I know I should start off with something impeachment-related, but this lifelong Californian cannot resist giving attention to the latest entry in the long-running journalism genre, “What’s the Matter With California?” Before delving into specifics, I want to state two all-important guiding principles for anyone who, in my view, wants to give a good-faith diagnosis of what ails this unfathomably complex state: History matters, and as a corollary, racism matters too. I say this upfront because Ezra Klein’s recent excoriation in the New York Times of California liberals who talk a good progressive game but fail to deliver on policies and services glaringly relegated history and race to the sidelines. In their place were observations that neighborhoods where Black Lives Matter yard signs proliferate lack low-income housing, that a state committed to reversing climate change cannot even build a bullet train, and that urban public school campuses that serve mostly minority students remain stubbornly closed. Klein’s piece contains plenty of cogent observations about the hijacking of progressive state policies by special interests acting in bad faith — but he also oversimplifies with a perfunctory lone mention of “housing racism” (a contributing factor that merits deep examination) in the middle of his discussion on the state’s worsening housing crisis.