Steve Hilton is joined by multiple peers to discuss what needs change in California, and why these topics have driven him to officially run for the Governor of California.
California is a beautiful state that is disastrously run, and in this episode Steve Hilton outlines policies that need to happen in order to save California.
Meet Steve Hilton
I love California so much. I moved to the Bay Area over a decade ago. I’ve raised my family here, taught at Stanford, started a business, written books, hosted a TV show … lived the California dream. It’s my home, in the deepest sense. I’m a proud American, and an incredibly proud Californian too.
But I’ve never forgotten where I came from. My parents were immigrants – they fled communism in Hungary to start a new life in England. In a free country. I appreciate exactly what that means.
We didn’t have much money. My mother worked in a shoe store, my stepfather worked construction. My dad, who died when I was a kid, was the goalie for the Hungarian national ice hockey team.
I wanted to get on in life and worked hard. Made it to Oxford University, then a job with the Conservative Party when Mrs Thatcher was prime minister. It was such an honor to meet her and work for a party that she led.
After that I made a career in business, working all over the world, and eventually starting my own company. We also opened a couple of restaurants in London. That is a tough business!
I went back into politics, helping to elect David Cameron prime minister and then working as his senior advisor in 10 Downing Street.
In 2012 we moved to California. I hosted a TV show — The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton — and podcasts: California Rebel Base, The Steve Hilton Show, Big Ideas Book Club. Through my policy organization, Golden Together, I’ve set out the changes we need to make to get this state back on track.
Over the last few years, I’ve traveled the state, meeting people from all walks of life and backgrounds, in every part of California. I’ve spent time with business owners and workers in every industry, struggling with the absolute nightmare it’s become to start and grow a company here. I’ve seen the struggles so many Californians face raising a family given the unbelievable costs of living here.
Those are the facts. But here’s what you really need to know about me:
I think the most important thing, if you actually want to make change happen, is to have the right ideas as well as the courage, conviction and consistency to follow through. Today in California, we have bad ideas, poorly executed. That has to change.
In everything I’ve worked on and argued for, there has been a clear, consistent idea: to put power in people’s hands.
Read some of my books and you’ll see … More Human in 2015 and Positive Populism in 2018. I’ve always believed that people, families, communities – and businesses – do better when they have the power to chart their own course. That means building a foundation of security and opportunity, and a framework of freedom. That’s what government should be doing, not bossing you around with endless rules, regulations and bureaucracy.
Good judgment often means standing alone against the crowd. I spoke out against lockdowns and school closures right at the start of the COVID pandemic, when everyone else was clamoring to shut everything down. People tried to shout me down and censor me.
I called out America’s increasing dependence on China, when everyone else was rushing to “engage.” I pointed out the destructive impact of globalism on working families, when the establishment dismissed that as a fringe point of view. I argued for healthier food for our children, when the official wisdom was that the food dyes and chemicals weren’t an issue. In 2015 I was called “insane” for arguing that kids shouldn’t have smartphones in schools. Now it’s being implemented across the country.
To make real change happen in government, you need the ability to think differently, the courage to challenge establishment groupthink and the conviction to follow through.
That’s what I will bring to this job – to the urgent necessity of restoring the California Dream for everyone, and making this beautiful state, that we love so much, truly Golden Again.
