In Praise of a Disunited States of America

The Nation Could Use More Declarations of Independence, and California Should Take the Lead

The further I drove into Oroville, the more disappointment I felt.

I had my passport with me, but no one asked me to show it. American flags still hung from stores along Montgomery Street. Homes near the Feather River were flying our state’s banner. City Hall had not been replaced by a new national capitol. And as hard as I looked, I could find no new standing army, or presidential palace, or the Oroville Food and Drug Administration.

It was as if the city council of Oroville, 70 miles north of Sacramento …

by Joe Mathews | July 3, 2023

More In: Connecting California

Anaheim Shows Ron DeSantis How to Build a Better Mickey Mousetrap

To Fight Disney, Local Containment Works Better Than a Culture War Assault

by Joe Mathews | June 27, 2023

How best to fight Mickey Mouse?

There are two schools of strategy for making war with the Burbank-based Walt Disney Company.

One strategy, from …

Newsom’s Gun Control Amendment Is the Most Important Idea in U.S. Politics

A Violent Country Desperately Needs Constitutional Protection to Fight This Epidemic. How Serious Is the Governor?

by Joe Mathews | June 20, 2023

Gavin Newsom’s new campaign for a 28th Amendment is the most important political idea in the country today.

But you wouldn’t know that from reading media reports following the California governor’s …

What Will L.A.’s Regional Connector Bring Us?

A Two-Mile Rail Tunnel Could Help California Recapture Its Optimism—If It’s Not Too Late

by Joe Mathews | June 13, 2023

What will the Regional Connector bring us? A new transformation in California life? Or has it arrived too late to change much of anything?

The June 16 opening of a two-mile …

The Fight to Save Stockton

In the Once-Bankrupt City, a Stanford Scholar Finds That People Are Poor Because Their Governments Are Poor

by Joe Mathews | May 30, 2023

If California wants to curb poverty, its local governments must become richer.

That may be the most important lesson of the recent history of Stockton, as recounted by Stanford Law School …

We Can Keep Dianne Feinstein in the Senate Forever

From Fundraising to Legislating, AI Can Do the Job

by Joe Mathews | May 23, 2023

The fight over Dianne Feinstein’s future is a foolish waste of time. Both sides in the controversy over whether she should resign her seat now, or serve out her term, …