If there were a way to bet on media headline predictions, I could have wagered my savings and retired on how Voice of OC would headline its coverage of the Anaheim State of the City speech:

“Mayor Tells A Tale of Two Anaheims”

I realize that OCCORD, Los Amigos, Take Back Anaheim, the OCEA and the rest of the coalition of the left-leaning have been selling that storyline hard for months, but I just do not buy it. There are no more “Two Anaheims” than there are two of any city (except maybe Aliso Viejo and Laguna Beach). Every city of any size and duration will have affluent areas  and poorer areas, older section and newer sections.  Anaheim is not unique in this respect. That is the reality of the human condition. Hammurabi could well have spoken of “Two Babylons” and with considerably more justification.

This narrative is being propounded from various quarters with intentions both good and not-so-good. My issue with this meme is that, in my opinion, it tends to create consciousness of division and separateness where that such division and separateness doesn’t exist — the Marxist theory calls “false consciousness.”

I have every confidence the great silent majority of Anaheim residents do not subscribe to this notion, and have a view of their city that is very different from the dystopian landscape that the organized brigades of agitation.

I understand the impulse to use this imagery to draw attention to the circumstances of Anaheim residents living amidst poverty and crime in neighborhoods like Anna Drive. It is a noble, laudable impulse in those in whom it springs from a genuine Christian compassion, and animates the “little platoons” that are the real agents of improving lives.

My concern is its exploitation by the organized Left to push a political agenda aimed at re-fashioning Anaheim city government to more closely resemble social democracy than traditional limited government.