ORANGE BLOSSOMS
This will go down as the year that the old Orange County — the one of perfect tract homes and homophobic megachurches and angry conservatives — finally died.
The place that has caused so much grief to the rest of the United States, home of Richard Nixon, the Crystal Cathedral and Taco Bell, to name the most egregious antagonists, is wobbling toward irrelevance as a vibrant, multicultural and — dare I say — liberal land rises in its place. It’s been a long time coming, but this year has sparked national headlines about developments and trends unimaginable even a decade ago.
The future of democracy now hinges on four of Orange County’s congressional races, in districts once rock-ribbed red but now as purple as Barney the Dinosaur, all of which have a good chance of going Democratic in November. Homelessness is now everywhere in the suburbs of plenty, from well-kept parks in hoity-toity Foothill Ranch to Disneyland. Scandals inside the District Attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department have forever tarnished OC’s well-crafted image as a place where the lawmen wear white hats and the only criminals are people who can’t afford to live here — because now, no one can!
This is the New Orange County — but the old guard isn’t going out without one last, bigoted fight. Wealthier cities passed anti-immigrant resolutions in 2018, even though they barely have any. Politicians don’t seem to care about solving a housing shortage so acute that the middle class continues
