On the levels that I am most knowledgeable about, the trend is roughly true. For example, Dems are the party of gun control while simultaneously militarizing police (a bipartisan effort). The moves to licensing and excessive taxation for what should be fundamental rights (e.g licenses to operate businesses, high taxes on your primary residence) is another trend that concerns me, but quickly goes out of the scope of what can be readily discussed on a forum.
My view is that both parties seek power on whatever levels they can get it. That's why I am for the abolition of political parties altogether, and a move towards a more direct democracy (public veto).
Implementation probably matters more than the model. That said, I still prefer certain models because it aligns better with my personal principles.
1. Options in representation. California is essentially a single-party state. Switzerland has substantially more options in this regard.
2. California is freaking huge, Switzerland is not. Because of this, you have dramatically different interests between different regions in California contrasted with more homogeneous needs in Switzerland.
3. The population of Switzerland is not nearly as diverse as California. They speak several languages there, but overall you have a group of people with very similar cultural and historical values.
4. This point would require a small novel, but in essence California abuses the system to go around the process rather than go through it. You could describe this as the contrast between cooperative governance (Switzerland) and adversarial governance (California).
In short, if we stuck with George Washington's suggestion to lower the maximum size of congressional districts to one representative per 30,000 people, California might be in better shape. It probably would have also been beneficial to listen to Alexander Hamilton when he called parties “the most fatal disease.”
For points 1 and 4, those sound like symptoms to a more rudimentary problem. I don't know what that problem is, but my guess is its something systemic and structural.
Points 2&3 are could also be solved by dividing the state up so that each region could self-govern. Given that this is unlikely, I have a hard time imagining a solution. It's extremely hard to make "city folk" understand what's going on in rural areas, and vice versa. Worse, our current political climate is such that demonizing the other group is seen as a morally acceptable thing to do, almost always without really understanding them in the first place.
The first step to solving these problems in California is to close the political divide and get the people to work together to establish better representation.
Eliminating unions and splitting the state don’t seem to be feasible options. What else can we do, is there something less radical that can chip away to close this gap?
Perhaps evidence to the contrary, it seems widely believed that the governance of most Nordic countries and other nations like Switzerland result in (much?) better outcomes than the US. There seems to be something of a fascination with those nations in terms of their social support systems and the like. Interestingly, those nations are substantially more homogeneous the United States.
> Splitting the state up would draw territory lines where there are only cultural lines currently.
I don't think it's a given that this is a bad thing. The principle behind states and counties is that the populations can govern themselves in a way that fits their values. An extreme case, an Amish population that has gathered in a particular region, would probably not feel great about being forcibly assimilated into another group's social or governmental structures. Their beliefs are so disparate that it's difficult to imagine they would be able to find common ground.
> What else can we do, is there something less radical that can chip away to close this gap?
Acceptance of other people's values without demonization is key. The US has devolved into a state where the opposing political belief is now seen as a flaw of their character or morality. You see that Even on a site like this where the average commenter is better educated than the average citizen. (The comments about Trump supporters all supporting segregation as example).
To fix this, we need to break the echo chambers that perpetuate these beliefs. Unfortunately, because of the current polarization, it's difficult even for an elected official to agree with the opposition about any issue without reprisal from their own party or the voters.
Take centralization. You see that the Republicans are pro-decentralization. Except they're the party that's trying to delete California's air quality rules in favor of federalized ones. And also delete state net neutrality rules in favor of (lack of) federal ones. Drill down to the state level, and it's clear that their policy on centralization versus decentralization is actually about "the rules should be decided on whatever level we hold power." In states where there is a Republican lock on state government, any Democratic city that dares to pass progressive legislation will not infrequently be met with a state law restricting their ability to pass that legislation. A few states passed laws prohibiting localities from enacting mask mandates. The "bathroom bills" are another example of this effect.