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Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingona Show.
We are here for a new series. How are you doing,
Thomas very well?
Speaker 2: Thank you well.
Speaker 1: This is actually a request that I got during one
of my day live stream somebody said that you always
talk about how California used to be like white America
was it was like the pinnacle of white America, and
that it was destroyed on purpose and it became it
is what it is now and that was done on purpose.
So you know, the idea is you try to go
over the history and explain exactly how that happened.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's two things. I mean, there's there's
a demographic situation, and there's dysfunction in that regard and
you know, a kind of cultivated aerarchy. But it's also
the California is also just not a blue state. It
didn't one day become a blue state in nineteen ninety two.
That's not nothings work that it'd be only get in
twenty twenty eight, it's declared Illinois is now a red state.
It's as red ast Texas. It can be flipped. And
that's just how it is. You know, I don't accept that.
That's preposterous. And plus just the the facts don't bear
that out. Whenever there's a plebiscite, because I mean, California's
got an unusual Constitution. You know, that's why they pulled
these plebiscites, like somehow, every time there's you know, a
social issue put to an open vote, you know, whether
it's what the regime ephimistically calls gay marriage, whether it's
affirmative action, there's always like a raw majority against it.
So California is just like a rabidly liberal, safe blue state.
But when people go to the polls, they always like
vote this stuff down, and then the Ninth Circuit steps
in to reverse the plebiscite, I mean, like what so
how does that work? You know, and it the reason why.
You know, not only were Reagan and Nixon products of
the California plago culture, but even like resistance types and
fringe people like the Butchers, that was like their heartland.
Like Tommy Mesker was in Los Angeles really until the
SPLC went after him because of the unfortunate incident with
with Ken Miski and that uh muughul Ata Sarah guy
who you know lost his life on incident of this fight.
It was kind of like a nothing thing, you know.
I mean it was young guys being foolish, you know,
on both sides of that conflict, and a guy lost
his life unfortunately, and you know, the loco authorities swept
in and and and and Morris D's like smelled proverbial
carry on, the feast on and a way to make
money off of the misery of others, which he was
never going to pass up. And and uh, you know
Metzger was was uh he he had to protect himself,
you know from this this law fair uh that was
being deployed against him. So you'd up moving to Indiana.
But you know, he there's a reason why, you know,
like he made his home in Los Angeles, because that's
that's fertile ground for those kinds of politics. And even
of this day, like I realized that, you know, you
can't extrapolate what a political culture is in terms of
its substance of tenor you know, from the street or
the prison yard. But somehow like California is like it's
unbelievably like racialized in the penal system and on the
street in a way like that'd be unheard of in Chicago.
It's like Chicago being like massively segregated. So it's like
so California is basically like the Sweden of the United States,
but on the street, like people only aligned by race,
and like if you talk to some guy across the
racial divide, like you've got a problem, you know, you're
gonna get like regulated for it. Like that's interesting. I
don't see that's possible. You know something is that and
I I'll get into the substance of our discussion in
a minute. But I don't know why people take this
at face value. It's like you wouldn't you know if
MSNBC tells you that Vladimir Putin is some like dangerous
mad man, or if they tell you that Donald Trump
is is you know, a rapist or whatever ridiculous you know,
and vile cap they're they're favoring any at any given moment.
It's like you wouldn't believe that, but you believe it
when they just declare that California is insurmountably blue, Like
why would you believe that? Plus, it's just not an
electoral politics works. There aren't just quote safe states, So
it's like we're not gonna camp in Texas or we're
not going to campaign in California because it's safe. That's
that's not how you run a campaign. You know, Like
if Reagan had done that, he wouldn't have slept the country, Like,
you know, you just don't challenge in these major and
essential electoral prizes because they're safe states. I mean, that's
obvious horse trading. It's obvious that you know, there's a
combination of of the technology and the ability to aggregate
data in real time and uh, you know, kind of
changing parameters within the political culture at federal level at
which things like this. So like after the Cold War,
it's like, well, we're basically gonna take We're gonna take
certain like electoral college prizes off the table and like
only fight in certain states. That's part of horse trading.
Like we get textas you get California. I mean, this
is this is o you know, and especially in the
case of California, Like I very much got Chicago in
my DNA, but you know, I got on the deep
roots here, Like my my folks are from Weston. I mean,
like my mom was along Gone, but my dad and
my mom was from from Los Angeles, and I my
early life, I spent a lot of time there, you know,
and so it's not just academic to me. You know,
like I saw what southern California was like in the eighties,
you know, I mean and it wasn't. It wasn't like
people claimed it was. You know, and I was there
throughout the nineties too, I mean not with much regularity.
Like the last time I was out there was was
two thousand, but I mean it was the same deal.
