Chris Moritz
speaker
332 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Apr 2025
Chris Moritz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
It's just the Dr. Drew show.
Look, I mean, there's so many... sort of fault lines in the decay of California that's happened, I would say, over a course of 25 years. It's accelerated significantly in the last five. But I think when we ultimately try and dissect what has happened here, you have to ask yourself the question, why? And what is the political economy?
And the political economy of California is one that is increasingly stratified. It's stratified by design. It is stratified significantly because of the influx of immigrants into the country, into the state, both illegal and not, but significantly amongst low skill, obviously low wage, illegal immigrants. California is 27% foreign born today. Since 1990, that has grown 60%.
And as the state has become more foreign, more dominated by immigrants, the Democratic Party has become more and more entrenched, right? So California was not a blue Colossus. I would argue even until 2000. But this has been an accelerating trend. It's not something that has happened by accident.
It has happened for the explicit purpose of achieving political hegemony amongst the Democratic Party. Now, I argue in my book that the Biden administration attempted to implement the exact same strategy with their immigration policies that we all witnessed to such great horror.
um fortunately you know that was curtailed by the election but in california there has been no um pause right the the consolidation of power um the amplification and ascendancy of figures like gavin newsom and kamala harris who words that is only continuing And unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be, you know, an off ramp. So, you know, it's a complicated question.
Yeah, and hopefully that is actually what will happen. I mean, the fact is, Dr. Drew, you live here. You, I'm sure, understand the zeitgeist of this state like I do. And everyone is talking about crime all the time. We've all been affected by it. We all see it. And in many cases, we've been victimized by it.
So I actually wrote this book because of a victimization that I experienced in 2023 when my home in Santa Monica was effectively home-invaded Two nights in a row on one weekend by an MS-13 gang member, convicted felon, had served seven years in state prison for gun crimes. And he was immediately deported after his prison sentence by the Trump administration in the first term.
And then he came back into the country under Biden. And once he was back in California, he had a kid, so that's a US citizen. And then he went on a rampage across LA County and into Ventura County. And he committed dozens of these types of crimes all over the place. Now, in LA County, especially under the tenure of the former DA George Cascone, Property crimes were simply not prosecuted.
So police officers had no incentive to make a case on a property crime, even one where there's a violent element. And this guy was a violent gangster. When he was arrested by the police, up north in Ventura. He had a stolen loaded gun on him, body armor, knives. And actually in his interrogation, the cops said to him, thanks for not opening fire on us at the arrest.
So we know you had a gun on you. He said, don't thank me because if my wife and kid had not been in the backseat of the car, it was a stoplight arrest. He said, I was totally planning on opening fire and murdering you because I'm not going back to jail.
This guy was ultimately only sentenced for two counts of these types of crimes in Ventura County, which takes property crime and crime in general a little bit more seriously, but not a lot. He ended up getting a two year sentence, which he'll serve, I'm sure, much less than that, probably a year and a half. and a $300 fine.
Now, if you or I don't pay our taxes, we're going to go to jail for a lot longer than two years. So what has happened that our justice system has now prioritized the rights of criminals above victims, of course, but society in general. And when I learned all these facts and was trying to understand just as a citizen of California, how this could have happened, I began an investigation.
And one of the prosecutors I talked to in my initial research, who's a veteran deputy DA, I told her my story and she said, well, what's so remarkable about your story is how relatable it is. And I was kind of taken aback by that. Because how could it be relatable that an MS-13 gang member could home invade your house while you're asleep, two nights in a row.
And he's an illegal alien, a dreamer, by the way. And he gets a two year sentence and is gonna be out in the last event. And that's now become relatable and the standard of justice in California. When that happens, what I determined ultimately, and this was substantiated by significant research into plenty of other examples of this types of occurrence, is that in California,
The state has effectively surrendered on its fundamental duty to protect citizens. That's the number one job of government. In fact, it's the entire basis of what we call the social contract. The idea that you surrender, pay taxes, surrender liberties, autonomy in exchange for protection by the government, which is supposed to have monopoly on violence.
And at the very least, there has to be an assurance of justice. That is gone in California. So in my opinion, the government of California really does not have any legitimacy, and certainly Gavin Newsom.
It's really interesting you should phrase it that way, Dr. Drew, because in my book, I actually have an entire chapter dedicated to the legislative history of what I believe is really the core of our problems. And I call it statutory negligence. And the idea is that the laws put in place by the legislature, but also through ballot initiatives, are so reckless, so foreseeably dangerous.
They rise to a level of gross negligence or criminal negligence, which if it was an individual committing that kind of tort, they would face criminal liability.
Now, it's really interesting you should bring up 1789. So I call my book A Portrait of California in the Twilight of Empire, and that has several different connotations. One, of course, is that California is the fifth biggest economy in the world, almost a country unto itself. I would say an empire, and it is in its twilight. When I wrote the book,
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