What Californians Are Grateful For in the Golden State
We asked our readers—we all have them!—to write their own California State of the Union response using the #SOTU2020 hashtag
This is a very personal question, which is why I’ve limited the question. In no way am I trying to convince anyone to vote this way. But I did want to use my own personal story to illustrate a point I’ve often made—and that is this: that California is one of the most important states in the nation to both Democrats and Republicans and is one of the few states in which voters are able to make sweeping electoral choices. With this in mind, please let me add my own, more personal, California story.
When it comes to our state, I love the Golden State.
I moved to California in the summer of 2016, and while I had no idea what to expect, I knew this was something I wasn’t going to mess with. In fact, we couldn’t afford to mess with it. We were the only parent-company in a market that was the definition of “trendiness.”
I thought about leaving, but it would have been a huge financial and emotional drain for me. I’m a family man and a husband. I wanted to be able to stay at home and take care of my wife and kids. California has been a wonderful place for me to build my career and live my life. I didn’t know any better, but I knew enough that I believed it would be a great place to raise my family.
I’ve been a proud Californian since I was 18. It’s just that I’m a Democrat, and that’s just fine with me. I have a very different perspective on this state and its politics than most.
I grew up with three grandparents that lived in and around San Diego, and so I’ve got two sets of grandparents living in California. My dad grew up in a very conservative part of Iowa, so my grandparents were part of “the real America.” When he moved to Iowa, his whole family was liberal. And his family, including his grandparents, would have been considered “the real America.” It was like there was no America at all except for Iowa