I mean there's weird stuff there. There's definitely a lot
more kind of and vice and things then you fight
in Chicago or like in the South. But this idea
that it's some like that it's a great big Berkeley,
or that it's or that it's like Eugene, Oregon, Like
that's ridiculous. You know, it's incredibly racialized. It's incredibly segregated.
You know, the people there are very law and order
of sensibility, especially considering the kind of unless you're talking
about uh and they're talking about East LA. Unless you're
talking about some of these like day one white hoods,
or unless you're talking about what remains like blacks southern California,
which is ceasing to exists. I mean it's it's a fact,
I'm not talking to some shit like unless you're talking
about a hood is like that, like people don't know
nor trust their neighbors. Like it's you know, it's not
at all people claim it is, So I figure we
could probably make it a three part series. Like today,
I want to get into the kind of history of
how California became California, because that's important, you know. I
I was going to discussion the other day about Wisconsin,
because Wisconsin is an unusual state. You know, like on
the one hand, like on the one hand, they'll they'll
go for burning you, they'll go for Trump as is
like protest gestures, but it's like the same population that
goes for both. And they you know, they abolished the
death penalty when I was basically unheard of. They were
founded by a bunch of Bavarians essentially. I mean, I'm
in the culture there. I don't mean like this. The
governmental apparatus, a lot of them were kind of the
eighteen forty eight refuge got to the refugees of eighteen
forty eight, you know, so they've got they had a
peculiar ideological persuasion. You know, in California from day one,
it was very very racialized, you know, and there was
a there was a number there was there was a
successive incidents of secession movements during the war between the States,
and there was concern. There's concern that a bunch of
free soilers who were for all practical purposes like rabid
white nationalists and uh, some of these some of these
Spanish people both people literally descended from Spaniards, you know,
as well as uh, as well as like Mestizo people,
you know, who who owned land in southern California who
remained after the Mexican War. There was concern that they
were going to click up and they were just going
to tell the federal government to go to hell and say,
like where where our own territory? Now, come get us.
You know, this is not a state that is a
heritage of tolerance or multiculturalism in the why the term
is bandied today or of you know, love for the
federal government, you know. And and even if that was true,
you know again, like let's say everything that was alleged
is true, that California just can never be flipped. It
is always blue because of Mexicans. So Hispanics love Christenile,
old white ladies like Nancy Pelosi, they love like they
love like vulgar yenta's like Barbara Boxer, Like really they
don't want their own people running things, you know. I
mean if what they say is true, you'd have some
like young like uh, you know something young basically like socialists,
like Mexican guy whose whole thing was you know, like
justice for like the farm workers. And probably some kind
of weird pastiche of liberation theology, Catholicism and that kind
of like crusading evangelical sensibility that that tends to be.
I mean, not not in terms of sexual stuff or
social matters, but in terms of economic matters, like left wing.
Like that's that's who californiaud be full of in terms
of its garment. If what was being alleged was true,
it wouldn't be some it wouldn't be some like zombified
hag white lead, you know, like who everybody despises, you know,
like that's ridiculous. So I you know, I'm trying to
disabuse people of those notions. But yeah, with with that background,
Laide Will, what kind of gets started the key to
kind of California's existence is a state? You know, it
was the Mexican War when Mexico City was captured by
Winfield Scott. He was the commander on the ground, and
the Mexican War was formative in all kinds of ways,
Stonewall Jackson, he was an artillery officer on the ground
there and he you know this, this is basically where
the guy who came to make up the the corps
of the Confederal Army like learn how to fight with
combined arms. You know. Winfield Scott, Jefferson Davis, Zichary Taylor,
Stonewall Jackson, Winfield Scott and Jefferson Davis became real rivals
in ops like way back then. And Winfield Scott, of course,
he essentially defected to the Union cause, if you want
to look at it that way, and he was responsible
for he died very shortly after the onset of hostilities
in even sixty one, but he played a key part
in devising the Union battle plan in terms of you know,
mobilization and devising logistical infrastructure and things like that. But
this kind of politically, California was a microcosm after the
Mexican War, of the political divide that developed between the Democrats,
which were then the Jacksonian Party and the Whigs. And
we're gonna get into what that means, and a lot
of in California today is the legacy of that in
real terms, not in terms of the propaganda narrative. But
when Mexico City fell on September fifteenth, eighteen forty seven, like,
the end result was that Mexico, Mexico is essentially required
to seceed like more over half of its territory, including
the present day including was present day California and Nevada, Utah,
most of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and a small part
of Wyoming. You know, I mean Mexico after after it
achieved in the fans from Spain, I mean, it was,
it was, it was, it was, it was setting itself
up to be a major power. You know, people forget that,
like Mexico today is basically like a rump state. Okay.
The American delegation and President Polk, and Polk was actually
really good president, and serious historians have started crediting him
with that. Polk was a protege of Andrew Jackson, Okay,
and he was very much like a Jacksonian executive. You know.
