Sacramento liberals don’t get it: Placer County conservatives don’t care what they think
This Sacramento Bee is the largest newspaper in the region, but its editorial views are often at odds with the politics and beliefs of areas outside Sacramento’s urban core.
The Bee tends to represent those interests that are urban and deeply liberal in their social and economic policies. Great. That message plays well in the city of Sacramento. And that is why some people in rural parts of California don’t want to live in Sacramento any more than the Editorial Board finds Placer County to be the perfect place to live. Rural California and the people who have moved there have voted with their feet by choosing to live where they do.
As The Bee reported on Sunday, Republican-backed candidates in Placer County won 28 of 31 open school board seats.
It would be easy to point out the superior quality of life, better schools, less traffic and other reasons rural Californians are proud of what they have. The bigger issue here is that a failure to understand communities with different views and perspectives than those espoused in downtown Sacramento further polarizes the region, reflecting what is happening across the country.
The Bee’s Editorial Board has raged against Rep. Tom McClintock, for example, for years. Guess what: He is still in Congress and is likely to be there for quite a while. The Bee’s Editorial Board may not like him or his politics, but it seems pretty clear that voters in his district do. Every single election, they express that. (McClintock was recently reelected to represent a new, more conservative district based in the San Joaquin Valley.)
McClintock, R-Elk Grove, could not win the congressional seat held by Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento. And she could not win the one McClintock represents. That is the way district elections work. This should be celebrated as people with different views representing communities with different views. The Bee never really considers that both McClintock and Matsui are good fits for the people they represent.
The people of Sacramento get to look around their magnificent downtown area and be proud of what they have. They get to enjoy the policy choices of their elected leaders and what has come from those choices. Congratulations.
Yet I am nearly certain that every Roseville, Rocklin or Loomis resident who drives into that same downtown reacts with horror at what they see. Then they quickly drive away back to the areas they love, which look very different from what they just saw within two miles in any direction of the State Capitol. The crime, homelessness and heavy traffic that are evident in downtown Sacramento simply remind voters from the rural suburbs why they live where they do.
The Sacramento Bee should be analyzing policy issues, but that is not what is happening. It’s using Placer County as a proxy for Republicans, and I would bet that most Placer County residents don’t care. The reason they don’t care is that the source of the criticism, the Editorial Board of this newspaper, advocates political and policy choices that are completely against the core of who they are as a community. And it is OK for them to be that way.
This story was originally published November 30, 2022 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Sacramento liberals don’t get it: Placer County conservatives don’t care what they think."