A Fourth Generation Californian Rants About How The Senate is Designed to Give the Most Power to The States Least Able to Create Jobs and Grow Their Population

As a fourth generation Californian, I am defensive about my home. People in blue jeans (first invented by Californian immigrant Levi Strauss) on Facebook (headquartered in California) scrolling on their iPhone (Apple, founded and headquartered in California) calling folks from the Bay Area communists. (San Francisco not only has the highest per capita income of any county in the country but attracts more venture capital (that's venture capital, as in the leading edge of capital markets, not venture socialism) than any other country (not county - country) in the world. California is the most diverse state in the union (by many measures but one simple one is that it has the highest percentage of foreign born people of any state) and this has not only fed the entrepreneurship of Silicon Valley and LA but made it home to Hollywood and recording studios that have generated the most popular movies and music in the world. California is a place where people invent themselves. Marion Morrison from Iowa came to Hollywood and became John Wayne. Norma Jeane Mortenson, born in LA, grew up and became Marilyn Monroe. They invent themselves and invent new products, companies and styles. No other place in the world compares for levels of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. And no other state has created more jobs in the last 70 years.

Communities in California have figured out how to create good paying jobs and because of that the population has grown. The way political power works in the US, though, California is penalized. Citizens in California are discounted, given less influence in national politics. Weirdly, the states least able to create jobs are the ones who are most rewarded with political power. West Virginia - a beautiful place - is wildly incompetent at creating jobs. Each senator from West Virginia represents 900,000; each senator from California represents 20 million. When votes are taken in the Senate about which direction the country should take, West Virginians who are demonstrably incompetent at job creation have as much influence as Californians. 

If you look at population growth since 1950, California tops the list. Texas is second and while Texas matches California for percentage growth, it has not created jobs that pay as well (as you can see in the contrast in per capita GDP).

Of the 15 states with the largest population growth, only two have a better than 50% chance of giving their electoral votes to Trump. Of the 15 states that have created the least new jobs in the last 70 years, ten will probably give their electoral votes to Trump. The communities least able and willing to create new jobs (and the population that accompanies it) are the ones who prefer Trump's trade wars, xenophobia, and anti-science, anti-university, and anti-expert worldview. (And of course that worldview is a large part of why they are so incompetent at creating jobs.) By giving states unable to grow their population more power than states able to create jobs, we've tipped national elections towards the policies and cultures least effective at creating jobs. Call me a crazy Californian, but that sounds backwards to me.