California is home of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, places that educate and attract the best talent and produce goods, services, and intellectual property that successfully competes around the world.
Unlike Republican states that work hard to alienate all but their base demographics with bigotry, and are at best milking their natural resources, and at worst engaged in a race to the bottom trying to make their labor cheap. But with alternative energy and automation quickly emerging, those are both obvious dead ends, soon you won't be able to make your labor cheaper than robots, and your energy cheaper than solar, because the new technologies are on a completely different cost curve. And you have no plan B, except to elect demagogues and hope for the best. So instead of jealously bashing California, maybe it's time for Republican states to learn a thing or two about what California does right and imitate it.