Right up front, I should point out that the credit for the title of this article goes to Alexander Nieves and Christopher Cadelago at Politico who came up with it originally. It was just too perfect to pass up. They are once again discussing what has been one of the hottest topics in Democratic circles in California, among other blue states. The topic is reparations. Democrats in the state have poured a lot of political capital and energy into discussions of reparations for Black residents of the state. Individual cities have been hatching some of their own plans as well. But as Politico points out, discussions of cash reparations have effectively ground to a halt after Democratic leaders had a chance to digest the total bill that is currently being estimated. And some members of their own party aren’t happy about it.

California Democrats three years ago set out to confront more than a century of discrimination toward Black residents with a push for reparations. Now, those ambitions have faded, and frustration is mounting in their own ranks.

Despite its reputation as a liberal bastion, the Democratic supermajority that controls California’s legislature has recently quashed the kinds of criminal justice reform proposals that are central to the reparations movement, including bills that would have required police officers to obtain a warrant before searching a vehicle and banned police canines from biting suspects.

And even before a closely watched task force could issue its final recommendations aimed at unwinding a legacy of racism, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and others poured cold water on their biggest-ticket item, cash payments for descendants of slaves.

Some of the Democrats are clearly hopping mad, feeling as if they have been deceived. The vice chair of the Legislative Black Caucus told Politico that California is “not as liberal as people want us to believe.” He described race as “the real issue that impacts us the most,” but said that his fellow Democrats were unwilling to “push the boundaries.”

The state established a task force to study reparations and make recommendations, which they did. Those conclusions were expected to be translated into some sort of legislative action, but the proposal has disappeared from the docket and is not expected to be taken up this year. Why might that be when everyone seemed to be so fired up over the idea?

The “reality” that they are running into comes in two flavors. First, there is the fact that the amount of money being discussed is beyond ridiculous. It would effectively bankrupt the state overnight. The same can be said for the municipal reparations plans being cooked up in San Francisco and other cities.

Then there is the fact that the idea of cash reparations is simply not popular, even among California’s famously liberal Democrats. A new survey out this week showed that only 39% of that state’s likely voters supported even the idea of a task force to study reparations, to say nothing of footing the final bill for the plan. And given the tiny number of Republicans in the state, that means a lot of Democrats aren’t on board with it either.

And why would they be? They would be the ones footing the bill for it and doing without all of the other services the state would be unable to afford when the cash runs out. This plan also risks splintering the traditional Democratic racial coalition. These payments would be exclusively for Black Californians. They make up slightly more than five percent of the population. There are many more Hispanic residents whose ancestors no doubt also felt the effects of racism in past generations. And let’s not forget the even more numerous Asians whose ancestors, when they first arrived (mostly from China) were treated little better than slaves. They may start wondering where their reparations checks are.

And, as we will keep reminding people until we’re blue in the face, this entire scheme is founded on a false premise. The state would be asking people who never owned slaves to foot the bill for massive checks being given to people who have never been slaves in a state where slavery was never legal. Of course this fantasy was always going to crash and burn. They ginned it up to bolster minority support for the Democratic Party, but they never really thought it through. And after building up expectations in the Black community for this long, they should probably prepare for some backlash.