And on the subject of Californians and electoral surprises, commentators left and right have been puzzling over the fact that we defeated an attempt to bring affirmative action back to a state that banished it in 1996. Proposition 16, which would have allowed for favoritism of nonwhites in public employment, education, and contracting, lost by a wide margin. Yet the backers of Prop. 16 outspent the opposition $30 million to $2 million. And what a list of backers it was! The California Democrat Party and every Democrat officeholder in the state championed Prop. 16, as did every major newspaper. Every leftist “social justice” organization—the ACLU, NAACP, NOW, the ADL, BLM, even the Sierra Club and the PTA—backed Prop. 16. So did the Chamber of Commerce, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Microsoft, Uber, Dropbox, Reddit, Lyft, Yelp, AirBnB, Instacart, Gap, Levi’s, United Airlines, Wells Fargo, the 49ers, the Giants, and the Oakland A’s.

Soros backed it. The Chan/Zuckerberg Initiative backed it. Ava DuVernay backed it. Kaiser, Blue Shield, and PG&E backed it.

No, the wording of the proposition was not confusing. The ballot summary was crystal clear: “Proposition 16 permits government decision-making policies to consider race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin to address diversity.” That’s hardly Aramaic.

And knowing what Prop. 16 was, whites, Asians, and Latinos in California voted against it. Only blacks overwhelmingly supported it. And at a paltry 5.8% of the state population, black “overwhelming support” plus two bucks buys you a McNugget and Coke.

Meanwhile, establishment conservatives at National Review, Hot Air, and elsewhere took the defeat of Prop. 16 as proof that “minority voters reject identity politics,” because inside every Ibram Kendi is a Thomas Sowell crying to be freed. “Demography is not destiny,” wrote John Sexton at Hot Air; nonwhites are “opting out” of the Democrat identity-politics machine.

But no, Prager U grads, Latinos and Asians did not rebuff Prop. 16 because they “rejected identity politics.” Something was indeed “rejected,” but no one wants to acknowledge what it was. Here’s a simple truth that none of the analysts left or right are willing to admit: Prop. 16 was a referendum on blacks. Not “diversity,” not “identity politics,” but blacks. Everyone with half a brain understood that Prop. 16 was there to help blacks, and blacks alone. Asians and Latinos are doing exceptionally well in the UC system (Asians are overrepresented, and Latinos, represented at roughly their percentage of the population, outnumber non-Hispanic whites). Blacks are the ones who need the “special help.” They’re the ones who feel like they can’t compete without being given extra points for melanin.

Proposition 16 posed a question to the people of California: Wanna help a brother out?

And Californians said no.