This is a satirical answer to a simple prompt: if liberal campaign ads copied the conservative outrage-ad formula beat for beat, what words would they use — and which state would they turn into shorthand?
The direct answer
The closest state mirror for "California" is Florida.
Florida works as the liberal version of the conservative California shorthand because it is large, culturally recognizable, strongly associated with a national political brand, and easy to turn into a phrase like "the Florida agenda" or "turning our state into Florida."
Texas is the runner-up, especially for issue-specific attacks around abortion bans, guns, deregulation, the power grid, and one-party state government. Florida is the broader culture-war shorthand; Texas is the sharper policy-risk shorthand.
The mirrored vocabulary
| Conservative ad phrase | Liberal mirror phrase |
|---|---|
| radical liberal | MAGA extremist |
| California values | Florida agenda / Mar-a-Lago values |
| woke agenda | culture-war agenda |
| socialist | authoritarian |
| open borders | abortion-ban politics |
| defund the police | defund public schools |
| indoctrination | book-banner / classroom censor |
| coastal elites | billionaire donors / dark-money network |
| Pelosi / AOC / the Squad | Project 2025 / Mar-a-Lago / the gun lobby |
| soft on crime | soft on corruption |
| too liberal for us | too extreme for us |
The formula
Strip the party labels off and the machine has five moving parts:
1. Attach an alarm word to every noun: "extreme," "MAGA," "dark-money," "Project 2025," "book-banning," "abortion-ban."
2. Tie the local opponent to a national figure or movement.
3. Use one state as a policy-dystopia shorthand.
4. Translate every issue into personal stakes: schools, doctors, paychecks, privacy, safety, and local control.
5. Close with the standard fear line: "Too extreme for [state]."
That is the entire playbook. The vocabulary is a skin; the skeleton never changes. You can verify this yourself on the Machine — build an ad, press "Flip the party," and watch every beat survive the swap.
The sample spot
Grainy black-and-white footage. A candidate shakes hands at a rally.
Narrator: "MAGA extremist Jim Smith says he will stand up for Ohio. But Smith took dark-money cash, backed abortion-ban politics, and voted with the same Project 2025 crowd pushing book bans and cuts to public schools.
Now Smith wants to bring the Florida agenda here: politicians in doctors' offices, censors in classrooms, and billionaires writing the rules.
Jim Smith. Too extreme. Too MAGA. Too Florida for Ohio."
Cut to black.
Narrator: "Paid for by People Who Also Own a Thesaurus."
You can watch this exact spot, produced with all the gravitas it deserves, on The Ad page.
The short version
If liberals copied the playbook cleanly, the core words would be MAGA, extreme, Project 2025, dark money, book bans, abortion bans, authoritarian, billionaire-backed, and culture war.
The state would be Florida. For abortion, guns, deregulation, and grid failure, it would be Texas.