all the wealthy away.

But it doesn't, because people want to live in places with that kind of policy

Conservatives = keep stuff how it has been California = modernize stuff and abandon how things were

It's basically in their name - to conserve. California is doing exactly everything opposite, setting new trends and standards.

Because it's a huge historically majority liberal state?

The people who tell conservatives what to think have indicated that California is bad. Why is it bad? They made some progress on a few things, and we can’t have that. It’s why we can’t have nice things like affordable healthcare and breathable air.

Because caring for the environment and creating social programs is scary to them.

The entire answer is "propaganda"

right wing propaganda from MSMs, like fox. they are also hyprocites because many of them live like in nevada, and thier entire business is inside CALIFORNIA. for eg, i used to followed some asian ytubers, they moved to LAS VEGAS or reno over the pandemic but they rail on california, called it woke, but thier base is in california los angelas. and then they were whining about the lack of community culture for POCs in VEGAS, healthcare and school. also one of them was caught by california EDD laws, for mislabeling thier employees as contractors,1099 instead of full time employees. he was literally asking the incel viewers how to EVADE and commit fraud to get away with it.

They hate us because they ain't us.

For the same reason liberals bash on Texas all the time: it’s a flagship state for the political brand that’s an easy target due to its size and problems (due to its size).

They jelly of that economy

Everybody loves finding things in common with other people.

Since California is percieved by the right to be a "liberal stronghold", it is easy for them to bond over a shared hatred of it. Regardless of whether or not that hate is based in fact.

They're sheep

Because California stands for many, many, many, many of the things they oppose without evidence to back up their claims: Supporting LGBTQ+, better Social programs, limited religious freedoms, run by a bunch of "liberals", etc. etc.

And yet, it's the 5th largest economy in the world, and the vast, overwhelming, majority of funds for the USA.

They hate that California works, because it disproves pretty much all of their talking points.

In integral part of conservative ideology is hatred and California's been a target for decades. When the acceptance of gays became too widespread they switched to hatred and vilification of transgender Americans. When the general population gets tired of listening to them screech about that they'll find someone/something else. For some reason they don't get tired of whining about CA.

Because Fox News tells them too

What’s crazy is that, by pure numbers, CA is basically tied with FL as having the second most republicans in the country—at around 6 million.* Only TX has them both beat. Conservatives really do shit on the 2nd/3rd largest enclave of republicans in the country 🤣

*Based on the 2024 US election turnout—not registered republicans