By Stephen Smoot
In 1672, a writer for the London Gazette invented a new word. The compound noun referred to the lead Royal Navy ship in a given fleet, designated by carrying the flag representing the commanding Admiral.
For most of its history, the word “flagship” remained in the province of naval affairs. Then, as Americans often did during the 19th and 20th century, they took a term with military gravitas and significance to apply to other elements that loosely resembled the term. One of the most well-known is “flagship university,” the term used to designate a state’s most significant public university created under the Morrill Land Grant Act.
For much of the past century the United States of America had two “flagship” states, New York and California. Although most other states were as loathe to apply them that term as Marshall University would for the big school up in Morgantown, the two states did lead.
A key characteristic of both states through the end of the 20th century lay in their leadership. Each state would move from one party to the other, voting for the best candidate at the time. Ronald Reagan’s successful presidency can find some of its roots in his eight years serving as Governor of California. New York State and City had no better years in living memory, outside, of course, of the loathsome terrorist attacks of 2001, than when George Pataki served as Governor and Rudolph Giuliani as New York City’s Mayor.
During their high point at the last fin de siecle, New York and California boasted expanding populations, expanding economies, and expansive influence. Other states followed their ideas and models – particularly California – because they seemed to work.
What a difference a mere quarter of a century makes.
Success in government derives chiefly from pragmatic approaches, as opposed to trying to establish the way one thinks the world ought to be. Aristotlean realism, conforming one’s ideals to the reality of the world, succeeds infinitely better than Platonic idealism – which urges each individual to shape the world to fit the vision created by their mind.
The most successful idealists of the 20th century in terms of changes and impact made were Mao Tse Dong, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Vladimir Lenin, and other horrific people who succeeded in transforming societies to fit their visions.
Idealism need not establish terrible murder regimes. Sometimes it simply pushes a vision conceived at best in wishful thinking, at worst in foolishness, the origin almost always in academia.
As Reagan once said of such people, it’s “not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
One of the first fools errands embarked upon was “defund the police.” It is true that minorities, especially those in the cities, end up incarcerated in far greater numbers than the white population. All the talk about getting at the “root problems” mainly saw the discussion end with the word “racism.”
One could argue that rent seeking business communities and corrupt urban government combined with boneheaded laws and regulations squeezed potential legitimate entrepreneurs in struggling neighborhoods into illicit trades, but that would require introspection that would end in blaming (at least in part) the long-term Ruling Party in these cities.
“Defund the Police” came part and parcel with “what me, worry?” type of prosecuting attorneys running for office and winning thanks to the largesse of financier George Soros. Today, the cities in which his supported candidates serve account for 40 percent of the murders in the United States.
Law enforcement was forced to retreat from enforcing property crimes, such as theft, which turned large sections of San Francisco and other cities into retail wastelands. The rich have left, but the poor are stuck with the terrible consequences of electing the Left.
New York City in years past, during a fit of stupid self-righteousness, declared itself a “sanctuary city,” so it could feel good about protecting illegal immigrants whether they committed crimes or not. Its small towns overrun by illegals allowed in under Joe Biden, Texas came up with the idea of busing them to locations where voters supported more or less open borders, such as New York City and Chicago.
In the 1990s, New York City’s subway system was safe, clean, and the envy of much of the world. Today, falling asleep on a car might end in one being stabbed or immolated. Entire neighborhoods have gone over to crime rings run by illegals. Meanwhile, New York’s leaders try to force more vulnerable people into dangerous public transit with ill conceived toll regimes.
Last week, California found itself in perhaps the worst disaster in American history. Wildfires sparked during hurricane force winds and drought conditions spread quickly. Los Angeleans filmed and reported wind downed power lines and malevolent homeless people starting fires, but the federal, state, and local government seemed to have few answers besides sending in fire crews without water to somehow stem the tide.
Where was the Mayor of Los Angeles? Nero, at least, fiddled in view of his city burning. Karen Bass stayed in Ghana, of all places, during the maelstrom. Governor Gavin Newsom did go to view the destruction the morning after the first night of flames. That said, his presence highlighted a film clip found by the British Daily Mail in which President Donald Trump in 2018 lectured the Governor on good forest wildfire prevention policies practiced by other states and countries, but not California.
Newsom earned blame for making an endangered fish a priority in water collection and retention. During his first term, Trump wanted to divert more water from the northern part of the state to the drier southern counties. The Mayor also earned criticism from the $17.6 million that she ordered cut from the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget in recent years.
Behind all these failures is the notion that one can ignore the realities of the world, of human nature, of economic processes, of pretty much anything, and simply do what one wishes untethered from experience and knowledge. One could write tens of thousands of words on the foolishness seen in these states’ recent actions that harmed their own people, but the results speak for themselves – especially in huge population losses for both states.
New York and California are sinking flagships, but they torpedoed themselves. And when the ideas driving these states into ruin take over the federal government, as they did the past four years, they become weights dragging the rest of America down with them.
It’s a thin line that forms the border between civilization and chaos. California and New York have tread dangerously close to it. It’s time for them to return to common sense government with a practical mindset to help the people using proven ideas and solutions, not dreams conjured by university professors and activists.