Orange Curtain
Unofficial boundary between Orange and Los Angeles counties in California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Orange Curtain is a local term for the border between Orange County and Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California.[1] It is a sometimes derogatory, sometimes lighthearted term that is used to describe Orange County's more conservative and suburban population as compared to the more liberal and urban population of Los Angeles.[2][3][4]
The phrase is a wordplay on the so-called Iron Curtain, which separated communist and capitalist Europe.[5]
According to Colleen Cotter, "Because [Orange County] has a reputation for political conservatism, people from Northern California especially worry about what happens 'Behind the Orange Curtain'."[4]
The Orange Curtain began from the fact that between 1890 and 1950, Orange County was wholly white and "the region's predominately Irish settling also embraced an ideology of small government.[6]
Following the 2018 midterm election cycle, in which liberal Democrats were elected to all seven congressional seats in Orange County, comments arose suggesting the collapse of the Orange Curtain. A Republican Party political consultant even admitted, "Orange County was different. It was, as we called it, 'the orange curtain' and it has now fallen."[7]
