Perhaps Another California Earthquake

For John, BLUF:  What is behind the Recall effort against California Gavin Newsom is still be be sorted out.  Does this represent a quirk in the California voting system, which has several?  Or does it represent a change in voting patters?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Progressives have ruined California

Here is the sub-headline:

Governor Gavin Newsom's hapless reign exposes the rot at the heart of America's liberal elite.

From Sp!ked, by Professor Joel Kotkin, 25 August 2021.

Here is the lede plus two:

The very idea of a recall vote seemed absurd at first in California, this bluest of US states.  Yet Californians’ surprisingly strong support for the removal of Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has resulted in precisely that, with the vote scheduled for 14 September.  This reflects a stunning rejection of modern progressivism in a state thought to epitomise its promise.

Some, like the University of California’s Laura Tyson and former Newsom adviser Lenny Mendonca, may see California as creating ‘the way forward’ for a more enlightened ‘market capitalism’, but that reality is hard to see on the ground.  Even before the pandemic, California already had the highest poverty rate and the widest gap between middle and upper-middle income earners of any state in the US.  It now suffers from the second-highest unemployment rate in the US after Nevada.

Today, class drives Californian politics, and Newsom is peculiarly ill-suited to deal with it.  He is financed by what the Los Angeles Times describes as ‘a coterie of San Francisco’s wealthiest families’.  Newsom’s backers have aided his business ventures and helped him live in luxury – first in his native Marin, where he just sold his estate for over $6million, and now in Sacramento.

The author of this piece, Mr Joel Kotkin, is the presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, not someone who strikes me as following the line of the Progressives.  That said, he does not hold out a lot of hope for the Republicans in California.

This election, this recall election, should be of interest to all Americans.  It could signal a lot of changes, or none.  If Governor Newsom survives then Progressivism survives.  If half the Latino voters vote to recall the Governor it could indicate that those Latino voters have shifted their understanding of who they are and what it means to them to be Americans.  That could be big.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff