L.A. capital of the conservative right

so what post 1950-POD could lead the City of Los Angeles to become the "capital of the conservative right" in the USA?
 
A stronger and longer lasting Hays Code system makes Hollywood films famous for their conservative values. The more liberal producers and directors begin to form a new film capital somewhere else in order to avoid this stigma. Even though their movies are essentially banned in the U.S., they come out with a few thrillers with some major talent that makes them a lot of money internationally.

Eventually, their films become so popular that the U.S. is forced to get rid of the Hays Code because people are ignoring it anyway. Looking for a replacement, old Hollywood is unable to come up with an acceptable solution, but the New Hollywood negotiates with them a system similar to the MPAA, and agrees to be bound by it in order to import into the U.S. (assuming that New Hollywood is in some other country).

Meanwhile, a much smaller Los Angeles becomes known as an industrial center and trading powerhouse, which somehow survives the problems which tear apart the cities in the Rust Belt during the 1970's (perhaps because of different attitudes towards labor unions, or maybe a large number of Mexican immigrants willing to work for less).

As an added push, in the 50's and 60's, a new brand of country music stars begin emerging who appeal more to blue-collar factory workers than to rural agricultural culture. They begin to integrate African-American and Hispanic styles into the music, creating a *rock-n-roll known more for old-fashioned family values than protest (although not without its 'dangerous' and 'criminal' elements, which keep it popular). Former Hollywood movie studio executives and actors, looking for work, lure some of the more popular stars to their new music studios in Los Angeles, eventually making that city a capital of the genre.
 
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gridlocked

Banned
Everything that Swan Station says is great. Here is another grab bag of ideas.

Before 1965, LA was the whitest major city in America. So obviously that perhaps fear of communism causes the 1965 immigration act not to pass. Despite being famous for the movie industry, it is Aerospace which dominates the economy of Cold War Southern California in real life. I would add some major earthquakes to slow down its growth.

So by the turn of the Centruy we have Los Angelos a medium sized conservative industrial port city, politically dominated by the decadents of the Oakies and the capital city of the US Defense Industry. It is known as the capital of the right for being the home city of Ronald Reagan, Bill Buckley's magazine the National Review (his family fortune was originally in oil so this is plausible that his family moves there), as well as one of the few major cities that routinely elects Republicans as mayor. The mayors are credited to reducing smog to a mostly tolerable level while still keeping industry. This city is also associated with Ayn Rand since she lived here for many years enjoying the climate and trying to get Atlas Shrugged turned into a movie. Techno libertarians are common in LA's large electronic industry. Although the earthquakes have scared many dreamers from trying to break into the movie guilds, it did not stop the Mormons from coming to LA. It has the 3rd largest concentration of Mormons in the country. Movies are still made in LA at the traditional studios, but the real action and smut is made up the coast. Part of LAs reputation is a misnomer, it comes from being the leading city of a conservative region. Orange County is famously conservative and San Diego is a sleepy, but very pleasant Navy town. In fact a lot of LA's reputatution comes from the California famously polarized politics which pit the conservative South and interior vs liberal northern California. By population both sides seem evenly matched.

It is essentially the city of Raymond Chandler cleaned up, modernized and made safe, efficient and a little boring, rather than the LA we know on OTL. Also see Dragnet on Hulu.com where it depicts a clean cut LA circa 1969.

There are many areas of the country that are conservative, but Republicans point to the success of Southern California as well as Texas when ask to point out regions that the rest of the country could emulate.
 
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If you look at the Birchers and the conservative pamphlet industry and, ummm, Reagan, then SoCal actually had a good claim to being the centre of the US Right during the sixties.

But the Washington DC/New York City corridor would always assume the role it did when the conservatives built their movement into a professional entity that could win national office.

There's no point in having your top resources gathered in a regional centre when you want to run the whole nation. This also precludes Chicago and Dallas from being the modern conservative capital, regardless of the onetime importance of the various Rightwing newspaper-barons and captains of industry from those towns.
 
Well, we simply need to ask which aspects of Orange County made it conservative, and shift those social changes slightly north. Yes, they're not a capital per se, but a good portion of the right-wing intelligentsia - moderate or not - lives there, so it's a de facto center.
 
Prevent white flight, continue with suburban sprawl.

California, as in OTL continues its meteoric economic rise. While the sixties remain a turbulent decade. California remains relatively serene. For whatever the reason, the Watts riot never occurs. While it is common for retirees to sell their homes at a profit and move to Arizona, most people prefer to keep the jobs and culture present in the greater Los Angles urban sprawl. Despite the liberal leanings of the creative core of Hollywood, its black, and minority populations; LA remains a conservative town due to the triumvirate of the studio system, defense contractors, and petro-chemicals. Los Angles outside of Hollywood, is seen by the stereotype of being populated by reactionary white collar defense industry employees who congregate in office parks, and high security clearance manufacturing facilities.

San Francisco on the other hand...
 
Prevent white flight, continue with suburban sprawl.

California, as in OTL continues its meteoric economic rise. While the sixties remain a turbulent decade. California remains relatively serene. For whatever the reason, the Watts riot never occurs. While it is common for retirees to sell their homes at a profit and move to Arizona, most people prefer to keep the jobs and culture present in the greater Los Angles urban sprawl. Despite the liberal leanings of the creative core of Hollywood, its black, and minority populations; LA remains a conservative town due to the triumvirate of the studio system, defense contractors, and petro-chemicals. Los Angles outside of Hollywood, is seen by the stereotype of being populated by reactionary white collar defense industry employees who congregate in office parks, and high security clearance manufacturing facilities.

San Francisco on the other hand...

Though even the minorities will likely be social-conservative in such a scenario (I mean, even OTL, these were the people which managed to swing Prop 8 into passing, along with the Mormons), while the white defense-contractor types will basically be fiscals. Basically the only people who we would recognize as liberal would be Hollywood, and perhaps the universities.
 
So by the turn of the Centruy we have Los Angelos a medium sized conservative industrial port city, politically dominated by the decadents of the Oakies and the capital city of the US Defense Industry.
Hmmm... OTL the Okies' children became decadent.... :)
The mayors are credited to reducing smog to a mostly tolerable level while still keeping industry.
This may be the only ASB bit... If the culture is so conservative and pro-business, why would they even try to do much with smog? Let alone do more than OTL. Remember, that the Los Angeles basin developed smog from Indian campfires pre-settlement....
Techno libertarians are common in LA's large electronic industry.
Query: why would the electronics industry happen there, instead of in the San Francisco area?
 
so what post 1950-POD could lead the City of Los Angeles to become the "capital of the conservative right" in the USA?

I honestly don't think this would be anything other than {almost} totally ASB, pretty much..............on the other hand, cities like Houston, Atlanta, Omaha, Bakersfield, and even Dallas would make good candidates for such a title. :D

Edit: Magniac is right to a certain extent though; whole bunches of extreme right wingnuts, wanna-be crooks, and even actual crooks, did indeed make parts of So-Cal their home.........but L.A. was already well on it's way to where it is now, even back in the '50s, so L.A. itself becoming a hard-right paradise is still nearly impossible under the circumstances, unless we can come up with an earlier POD{how about 1900 instead of 1950?}.
{He is wrong on one thing, though; Dallas certainly is a good candidate, and in fact, was well on its way to becoming one of the top spots for wingnut activity, especially right around the time that JFK was murdered, it seems.}
 
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This thread gives me an idea. Thanks! I agree that a major difference maker would be a continually conservative Hollywood.
 
Defense-related electronics?

Well, JPL is in LA, as is CalTech. I don't know how much defense-related stuff is done there, but NASA has big projects there. Defense-related electronics aren't going to create Silicon Valley. Silicon valley has its origins in business electronics but only becomes what it is because of consumer electronics.

However, it's important to note that Silicon Valley does not have a monopoly on electronics and computers, and never really did. There's plenty of room for another set of companies to conglomerate together as well.
 
Coupl'a wackier ideas: :D

1. After a really bad quake in San Diego (or a dangerous political/communist upheval in Mexico!) the US Pacific Fleet is moved to LA in the 60s along with several USMC and Air Force bases, flooding the valley with conservative military members.

2. Walt Disney's EPCOT plans go into full-bore execution, turning large portions of LA into a technocratic Father Knows Best enclaves of futurist suburbia. High Tech moves in, taking advantage of the demographic shift towards the technically-educated and Silicon Valley becomes a buzzword for the LA valley.
 
so what post 1950-POD could lead the City of Los Angeles to become the "capital of the conservative right" in the USA?

Somehow stop the Hispanic "invasion" from Mexico and Latin America, or at least NEVER let the Hispanics become voters. I have no idea how you'd accomplish the former, but the latter is legislative.

Back in the day, California voting Republican used to balance New York voting Democrat. Then the Hispanics came and vote ~ 100% Democrat.
 
Somehow stop the Hispanic "invasion" from Mexico and Latin America, or at least NEVER let the Hispanics become voters. I have no idea how you'd accomplish the former, but the latter is legislative.

Back in the day, California voting Republican used to balance New York voting Democrat. Then the Hispanics came and vote ~ 100% Democrat.

Considering Hispanics are social conservatives for the most part - this is ironic. Maybe have the Hispanic migration into SoCal slower than before?
 
Well, JPL is in LA, as is CalTech. I don't know how much defense-related stuff is done there, but NASA has big projects there. Defense-related electronics aren't going to create Silicon Valley. Silicon valley has its origins in business electronics but only becomes what it is because of consumer electronics.

However, it's important to note that Silicon Valley does not have a monopoly on electronics and computers, and never really did. There's plenty of room for another set of companies to conglomerate together as well.

Well, it didn't say LA had to be Silicon Valley--it just said there had to have a large electronics industry. Between NASA and defense, there's plenty of market to make a "large electronics industry".
 
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