Friday night on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” host Bill Maher pointed out that unlike most of the country, California’s economy is surging ahead, thanks to the efforts of the state Democratic Party and veteran Gov. Jerry Brown (D). California is going to drag the rest of the country kicking and screaming into the present, he said, if it can.

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“New rule,” Maher said, “Conservatives who love to brag about American exceptionalism must come here to California and see it in person. And then they should be afraid. Because while right-wingers are taking over places like North Carolina and Texas and even Wisconsin, California is creating the kind of modern, liberal nation the country as a whole can only dream about.”

“And not only can’t the rest of the country stop us, we’re going to drag you with us,” he said.

In 2010, he said, when many other states were electing tea party Republicans to office, California elected a Democratic governor. Without a Republican governor or state legislator “cock blocking” efforts at reform, the state was able to raise taxes and reorganize spending and turn its massive deficit into a budget surplus.

“Here in California, we’re not just gluten-free and soy-free and peanut-free,” he said, “we’re tea party-free! Yes, we can live in reality.”

Watch the video, embedded below via YouTube user “Walter Cronkite”: