From an article from Salon.com:

"Beyond the state's dysfunctional system, the short answer is the rise of the hard-right GOP. Pushed far to the right by ideologues like Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and their ilk, California Republican lawmakers have staked out an absolutist line against taxes that makes governance nearly impossible. Lawmakers who believe and act on Reagan's famous line that "government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem," are walking oxymorons. Why expect anti-government Republican legislators to resolve a budget crisis when that crisis will result in their goal: the destruction of government? The floundering Governator may not be an extremist, but he remains in thrall to the members of his party who are."


It distresses me extremely to say this, but you know what this reminds me of? The Weimar Republic.

The Weimar Republic might or might not have survived under better conditions - perhaps if the Great Depression hadn't happened, it might have struggled on and reformed somehow.

But there were also several large parties in the Reichstag which wanted to take down the whole system of the government, and which in the end were able to block any legislature to resolve this mess. In the final years, the only way to get anything done was via presidential emergency degrees, but even that was not enough to save the Weimar Republic.