1 out of every 8 Americans is a Californian.

And while modern-day California has a reputation for liberal politics and tolerance, viewed

by much of the nation as a state-sized hippie commune, this hasn't always been the case.

California consistently went Republican in presidential elections until the 1990s.

It was the home state of conservatives Richard Nixon, one of the most corrupt presidents,

and Ronald Reagan, one of the most damaging.

In the recent past, Californians have used ballot initiatives to implement deeply regressive

policies.

Proposition 6 barred gays are the public school system.

Prop 13 sharply cut and capped property taxes for the rich.

Prop 187 forbade undocumented immigrants from using public services, and Prop 209 banned

affirmative action.

Californians even voted a ban-gay marriage twice, with Prop 22 in 2000, and to override a

court ruling with Prop 8 in 2008, the same year Obama first won the presidency.

California's racial strife is well documented.

This brutality on the black community led to the Watts riots of 1965 and the LA riots

of 1992, and even today, Los Angeles has the most police shootings of any U.S. city.

And back in the mid-19th century, the state earned the dubious distinction of having an atrocity

named after it, the California genocide.

After the Mexican-American War of the mid-1840s, when America won control of the West Coast

territory, over 100,000 native Californians were displaced, starved, or slaughtered.

And a major driver of that cruelty?

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