He he viewed he viewed the kind of like white
warrior Yaleman Rys as like the backbone of this country.
He viewed the president as having a special mandate because
he's the only nationally elected representative, like he had contempt
for Congress. He he thought, you know, the judiciary, he
had nothing to say on on trying to restrain authority.
Espressly delegated the Article two. But he was a great man,
and he he he basically accomplished all of his objectives
in a single term. See he said when he took
off when the obviously he said he would not run
for any more for a second term, he would not
seek in compancy, and he didn't a great president. But
Polk realized, like, we can't impose a totally draconian peace
on these people. We've you know, the Mexicans. He's like,
we've gotta we got to compensate them somehow. I'll tell
the US government paid in Mexico fifteen million dollars in
in in the literal language of the of the peace
agreement quote in consideration of the extension acquired by the
boundaries of the United States. And then the government also
like it, the Polk's administration, like I said, satisfied like
publicly held debts like oh, the Mexican government by American citizens. Okay,
so I men. On the one hand, Mexico became like
a rump state, like almost fiefdom of America. But I'm
and they were compensated. You know, it just wasn't poke. Uh.
And Polk realized too, like a lot of these Southern officers,
I mean, God, love them like they're my own forebears.
But uh, he realized there was a potential of these
guys like putting their boot on the heels of Mexico's
neck and and basically you know, basically like ruling like
like like you know, like uh like occupation warlords. And
He's like, we can't, we can't have it, you know.
And uh, Winfield Scott was uh, it was a very
impressive guy and a great general officer. I mean, I've
got no love for his politics, but you know it
any commanding general, especially in those days where you know,
commanding control was truly in situ, you know, you need it.
You needed that. You needed a president who had actual
authority behind his his dick tos the you know, to
kind of bring that power to bear the uh. But
the uh, the piece of a Guadelupe Hadelgo pen went
to paper on a nineteenth of Uh. It was finally
ratified in the nineteenth of May eighteen forty eight. Like
I still he's ended, you know, with with the fall
of Mexico City. But it was months later that this
treaty was hatched out Nicholas Trist, who for practical purposes
was kind of the first Secretary of State, like in
the Department of State as we think of it. He
was sent down there as Post's representative to Liais with
Winfield Scott. What he ended up doing was uh Polke
as well as the military establishment. He wanted to Trist
to push way harder from more territorial concessions. Trist didn't
do that, but initially Polk said he was willing to
pay the Mexican's thirty million dollars the compensation. Trist literally
had that number, okay, which honestly is like splendid negotiation.
But Tris kind of became persona non grata subsequently. But
Trist's associated with a lot of know nothings in natives types.
It's interesting, you know, and a lot of these guys
Trist wasn't He kind of played both sides of the
aisle because on the one hand, like he paid lip
surch to these guys who wanted to expand slavery westward,
and presumably a lot of these same elements, particularly the
military establishment who are almost stull Southerners, you know, who
are part of this kind of court group of officers
who won the war in Mexico. Like presumably they wanted
to expand slavery, like, you know, deep into what had
been Spanish America as well, you know, and Trista was
unwilling to get behind that, Like he stood on business
for like slaveholders' rights, and like he was a slaveholder,
but he came down on the side of the free
soilers if we cannot expand this westward, you know. And
I think that was a source of some of the tension.
And Poke Poke struck very much kind of the same
sort of compromise in terms of what he was willing
to publicly advocate for and like to understand the history
of the West, the American West, like you've got to
take that into account, you know, the degree to which
it was kind of a fight between these Jacksonians who
basically wanted to make the West like an extension of
the American South and uh, this kind of like agrarian
slave empire and these free soiler types were basically allied
with big business, you know, and uh, what became like
the kind of new Republican Party around mister Lincoln, which
was kind of like the vestigial elements of the Whigs.
You know, they didn't they were opposed to slavery, but
they been not for like the reasons that uh, like
Quakers were that these creators like John Brown tape evolutionists were.
One of the reasons they were opposed was because they
were very hard line white nationalists. They didn't want like
non like people. They've even slavery is like this degenerate practice,
you know, in nosall measure, because they involved like recent
mixing and things like. These are the people. These are
the political factions that were like fighting for dominance in California,
Like like progressives were nowhere to be found. They didn't exist,
you know. So that that's relevant to our discussion here
because it's like, Okay, I mean, if you're gonna claim
that like New York is like a progressive heartland, that's
overstated too for all kinds of reasons. But I'll accept
it because you do have that culture in New York
and Boston throughout New England dating back to literally this
the early seventeenth century. It doesn't exist in California, you know.
Yet you're supposed to believe that. I guess one day
in the nineteen seventies this became the dominant culture. And
now it's just now it's just ironclad and insurmountable. It's not.
Other things work, you know, and this stuff doesn't matter.
