I've been reading Malcolm Harris' Palo Alto. It's basically a Tankie history of California. It dovetails nicely with Mike Davis' City of Quartz - quotes it in several places, in fact - which is basically a true crime history of California. Palo Alto argues that the modern American world exists because of conservative ideologues and war profiteers who resorted to crime and shadiness to rule the world. City of Quartz argues that the modern American world exists because of petty grifters who resorted to conservative ideology as protective coloration. You get enough people to fondle the elephant and eventually you'll know it's an elephant. Harris' Palo Alto is big on how horrible everyone in California has been because they're a bunch of racist capitalists; Davis' City of Quartz is big on how horrible everyone in California has been because the whole place runs on graft and if you want to get ahead, the Tragedy of the Commons is that way. Palo Alto is chockablock with opinion and footnotes to the opinions of others; City of Quartz is chockablock with references. Palo Alto's boogeyman is Herbert Hoover, who despite losing election went back to California and became a power-broker for another 40 years. City of Quartz's boogeyman is William Mulholland, who despite a complete lack of formal training, despite a body count hundreds deep, despite causing a guerilla conflict that lasted for years and despite a decades-long documented history of nefariousness and graft remains one of the most venerated people in California history. What's interesting is that City of Quartz was written in 1990. California was an aggressively Republican stronghold, had voted conservatively in every election it had ever participated in and Darryl Gates was mostly famous for creating SWAT in response to the SLA shootout. Palo Alto came out in March of this year and Harris' bridge from the staunchly conservative Republican politics of the 20th century to the staunchly liberal politics of the 21st is (waves hands) "apple." Even though he name-checks Prop 187. It's funny - conservatives ran California from stem to stern. Then the LA riots happened, then all the gringos voted for "stop and frisk latinos" by a 58-41 margin and within 10 years California was an aggressively liberal bastion, Republicans never to matter for the next 20 years at least. THAT, to me, is the interesting parallel. Republicans made the 2004 election all about banning the gays and within 10 years we had legal gay marriage in all 50 states. The Republican Party is currently at "Ackshully, slavery was good for slaves" and I think the whiplash is going to be amazing.