Perhaps it is fitting that legendary Beach Boy and California native son Brian Wilson would pass away in the same year that a New York Times headline would ask, “Is the California Dream a Mirage?”

The social, environmental and economic disaster that is California has been mushrooming for decades now, with any improvements in the near term looking about as likely as a working bullet train from the north to the south in that state. The litany of negative facts emerging for the state is accompanied by descriptors such as “worst,” “first,” “record,” “ballooning,” “unsustainable,” “disaster,” and “mismanagement.” These ills are detailed in the myriad articles pointing to California’s failed leadership.

Consider the overall economic situation. California went from a state budget surplus of $100b to a deficit of $73b in just three years. This was driven in part from its decision in February of 2020 to escalate spending significantly while it was losing jobs, and for the first time since receiving statehood in 1850, population. Between 2010 and 2023, the state saw 9.3 million people leave while only 6.7 million arrived — with a disproportionate number of the “leavers” in the high-income, high-tax-paying category.

California had the distinction of being rated as the very worst state in which to do business by Chief Executive magazine — for ten years in a row. Others were more positive with The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council seeing them as only the second worst state, and the Cato Institute placing them at 48th out of 50 for entrepreneurs.

The California Policy Center concludes: 

“For anyone operating a business in California – small, medium or large – the experiences of the last twenty years have been challenging, and it gets worse every year. California’s regulatory environment, its high taxes and exorbitant fees, and the overall cost of doing business are the toughest in the nation. Many businesses have voted with their feet, moving their operations to more welcoming business environments.” 

According to WalletHub.com’s report “Best & Worst Places to Retire (2025),” which examined 182 cities across the U.S., four out five of the worst cities in which to retire are in California.

The story is equally daunting in a host of other arenas for the state — education, illegal immigration, water, violent crime, theft, housing, insurance, energy, environment, assorted taxes and fees, cost of living, state employee pensions, healthcare, and more. ConsumerAffairs, a consumer news and advocacy organization, compared all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. across five categories: affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life, and safety. California ranked as the single least desirable state to move to. Their conclusion might have been influenced by seeing that, compared to all other 49 states in the nation, California has the:

While many folks have wryly referred to California as, “the most expensive weather in the world,” an increasing number of people are rethinking that cost — especially when the weather itself is now regularly accompanied by wildfires, mudslides, and earthquakes.

The Hampton Global Business Review concludes, “The allure of California’s beaches and innovation hubs might not be enough to counteract the growing disenchantment among its residents and business leaders.”

While all of this is more than sobering, contrary to the popular narrative, the untenable situation in which the state now finds itself cannot be blamed solely or even largely on the handful of people who have occupied the top leadership roles or even the few thousand in mid-tier management/political roles for the state. To be sure, many of those people have largely been far worse than feckless; they have been actively counterproductive — perhaps even maleficent. But blaming leadership is like blaming guns for shooting homicides. They could not have performed this disservice without the active support of the California voters.

Time and time again, California voters continue to check the box for more of the same people who continue to inflict damage on them for decades now. But more importantly, they knowingly do so. No objective observer can credibly argue that Californians have been fooled or misled by their leaders or the outrageous decisions they have made, or failed to make.

The great scholar, author, and life-long California resident Dr. Victor Davis Hanson has for years detailed the disastrous results of many of these decisions — from eliminating fire-preventing forest management, to not only failing to build appropriate dams but blowing up existing dams and eliminating reservoirs, to promoting unchecked and mass illegal immigration.

There was likely no more clarifying moment of truth on this point than when Governor Gavin Newsom faced a recall. His record was damning. There was the bungled and hypocritical mismanagement of the COVID virus response — complete with vaccine shortages, maskless French Laundry dinners with friends, and arbitrary business closure guidelines, a budget deficit that was more than double his own projection, and most importantly, the ignoring or exacerbation of most of the long list of the aforementioned maladies destroying the state.

Not only did the recall effort fail miserably, with Newsom receiving a convincing approval mandate of 62% of the vote, but he was then solidly re-elected in 2022 with nearly that same margin. California voters, no doubt painfully aware of all of these issues essentially said, “Yes, yes, yes! Give us more of this!”

