[zachrose]

Applying Albion’s Seed to California misses out on Spanish missionary culture and the shipping merchants who came from New York City, which does not have the same puritan roots as New England.

American Nations is a more recent book that describes more of the United States, though with less depth.

[defrost]

The absence of Spanish culture is boggling - it's delibrately avoided ..

     A third were born in California, 

    and about an equal number were born in states populated by what the writer Colin Woodard calls “Greater Appalachia”.

    And so the ideology of California came to be shaped by two very different migrant cultures

Clearly there's a third missing (assuming numbers correct, etc).

[0xDEAFBEAD]

What specific Spanish influence do you see on California politics?

[defrost]

There's a slew of essays and history entries that begin along the lines of:

    The modern state of California was considered part of the Spanish empire for nearly 300 years. The Spanish colonial period had a profound effect on the cultural, religious, and economic development of the state.

The article cited for this thread makes much of Anglo churches in California but makes no mention of, say, the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and other churches that shaped the region (FWiW I'm not religious but as one aware of history Spainish Catholicism had at least as much impact in the region as any other variety)

The Spanish Empire shaped the foundations of land ownership, mineral rights, and water access in the region.

There are shelves of books on the subject - I'm not even in or from the Americas, I'm hardly the person to ask.

The point stands, it's a lousy essay that ignores some substantial American history, likely because it's not "USofA" history.

[reissbaker]

In general I think as a majority-minority state, applying a primarily UK-focused take on California misses a lot. The largest group in CA is Hispanic-Latino (40% of the population), and that's a group with neither Puritanical nor Scots-Irish background ideology. And 15% of the state is Asian-American... A very small percentage of CA descends from either Puritans/WASPs or Scots-Irish!

[0xDEAFBEAD]

An underrated aspect of California, I suspect, is that California's "political class" is not all that representative of the state at large. For example, I seem to recall that Prop 16 was endorsed by numerous major figures, and opposed by none, yet it lost by a large margin in the general election.

If you look at the Latinos and Asians who are politically involved in California, I would predict that they are far from typical, and they're much more likely to be assimilated into the state's progressive political traditions.

[zachrose]

My read of Albion’s Seed and American Nations is that they’re more about how a regional culture was germinated and founded, under the idea that the culture (including legal and economic systems) is even more durable than a specific group. So it’s not exactly connected to current demographics.

[reissbaker]

Fair enough, although the Hispanic Latinos also predate the Scots-Irish and WASPs in California, so they've got to have at least some impact...

[zachrose]

Yes, that’s exactly the connection that American Nations makes and the OP ignores

[TinkersW]

That is todays numbers.. obviously the article is taking a historical view.. not that I necessary agree with it.