What's the Matter with California?

There's an unspoken fault line in California. No, not the San Andreas Fault nor any of the geologic ones we all know about. This fault line is cultural -- formed by the waves of ethnic and social groups that have rammed willy-nilly into California and now refuse to get along. Californians today worry about "The Big One," but it's a cultural cataclysm they -- and the rest of us -- should fear. When writer and columnist Jack Cashill was skewered along with Kansas (despite the fact that he lives in Missouri) in Thomas Frank's New York Times bestseller What's the Matter with Kansas?, he decided to fight back with a riposte from the heart -- an honest, biting, and wickedly funny look at what's wrong with the purplest of blue states: almighty California itself. The media moguls, multiculturalists, union bosses, and eco-warriors who run California have abandoned liberalism for total insanity. They have transformed the Golden State from America's future into America's Rome. Spectacularly sybaritic and self-indulgent, overtaxed and overregulated, California lives on past glories, and even Conan the Republican cannot muster the will to defend its borders. Now, finally, Jack Cashill is here to rally the right-thinking citizens of the state (and the nation) and rescue this gorgeous chunk of real estate from its increasingly shaky future.