But suppose for just a moment that Newsom had been recalled, that perhaps he had skewered one of the sacred cows big enough to motivate his ouster. Perhaps he drove a diesel car, or contended that there is something wrong about allowing a 250lb biological male athlete to compete with women, or suggested that maybe the unpunished shoplifting limit should be reduced from $950 to say $500, or publicly stated that illegal immigrants are not entitled to the same rights as U.S. citizens. Who would voters have suggested take his place? It almost certainly would have been another entity not dissimilar to Newsom in any significant way.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that so many logically thinking, hard-working, patriotic Americans are leaving California if they can. With each passing year, the state is left with an increasingly left-leaning voter base — and they like it that way.  Thus, it is folly to believe that California’s ills can be solved as simply as replacing a few, key incompetent leaders. California’s failed leadership is not nearly as problematic as its failed follower-ship. And that is a far harder nut to crack.

Brian Wilson made a career writing songs about the abundant fun, fun, fun available in the Golden State. Were he with us today, begrudgingly or not, he would have to admit that clearly, daddy took the T-Bird away.

* * *

Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisor member for STARRS.US.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The GOP-led Senate rejected on Friday a measure that sought to stop President Donald Trump from launching further attacks on Iran without the consent of Congress.

Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) war powers resolution was defeated in a 53-47 vote, mostly along party lines. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the sole Republican to vote “yea” while Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) joined the rest of the GOP in opposing it.

“The Framers of our Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war because they believed that the decision to send our nation’s men and women in uniform into harm’s way was too big for any one person. The Trump Administration’s chaotic strategy on Iran confused the American people and created significant risks for servicemembers and their families,” Kaine said in a statement.

“I am disappointed that many of my colleagues are not willing to stand up and say Congress needs to be part of a decision as important as whether or not the U.S. should send our nation’s sons and daughters to fight against Iran,” he added. “I will continue to do all I can to keep presidents of any party from starting wars without robust public debate by Congress.”

Trump ordered military strikes on three sites in Iran last weekend as part of an effort to prevent Tehran from achieving nuclear weapons. Although the president deemed the operation a success and called for peace following a counterattack on a U.S. military base in Qatar with no American casualties, he warned on Friday that the United States would bomb Iran again if it resumed enriching uranium to high levels.

In a statement released after the vote, Sen. Susan Collins (R-MA) argued that Congress did not need to give Trump authorization at this time.

“Since the despicable attacks on October 7, 2023, Iran has continued to use proxies and empowered terrorist groups to attack American servicemembers and our ally Israel. This week, Iran threatened to attack Americans on our own soil and around the world,” Collins said. “I supported the President’s targeted strike on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities because a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an unacceptable threat to America and our allies. I also applaud the current ceasefire. Given this backdrop, it is the wrong time to consider this resolution and to risk inadvertently sending a message to Iran that the President cannot swiftly defend Americans at home and abroad.”

“There has always been a Constitutional tension between Article I vesting in Congress the power to declare war and Article II designating the President as Commander-in-Chief,” she added. “I continue to believe that Congress has an important responsibility to authorize the sustained use of military force. That is not the situation we are facing now. The President has the authority to defend our nation and our troops around the world against the threat of attack.”

Some lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House are pushing for another war powers vote, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters that he did not think it was necessary.

“I don’t think this is an appropriate time for a war powers resolution, and I don’t think it’s necessary. Listen, for 80 years, presidents of both parties have acted with the same commander in chief authority under Article 2” of the Constitution, Johnson said.

Johnson went on to mention how Democrats who are complaining now did not seem to mind when former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama conducted military operations in the region without seeking explicit approval from Congress for those campaigns.

“You had President Biden use it three times in Middle East operations. President Obama went on an eight-month campaign bombing Libya to take down the regime there. I never heard a Democrat balk about any of that,” Johnson said. “And suddenly now they’re just up in arms. It’s all politics. This is not a time for politics.”