California has been a beacon, a destination, a paradise and promised land ever since its headlong expansion in a rush of gold fever.
It’s also been a perennial source of envy, mockery and contempt.
That naysaying has gained much greater currency in recent years as California’s population has contracted for the first time in more than a century.
The “exodus” has become an industry, stoking real estate markets from Nevada to Tennessee, fanning the red-versus-blue political flames and launching a thousand what-went-wrong analyses.
The latest insult — or bracing reality check? — came last week in a Los Angeles Times poll that found 50% of adults nationwide believe California is in decline. (Bummer, man.)
Nearly half the Republicans surveyed said the state is “not really American.” Whatever that means.
L.A. Times columnists Mark Z. Barabak (a proud California native) and Anita Chabria (a happy Ohio transplant) discuss the poll, the hating by haters and the state of their troubled but still much-loved state.