Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire and meant it. He didn't hedge, qualify, or wait for a focus group. He built the military, stationed Pershing missiles in Europe over fierce opposition, and helped accelerate the collapse of a system that had enslaved hundreds of millions. On American movie screens, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Sylvester Stallone played men who took responsibility, absorbed punishment, and didn't apologize for their convictions. That wasn't mere entertainment. It was a cultural argument — and it was winning.

I arrived in California in 1990. The economy was thriving, the Republican Party was still competitive, and the state had a future worth arguing about. Thirty-five years of one-party rule later, California's own Department of Finance confirms a net domestic loss of 216,000 residents in the year ending July 2025 alone — dead last in U-Haul's outbound migration index for the sixth consecutive year. California's population grows only because international immigration and births barely offset the domestic bleeding. The families who packed the trucks weren't abandoning the weather. They were escaping unaffordable housing, collapsing public order, failing schools, and a political class that reframes every failure as evidence of insufficient spending. I watched it from Sherman Oaks and Ladera Ranch. The decline was not abstract.

The cultural left enabling that collapse has institutional muscle. The........

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