You know. People they developed these conceits, I guess because
they imbibe what they're told by regime adjacent median things
that somehow precedent is just wiped away. After nineteen eighty
nine or something, and after the Cold War, you know,
the the enduring conventions and any given locale just like
don't matter like that. That could not be farther from
the truth. That's not that's not political life. That's not
all things work. You know. History bleeds into the present
in all kinds of ways, you know, and especially especially
when we're talking about political cultures and they kind of
nuanced as they're in. I mean that that's why we
have an electoral college. It's not it's not it's not
some weird conspiracy or whatever. You know, the Walmart shopper
types think like, nor is it something that the federal
garments like thinks that's some great thing. They had no choice,
you know, because otherwise it's not going to be there's
going to be a legitimacy gap, you know, a mile
wide if if such things aren't abided, you know, and
the reason why those things exist is on grounds and
historical imperatives. But moving on, trinst had been he'd been
on liaison to Cuba, and he spoke fluent Spanish, and
he seems they have an affinity kind of for for
Spanish peoples, you know, both like the Spaniards themselves as
well as you know, some of their mixed race and
indigenous charges and things. And there's speculation that both at
the time and subsequent, some of which is used this
as a laudable thing and some of which is very
punitive that you know, he sympathized with the Mexicans more
than he cared about with Polk wanted and Whinfield Scott
wanted him to get done, you know, so he found
a way to basically like let the Mexicans preserve especially
you know, these these military types who were sitting at
the negotiating table. He allowed them to like retain some
of their honor as officers and as men well also, uh,
you know, managing the managing to save the pokee administration
literally half of the expenditure that they'd anticipated. It's interesting
to speculate, and I think that's probably true. Okay, but
the uh, but yeah, he didn't. He and booth Book,
Polk and Winfield Scott were not at all happy, and
subsequently christ was ordered to leave Mexico and he refused.
He just stayed there. He wrote a He wrote a
sixty five page letter back to Washington. Like how anybody
could write a sixty five page letter in those days
is incredible. That's what he did. And he outlined his
reasons from staying in uh, staying in theater and h
he spared, Uh. He he didn't knowledge the opportunity to
go to ways to explain, you know, how he'd executed
a brilliant negotiation, you know, and managed to bargain down
Santa Anna to accept, you know, only fifteen million dollars
in compensation for the concessions. But you know, the so
all told Polk, uh had wanted, uh, the concessions to
extend to specifically include Baja California. Trist had drawn the line,
you know, and and and and presumably this is one
of the reasons why Santa Anna had been so amenable
to the line directly west from Yuma to Tijuana and
San Diego instead from Uma south to the Gulf of California,
which left all of Baja Is part of Mexico. And
that that's really what infuriated Polk. Okay, but you know,
you a great diplomat. I mean, don't get me wrong.
I think Tris was compromised. If you want to look
at it in those terms, absolutely, but you can't. You
can't say, I said diplomat as to what he says,
is is a key concession that you know you're the
opposing party, won't you know, Uh, it considers to be
you know, non negotiable. You've got to defer in some
measured or diplomatic corps. You know, even if you were
a very even if you're a very hands on executive,
and any wartime executive is going to be hands on,
you know, So just as a complicated figure like I
forgive me if that was seemed like a boring tangent,
it's actually important, not just for the subject on the
table today, but just understanding American diplomatic history. And you know,
Mexico is in It's what happens in Mexico remains important
for all kinds of reasons. I mean, we're dealing with
that today and it's it's a key the key issue
upon which mister Trump's uh, you know campaign for the
presidency in twenty sixteen and today is is hinged on.
But yeah, the uh, you know, it's important to to
understand the degree to which kind of the war between
the states, and we're gonna we'll get into the the
experience of California in the American Civil War, but you know,
the West wasn't the wark in the states changed everything
in what was then kind of the established, uh United
States of America, with you know, the westernmost boundary of
the actual United States, like not being much beyond where
I'm sitting right now. It Arizona was a Confederate territory,
but at some of the final battles in the Western
theater skilled into the American Southwest. But uh, California wasn't
really they weren't impacted in the same way, you know.
