California voters find themselves caught in a democratic paradox this November: they express support for taxing the state's billionaires to fill healthcare gaps left by federal cuts, yet simultaneously back the very measures designed to prevent that tax from taking effect. The ballot's unusual architecture—where competing propositions can nullify one another based on relative vote totals—transforms majority support into no guarantee of survival. In this, California offers a parable about the distance between what voters say they want and what the structures of power allow them to have.