SANTA MONICA, California — One of the last times I was in California was a couple of weeks before then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom won the governor’s race. It was late 2018, and COVID-19 was 16 months away. So were the riots that accompanied the death of George Floyd, homeless camps, and the decline of California’s premier cities.
Over lunch at George’s Burgers, life here seemed ideal, at least compared to what was about to come. Certainly, the pastrami sandwich was.
In the past seven years, much has changed in the state. The population has declined for the first time since 1850, which began in 2021.
At that time, rules passed by the California workplace safety agency still required masks to be worn indefinitely. It was unclear if 99% of the state’s schools would be allowed to open in August of that year. Homelessness in the state had hit over 170,000, covering over 12,000 encampments and nearly 300,000 cubic yards of debris.
Income taxes went up, again, to a whopping 14.4% in January 2024. The violent crime rate increased to 511 per 100,000 residents in 2023, up 3.3% over 2022. Retail theft, in the form of dramatic looting scenes often captured by the actors themselves, increased by 13.3% from 2019.
All of these factors combined have led Steve Hilton, a businessman and Fox News contributor, who has called this state home since 2012, to pen his new book, Califailure: Reversing the Ruin of America’s Worst Run State.
Hilton lays heaps of blame on both progressive policies and Newsom, whom he says is a man without conviction when it comes to governing what Hilton believes is the most beautiful state in the country.
“What we have seen happening here breaks your heart. It’s the visible sign of failure, the complete degradation of our cities and increasingly suburbs with the rampant crime and homelessness,” Hilton said, adding that these circumstances are what called him to write the book.
“I hear the stories of people who can’t live in California,” he said. “They’re moving out. And you see that reflected in so many different levels. You see grandparents who are so sad because they won’t get to spend time with their grandchildren because their kids have to leave the state in order to achieve the American dream.”
Hilton’s journey to California began when his parents emigrated from Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to Britain, where he was raised. He said the first time he visited as a businessman, he fell in love with the Golden State.
“California is our home,” he said. “We’ve raised our family here, and I’ve started companies here and had these amazing opportunities. To me, it represents the absolute essence of America, the very best of America. That’s what California should be.”
Hilton said Newsom has, in a few short years, transformed California Dreaming into a poorly run state.
“In the first part of the book, I explain how we got here,” he said. “And one part of that is the political process of how you ended up with this one-party rule by Democrats and how one-party rule just breeds this complacency and extremism because all of the pressure is coming from within the party.”
This pressure has caused legislators to go further and further left, he said.
“It actually goes right back to granting collective bargaining rights to certain public unions, which was the first step down the roadway,” Hilton said. “You end up in a position now where government unions basically run California because they totally control the Democratic Party.”
Hilton also cites the biggest donors to Democratic politicians as major problems, especially the lawyers who create an overly litigious environment for businesses that face endless lawsuits.
“It’s actually one of the main drivers of our housing crisis in California and one of the main reasons that housing is so expensive,” he explained. “Lawsuits filed on bogus environmental grounds by unions to extract various conditions.”
But all is not bleak, Hilton said. He pointed to the 10 counties that flipped from blue to red in the recent elections and the reversal of Proposition 47, which essentially legalized theft under $950, at the ballot box.
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Hilton said he wants to reverse California’s decline through his policy organization Golden Together: “If California is doing well, then so is America.”
So does that mean a run for office is in his future? “Stay tuned,” Hilton said, leaving it at that.