So it's almost like things even after the Civil War
amendments and even after a lot of this, a lot
after the radicals were able to impose reconstruction on the South,
you know, and even even during the period people view
as either alternatively, you know, the Gilded Age or or
the Long Depression you know, from like the eighteen seventies
to around the turn of the century. Like the stuff
that was happening in sociological terms in and the rest
of the country like wasn't really impacting the West, you know,
it was it was like remote to them, you know,
and it didn't really like the battle lines were still
between the people who'd been kind of like wig you know,
wig slash Republicans, you know, free soiler types and these
Jacksonian Democrats who again were basically who were basically Confederates
in all but name. You know. One of the and
the thing that kind of both held in common was
this like highly racialized view of politics. You know, we'll
get into this in a minute, because it bears on
one of the significant secession movements that some of these
parts of the Nights in California tried to try to
get off the ground. You know, it was literally illegal
for blacks to settle an Oregon, you know, and that
was a free soiler imperative. It wasn't racist Confederates who
were implementing that stuff. You know. The reason why for
it every wasn't filming around a bit was because there
was concern about you know this uh, this Indian like
native population, you know, developing a real enmity with a
black population that you know, presumably a potential to swell
and was significant demographic and that wasn't unfounded, like there'd
been violent incidents between black folks and between Indians and
Oregon you know. But it's also you know, the Oregonians,
they weren't gonna like turn Oregon and it's something like
most like some dysfunctional like multicultural state, you know, and
they it meant nothing to them if people you know
this uh this was an eighteen forty, eighteen fifties, you know,
the like the that the post developed decade after the
Mexican War. It meant nothing to them. If people tried
to sell them on like abolitionists moralizing, you know, like
what is so what that that means nothing to us?
You know, that's that's that's your problem and your dysfunction
a little corner of the country where you know, you
can't you can't come to terms over slavery. What was
that have to do with us? You know? That was
the degree to which the West Coast was kind of
this remote place. I mean that that carried on to
after World War Two, you know. So again it's like
where where where this supposedly like rapidly progressive California come from.
I mean one day it appeared spontaneously in the seventies.
I mean, that's that's not other things work. But the
key to this stuff too, for context, it was the
presidential election of eighteen forty four, and this was this
was key to kind of how the battle lines ended
up being drawn in in the war between the States,
as well as California's potegal culture. Polk ran as again
as a as a Jacksonian Democrat against Henry Clay, who's
the Whig a candidate. And it's important at the end
of the Whigs were because the Whigs became the Republican Party, okay,
like the new Whigs and not the difference between the
old Whigs of you know, the the Revolutionary War era,
you know, and then the guys who called themselves the
Whig Party of the mid nineteenth century between the between
the eighteen thirty eight and fifties, like they they were,
like they they were, they were. One half of this
was called the second party system. Okay, And for presidents
uh ran on on the Whig ticket is Wayne Henry
Harris and John Tyler, Zachary Taylor and Willard Fillmore, Daniel Webster,
rufus Chow, William Seward, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay like
these these were these were also like their most prominent
standard bearers. But the wig base of support again, they
were entrepreneurs, They professional people, hardcore Protestants, particularly Evangelicals, who
disproportionately settled California and the urban middle class. Uh it
had almost no backing from unskilled laborers and poor farmers
and even guys even like agribusiness types in those days.
You know. So this again, this this was and they basically, uh,
they had they at the time, they claimed that they
were like the descendants, like the Hamiltonians. They'd say that, like,
we're like the Federalists. You know that this is the
day one Republican party, okay, for all practical purposes, and
they viewed California as essential to a lot of their ambitions,
you know, and aside in the fact that you know,
again they had what we consider white nationalists sensibility. These
like they viewed they viewed the Confederate cause and some
of these they were in is like holding back the country.
You know, something that's also lost in this shuffle. You know,
until until after World War Two, Republicans were high protectionists,
you know, and the Whigs believed in that high protectionism.
You know, they wanted to jealously guard American domestic markets,
and they wanted they wanted to protect and subsidize American industry.
It was the Southerners who were the free traders, you know,
as anybody who's like, if you're if your economy is
dependent on what amounts to like a one crop paradigm,
favatively or literally, you know, as the Confederacy did, like
you're like, you're you're going to be a free trader
of a sort. Okay, but this, you know, this is
important because I've run across people, including guys like Paul Johnson,
who in some ways is the goodest story in in
other ways he he seems to have real blind spots.
You know, he's if you read like his History of
the American People, which is kind of like his rebuttal
to Howard's in ridiculous, you know, garbage. But in some
ways that's a good book. But then he like, he'll
talk about the subject before us today It'll be like, oh, well,
after we're in the States. You know, the Republicans became progressive.
It's like that that didn't happen. What are you talking?
What are you? What are you talking about? You know,
it's I think it's one part ignorance, one part people's
taking out face value. And maybe people just don't like
outside the culture, like don't understand, like if you're I'm
not like, I don't shade on anybody, but if people
are like immigrants, recent immigrant stock or like, people don't
really understand like the center of Protestanism from within, they
don't really understand what I'm talking about, like a gut
level and like why some of these claims are ridiculous.
I think that's part of it. But you know, my
other things too, and this is key people like polk
Uh like manifest Destiny. It wasn't it's like like mother
Jones types, Like I said, Oh, manifest destiny, you know
this this this, this is an example of you know,
white white paternalism and imperialism. Like manifest destiny was an
actual policy orientation. It wasn't just some it was it
wasn't like abstract conceptual phenomenon or like some sort of
election year slogan. You know. It was literally like we
are going to we're going to mark the Spanish Empire
and everybody else in this hemisphere. We are going to
conquer the entirety of what used to be Spanish America,
like we're going to become, you know, essentially like the
overlords of of of the Americas. That's what it was.
