The Ramirez cartoon below is a better assessment of the Newsom recall election result than much of it coming out of the so-called wise punditry, some of it from the center-right. Some of the center-right make much of Larry Elder’s August comments throwing aspersions on the November 2020 election. In their scenario, he made it easy for the ruling one-party apparatchiks to paint MAGA all over the recall effort. It’s true, but only goes so far.
The state is deep, deep blue for a reason. The ridge of the Coast Range is a philosophical and ideological firewall. Those living west of it on the elongated coastal plain from San Diego to San Francisco can easily outvote into irrelevancy those east of it. The lefty ideological smog is suffocating there. Boat loads of left-wing unexamined assumptions dominate. If I was talking about mining, it’s California’s Comstock Lode of lefty votes, leaving Republicans to scantier fields elsewhere. Challenges to the ruling coastal orthodoxy are really up against it.
Challengers must be Jesus-like in their absence of lefty sin, or near perfect in avoiding the smear of any association with Trump or SNL depictions of the people in flyover country. That would inflame the left’s hyper-prejudices. Perfection isn’t in our natural makeup, though. People slip up. Any sin to the ruling dogmas, no matter how minor, can be inflated into a threat to life and limb with the huge infusions of lefty cash from brazen rent seekers and half-wit lefty gazillionaires.
It’s easy to remain in power for the lefty ruling class with such a huge repository of votes and cash at their disposal. I’ve experienced it as a local teacher union president attending CTA confabs. Remember the voucher initiative from way back? They, the CTA big cheeses, crowed about spending $14 million to convince minorities and others that it was in their interests to remain chained to their inner-city educational anarchy. It worked.
Newsom can preside over the state’s wildlands conflagration, a third-world grid, Marxist levels of taxation and regulation, a cost of living unaffordable to anyone not able to buy lunch at the French Laundry, and social chaos, and all he has to do is mention Trump and the prospect of toothless rednecks to escape accountability. P.T. Barnum may be right about the birth rate of suckers (there’s one born every minute).
People not so disposed to the lunacy are really up against it. Try as you might, the electoral math won’t add up. Money and a horde of lefty sycophants will thwart your bravest efforts. Your only recourse is to do what homo sapiens have done since the discovery of bipedalism. Move!
RogerG