During Thursday’s debate between 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, I couldn’t help thinking how lucky I am that I got to live under the latter.

I used to visit California with my family as a teenager. Right after the 2008 financial crisis, it was really affordable for Brits to visit the U.S. (for a short while), and the Golden State became a go-to favorite for my family, and countless others I grew up with. We spent years saving to visit for just a few weeks. At the time, California was paradise on Earth, especially for liberal people.

For most of my childhood, I was an atheist Liberal Democrat. I believed in socialism, universal healthcare, the strength of feminism — the recipe of a stereotypical California. I was also an outspoken critic of conservatism. At university, despite being a fairly average student, I figured out how to merge my fascination for sociological trends with the ever-evolving physical geographies of the planet. I wrote and published about all things macro-sociology, and earned myself three consecutive work visas as an “expert” in my field for the effort.

Fast-forward a decade after my first visit to California: I was living a block away from the canals in Venice Beach, LA, and loving life (ish). But that’s when things started going wrong. The buskers on the bustling hotspot of Abbot Kinney turned into teenage drug abusers, dealers, and thieves. My neighbors were attacked and murdered by the mentally ill allowed to roam freely, unpoliced in Gavin Newsom’s new vision for the state.

“What the heck?” I thought to myself. “This isn’t what Democrats do. They don’t allow America’s children to die at the rate of a genocide from drug addiction, mental illness, and crime. We take care of each other, right?” Wrong. (RELATED: Gavin Newsom Admits He’s Oblivious To LA District Attorney’s Work As Public Sounds Alarm On Crime Spike)

Then a load of my friends, mostly in the entertainment industry, started parroting the Democrat talking points to tackle the obvious social decline, like “we need to be compassionate and feed the homeless.”

“What are you on about? Feeding the homeless ensures they stay homeless, and normalizes dependency on your tax dollars. We need carrot-and-stick solutions that actually rehabilitate people. That’s compassion. And the absolute basics of social science.” I’d reply, to which I was met with blank looks allegeding heartlessness.

But I knew I wasn’t wrong. The social math just wasn’t mathing. Newsom, nor anyone else involved in the crisis, would admit it. From my perspective, California’s leaders were more comfortable letting your family members die than solving the problems their bad “compassionate” lawmaking allowed to flourish.

And the Californians around me were in on the lie, screaming that President Donald Trump and his fans were the real people destroying America. According to the BBC, British masses, and corporate entertainment industry, being conservative in the US meant you hated people, the planet, and all things inbetween. But the words never matched reality. To quote Will Ferrel, I thought I was taking crazy pills.

I just wanted one other so-called liberal person to agree with me. That the pro-drug abuse, pro-criminal laws weren’t working. But it never happened. And overtime, Newsom’s prevaricating, parroted by my peers, made me realize that I was no longer their definition of “liberal.” So, who was I? Because I couldn’t possibly be the opposite, right?

You can only imagine my surprise when a man on television finally started speaking truth to power, calling out these crises for what they were, and the lawmakers (California Democrats) responsible. That man? Tucker freakin’ Carlson.

Letter Claims Gavin Newsom Interfered With Harassment Suit That Benefitted His Funders https://t.co/y1siUKKSLD

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 28, 2022

If you had told me ten years ago that I’d be agreeing with Carlson on social issues, let alone working for an outlet he founded, I’d probably have puked. But the math was definitely mathing, in more ways than one. Not only was my visa renewal process under the Trump administration the fastest approval I’ve ever received (Biden and Obama dragged it out), but conservatives saw the same thing as me: the tidal wave of social destruction coming for America from our west coast.

Either right at the start or just before the pandemic, I was violently attacked by a homeless man in Santa Monica. He was never arrested or charged. He hadn’t committed a crime in Newsom’s California. I knew I had to leave. It felt like my life depended on it. But I couldn’t leave this beautiful country behind forever, so I went south.

In hindsight, had Gavin Newsom, at any point, offered one solution to the crises he helped cultivate, I probably would have stayed in California. I was still young and naive enough to be swayed. (RELATED: Gavin Newsom’s California In Flames Over His Total Inability To Control Crime)

I know there are a million solutions to the social decline caused by Newsom and his fellow Democrats policies. He could have pitched at least one during Thursday night’s debate. He didn’t.

In normalizing his lack of protection over his fellow Americans and resident aliens like me, Gavin Newsom saved my life. His inability to create a safe living environment forced me to grow physically and mentally, adapt to his challenges, and flourish in a new life, one I’d never imagined, but that I hope I get to live forever.

Thank you, Gavin Newsom. If you hadn’t destroyed California, a place I loved more than myself, I never would have evolved and put my faith in God above any man. I’d probably be one of the many people dead before their time because of your policies.

And without you, Gavin, I never would have found the real America, the one where people fight every day to stop people like you from ruining it for the rest of us. And I am proud to be a part of that fight in my very, very, very small way.