And the Whigs were die hard against that, you know.
And this was a real dividing line between them and
the Jacksonians, you know, because that kind of thing, like
perpetual war for perpetual peace is always banned for business,
like we've talked about before. That's why economic explanations for
warfare never make any sense. But it's also if your
whole notion is, you know, bringing the capital base of
America into the looming twentieth century, like you can't have
the public proffers being plundered by a bunch of Southern
generals who want to live as caudillos by conquering Guatemala,
like you can't have it, you know. And this was
a real this is a real clash of of values
and ideologies at a conceptual level, you know. And plus two,
I mean, if you're an emission of conquests and policy terms,
I mean, that's that's that's gonna lead to a kind
of globalism, you know. And and and there's always gonna
be some kind of essential market integration there, even if
it's you know, not in like the neoliberal sense of
what we view as you know, free trade, which isn't
really free trade, you know what I mean. You know,
if if your model for prosperity, as was the that
the Whigs and and the Republican the sentence was, you know,
came in with the American system, it's uh, you know
again it's it's based on protective tariffs. You know, high
protection is the federal subsidies for the constructive infrastructure, you know,
kind of like the Japanese system is, and the German
system was until until America destroyed it. Support for national banking.
And obviously this was something that you know, like like
horrified the Jacksonians, you know, they they viewed, they viewed
banking as a way of uh robbing uh agrarians of
of other other personally held capital. You know, Modernization, meritocracy,
law and order, checks on majority rule. You know, this stuff,
all this stuff put them totally at odds with with
with the Jacksonian Democrats, you know, and that this was
kind of the puticical crucible that created California's political culture.
I mean, arguably arguably the Whig Party of the of
the of the mid nineteenth century. It literally emerged in
opposition to Jackson, and then later like the republic their
Republican Party was like the committee to elect president like
Abraham Lincoln for all practical purposes. And if we accept
that their Wig four bears were basically like the official
opposition to Andrew Jackson, you know, the smaller, the smaller
constellation of parties. You know what was called the National
Republican Party, the Anti Masonic Party, which was a real thing,
disaffected Democratic Republicans, which is what the Democrats used to
call themselves, the Federalist Party, which was by then defunct
as well as you know, again like a not in
substantial proportional, like know nothing type, you know it. And
that's important too, like when we think of at least
uh like, when when we think of like the American
old or right, like we're talking about these are the
guys we're talking about like we're not talking about a
munch like neo conferis, you know, like we're talking about
a bunch of guys who basically we're uh, we're Hamiltonian nationalists,
you know, and who were like opposed to you know,
Jeffersonian sensibilities, guys like the spies, you know, like Jacksonian populism,
you know, and and and and and who are basically
you know, like white nationalists despite like falling like solidly
into like you know, the Union camp as it existed, uh,
you know during the post war years, you know, like
the guys when hard demandel after the failed impeachment of
Johnson and the things. You know, this is really interesting
and it you know, this is uh again, this is
this is the foundation of this is the foundation of
California's political culture, you know. And I wanna how long
are we been going for? Yeah? I want to get
a little bit into like the war between the States,
like in and how the impacted California, like with the
time we got left. Let me let me see where
I'm at here. A yeah, a key to this too,
you know, after the Treaty of Hidalgo. This is a
this is there's people who drop like conspira almost conspiratorial
narratives about this. But the Treaty of gun Blue Pandalago
was ratified on February second, eighteen forty eight. You know,
America absorbed California, you know, and the remainder of of
these this Mexican territory that became Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah.
But uh, literally a week before the formal annexation of
the area, like massive gold reserves were discovered in California,
you know, and then this and this legitimately happened like
it wasn't. This wasn't why like Triste uh proceeded the
way he did. Polk didn't know about this, Like like
nobody knew about this. Okay, this totally altered the state's
demographics and finances. So there was like a massive influx
of people in California, you know, not just not not
just a bunch of not to not to a bunch
of guys from you know, back east, you know, and
like what's now the Midwest and what was uh and
and what was and is the South. We had like
a bunch of immigrant populations show up there. You know,
you had a bunch of like Europeans you know, you
had a bunch of Asians you've been trickling in, like
especially Chinese. This caused real problems, okay. And this caused
like among other things, it caused like a massive backlash
against non white immigration, you know. And again this is
one of the founding aspects of California is we do
not want non white immigrants here. You know, this is
not New York, this is not Chicago. We do not
want this, you know, for like just just for just understand,
like the scale of this. Between between the time of
annexation in eight and forty eight and eighteen seventy, the
population of San Francisco and the day of annexation was
was around over people. By eighteen seventy, it was one
hundred and fifty thousand, you know, since this was unprecedented, okay,
you know, and this and this idea that people were
happy about, you know, a bunch of uh like like
you know, alien el woman's like streaming in there and
that just like streaming in there, but to like try
and extract gold that they viewed as bears. I mean
this people were really really really mad you know, at
and this also California then obviously as tensions you know,
during the Buchanan administration. You know, if Buchanan was it,
I think Buchan was probably the worst president we've ever
had other than Biden. I mean, like Biden is king
shithead and he will like never be dethroned. But but
Buchanan was a terrible president. And Buchanan was pretty openly gay,
which is interesting too because like I mean, I think
I think it's a combination of conceptual and literacy and
just like nobody wants to claim him because he was
a shit executive, but like I it's it's it's it's amazing.
