California is Just Fine

“California Derangement Syndrome” is Gavin Newsom’s new label for a very old phenomenon: people who treat California less like a complex state of 40 million human beings and more like a political prop. His point, especially in recent comments and social media messaging, is pretty straightforward: a huge chunk of the national conversation about California isn’t analysis — it’s narrative warfare. The state gets used as a symbol in a broader ideological fight, and once you’re in that arena, the facts become optional.

What Newsom is reacting to is the cottage industry of California doom content — clips built to go viral by showing the worst block in a major city and presenting it as the whole state. It’s always the same greatest hits: homelessness, crime, taxes, fires, “everyone’s leaving,” “it’s collapsing,” end of story. The goal isn’t understanding. The goal is scoring points, feeding outrage, and collecting clicks.

And here’s what makes it “derangement” more than normal political criticism: the attacks are often selective, exaggerated, or disconnected from daily reality. California has real problems — massive housing costs, homelessness, inequality, and budget stress. Anyone pretending those issues aren’t serious is lying to themselves. People feel the cost of living every time they pay rent, fill up their tank, or buy groceries. That pain is real.

But the opposite lie is just as common: that California is a failed-state disaster where nothing works and the only logical move is to flee. That’s nonsense too. California remains one of the largest economies on earth. It still has global gravity in tech, entertainment, agriculture, research, and entrepreneurship. It produces talent, attracts investment, and continues to be a cultural engine. Those realities don’t fit in a 20-second clip, so they get ignored.

The truth is simpler and harder for people who need a clean political story: California is both thriving and struggling at the same time. That’s not a contradiction — it’s what happens in a massive, diverse economy with extreme regional differences. One neighborhood can feel like a boomtown and another can feel like a crisis, and both can be true in the same city.

So when Newsom says “California Derangement Syndrome,” he’s not claiming California is perfect. He’s calling out the people who refuse to engage honestly — who need California to be either a utopia or a hellscape because nuance doesn’t help their politics. Real critique is fair. Performative doom, selective outrage, and propaganda pretending to be analysis is what deserves the label.