The ‘California Model’ Is a Basket Case

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is ambitious. He has cultivated the air of someone who looks into the mirror and sees a president staring back. And when Newsom looks out a window, he sees a state that will serve as his vehicle on the road to the White House. It’s a curious illusion.

His state’s critics, by contrast, see a basket case characterized by the spectacular mismanagement of the state’s vast resources, Dickensian levels of social stratification, and a population that cannot flee fast enough from one of the most hospitable climates on earth. Newsom’s fantasies notwithstanding, California never fails for long to remind its critics why they’re right.