How like how none of the like none of these
simpletons uh in academ like they just say, pretend that
wasn't the case or something, you know. Uh, But I
find that kind of interesting when in any events, you know,
even even early on it became the administration, it became
clear that there there was gonna be some kind of crisis,
you know, between North and South, and the Union had
like eyes westward to California because it's like, okay, like
these these gold, this gold we're pulling out of the ground,
is is gonna is what's gonna like fun like our
our war chest, you know, so California took on this
outsized importance, you know, and California court hit history suggests
that there was like this massive like volunteers from uh
west of the Rockies to fight for the Union. That's
really not true. Like there were some but you know
Democrats from inception again Jacksonian Democrats. They dominated California like
from inception, from day one. The issue was though that uh,
Southern Democrats were a minority in the state. I mean,
they weren't like a small minority. They were probably like
fort you know of the of the Jacksonian element, but
they were the minority. And Northern Democrats they generally they
either like typically backed the Union or they were like neutral,
you know. So this this divided, uh, this divided the
Jacksonian vote. And this basically this this is what basically
like handed California to the to the Whigs of slash Republicans,
who then like reigned for all time, you know, until
literally one day he was declared that this is no
longer the political culture. You know. And for clarity too,
like California didn't quote go purple. It wasn't this like
phase where it's like, okay, things are changing, you know,
preferences are changing, you know, the Democrats and generationally it
was literally like one day, it's just this is how
it is, you know, for context for contacts, Yeah, I
love Southern Democrats who were a minority. They were a
majority in Tulane County, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Monterey, and
in San Francisco and San Francisco. In the eighteen fifties,
they had a succession of mayors who were removed either
on trumped up charges or in substantive charges of corruption.
They had huge problems. It was called the vigilance committees,
like literally like vigilantism who said like you know, we're
not we're we're not going to abide the the mandates
of the mayoral office or the sheriff, you know, whether
it's on you know, no matter no matter what the
issue is, you know, like it was. It was a
kind of a it was the kind of gangsterism people
associate with uh with New York City and the era.
But it wasn't being guided by some equillent Tammany Hall.
It was just like guys like you know, at street level,
like basically like making themselves like a power into themselves.
It's crazy, but you know it was. Uh. It was
like like San Francisco was, uh was the outlier. But again,
like the way they were the outlier was because they
were they were a bunch of they were a bunch
of like rednecks j Sonians. They weren't like an outlier
because they're like, oh, we're a bunch of progressives and
we don't you know, we're not keen to this kind
of like these uptight wigs you know, trying to like
impose their will on us. So that's I don't know
what I mean wrong. Like San Francisco is a repository
of ship and it is full of like it is
felt like degenerates and like some of humans and ship
like today, like it absolutely is Like I'm not saying
that's not the case, but it's like my my point
was that, you know, if if people are looking for
like deep roots and the stroke of record ing for that,
like they're not there. Like what happened to San Francisco
is a it's like a port town, I think, I
think frankly like the the like war permanent war mobilization
and then like really fucked it up, you know, because
that's that never ends well for a community that becomes
a you know, a hub of a military basing. Like
I'm not I'm not trashing service people, but that's just
a fact. But that uh, but that this dynamic between
northern and southern Democrats in California, that's what allowed Lincoln
to carry the state. Albeit he carried it by a
very slim margin. But he was But but unlike most,
unlike most, like non slave holding states like Langan, didn't
win a wrong he didn't win out my right majority.
He won California by plurality, which is highly significant. But this, uh,
but following their admission to the Union, these tensions uh
created Uh. I mean they they they created a real
popsibility of uh of parts of California. They're trying to
achieve a separate statehood. They're trying to secede all together.
You know, there's there's a number of attempts in the
eighteen fifties, and i none of which came to like
open combate at scale. But I mean they were they
I mean, it was a serious thing. And in eighteen
fifty nine, the last there's perhaps it was called the
Pico Act, and it was it was passed by the
California State legislature and it was signed by Governor Weller,
Jerry B. Weller. It proposed a territory of Colorado, which
would basically include, uh, you know, northern California, parts of
southern California, parts of Colorado, and parts of Oregon as
a is essentially like its own, its own territory that
you know, could not have formal status of a state,
but did you know, have like some rights at law,
but that the federal government would have had like no
power over a way like the Commerce Clause or anything else.
