Yikes, for some reason I didn't compute at first that your first few sentences were a form of levity. I was getting ready to respond as if you were that out of

Yikes, for some reason I didn't compute at first that your first few sentences were a form of levity. I was getting ready to respond as if you were that out of touch. haha As a fairly disgruntled Californian myself, there are fellow Californians I know who aren't that far off from the attitude you described sarcastically. I feel kind of bad because I think they know deep down that reality is gradually no longer reflecting their viewpoint, and they can't admit it. I have a very good long time friend, for instance, whose politics have been pretty much entirely implemented by the state over our lifetimes. He's very much a self-described "progressive", and that puts it lightly (he also considers himself a communist, but he's more bashful about that). He, being a once openly political guy, no longer opens his mouth about these issues because he can't deny that other states and entire other countries with smaller economies are surpassing us in those regards. Take energy, for instance. California's leaders have stated explicitly many times over the years that we are "leading the nation" and "setting an example for the world" with our policies towards infrastructure, yet what do we have to show for it? Blackouts? Massive wildfires caused by the electrical grid? The closing of nuclear plants? Give me a break. Then there's the social issues and homelessness. Maybe it's a case of the frog being boiled slowly, because to me I've clearly seen a massive decline in our cities over my lifetime. I'm ashamed to show visitors around LA and refuse to do so at this point because the homeless encampments are so widespread. I'm absolutely for helping the homeless, but we also have this effect where the homelessness has permeated everything. And yeah, to be stereotypical, our roads are crap, despite how frequently parts of them are closed off for maintenance. Every time I drive in another state, I'm stunned at how nicely paved the highways are. In much of SoCal, you can expect lots of pits, cracks, and seams to cause a bumpy ride. There's even a part of the 210 freeway that, I kid you not, reminds me of that scene from the Pixar movie "Cars" where Lightning has to pour new asphalt on the main road and it comes out all patchy and awful. Yet there are still people in complete denial or in delusion. The rest of the world has moved on, and because California is too-big-to-fail with its abundance of resources, it's effectively in the "cash cow" phase that most corporations experience where nothing needs to change because the hogs can keep feeding from the trough. Basically, California is the IBM of states; we're old and slow and boring, but everyone's still relying on our mainframes.