You know. Senator Milton Latham was a strong advocate of it.
So this had legs. Okay, what tanked it was, uh
the secession crisis following the election of Lincoln, and when
it became clear like what was underway, Lathan and the people,
uh like the real persons behind it realized like, well,
we really want to get lumped in with you know,
the Confederate secessionists, and you know, before we know it,
we're gonna we're gonna find ourselves like you know, down
range of of Union guns. But that didn't that didn't stop, uh,
the San Francisco jack Son though months later, at the
beginning of eighteen sixty one, you know, as the actual
secession crisis set in visa Visa South, the San Francisco Secession,
is they tried to separate California Oregon from the Union,
like they wanted to do this forcibly and carve out
what they called the Pacific Republic. And this was one
of the reasons this kind of sensibility had been floated before.
And that's one of the reasons why Oregon had their
like highly like racialized code of laws. Because I believe
even among the I mean, I mean, I don't I
don't believe, I know, I mean, even among the mainstream
playbo establishment, there was sympathy for these kinds of propositions.
But they were they were willing to become strange bedfellows
with these like Jacksonian Confederate types in San Francisco, but
they were not going to allow We're going to become
like a slave state that was then like flooded with
uh you know, like blacks in bondage or otherwise. And
all the what they received is like these pathologies that
you know, characterized them the South. So this is this
is really uh, this is this is really interesting, I think,
and and and really important, Like I hope, uh we will.
We're coming up on the hour, man, I'll uh, I'll
get into the nuts and bolts of uh because I'm
sure what people want really is kind of like the
hard and fast data relating to electoral patterns like in
the twentieth century to the present. I'll get into that
next time. I just this was this was an important background,
I think, so I hope people wouldn't find it boring. No.
Speaker 1: I think the history. I think most people just don't
know the history of like the West, and you know,
they know, oh gold Rush and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
get getting deep into it. You know, people don't know.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: While you were talking, I was like remembering that like
as late as like nineteen seventy nine, it was illegal
for like a gay person to be a public school
teacher in California.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even in even in Illinois, Like people here
are pretty despite we're seeing the news, people here are
pretty like socially conservative. We didn't have any laws like that,
but like California did, would supposedly either like the liberal heartland,
Like this doesn't make any sense, you know, and it's
like uh the uh yeah, you know, and it's what's
like my friend Anthony, I mean you know Anthony. Yeah,
I mean like he Anthony Ramono. Yeah, what's like he
if he and I become pretty good, pretty good buds,
and he was nice enough to take us, me and
him not to eat in Portland, you know. And he,
I mean he grew up in LA. He's about your
age if he was the one in me. He grew
up in LA in the seventies and eighties, you know.
And he's like, it was massively segregated. And that's like
what I remember like a little later, you know, like
the early to mid eighties, like it was, it was
massively segregated, you know, even by and I'm I'm from Chicago,
and it's like this jumped out at me. You know,
it's like it's crazy that what people suggest. It's sort
of the like in in its cultural DNA, you know,
and what it's this idea that oh no, you know,
it's this kind of permanent, uh that you know that
the Democrats are just the ruling party in California, because
that's how it is. That's not how it is like that,
not at all. But yeah, well I'll I mean I'm
already coding the data for to properly discuss you know,
the next kind of aspect of this. So yeah, well
I don't know how you want to play it moving forward.
I I mean, I'm I'm obviously on Friday, my dad there,
We're gonna observe Thanksgiving on Friday, probably, I mean not
probably definitely, like that's when I was gonna cook a turkey,
but I I got reservations at at a really good restaurant.
But because it may like other than other than that,
we can I'm ready to go anytime this week even
if yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: So yep, yeah do you plugs and yeah, we'll do
We'll end.
Speaker 2: It, yeah for sure. Man. The best place to find
me is on substick. It's real Thomas seven seven seven
at substack dot com. I'm trying to throw more free
content up there, you know, especially more like video content
and stuff. You can always find me on my website,
which has a news feed, so whenever I upload anything
new like it pops up there. Regardless that we're it's
it's just number seven h O as seven seven seven
dot com. I'm on social media at Capital r e
A L Underscore number seven h O m A S
seven seven seven dot com like, you go to my website,
you'll find my Instagram and like other ship I'm into.
I'm on Telegram as well. I got like a Mersed
brand and uh we just dropped some like winter hats
and stuff. So if you want, like, if you want
like winter gear, like, we have that now. So if
I can, if I can be a show, like, I
recommend you buy one of our winter hits.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, and I'll link to it as I always do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks great man. Yeah, likewise appreciate it. Yeah,