While most people focused on politics often debate the comparative merits of ideologies on the left and right, rarely have the direct consequences of on-the-ground governance come into such instantly sharp relief as in fire-ravaged California. Progressives Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who prioritized DEI, climate change, and other quixotic initiatives, evidently believed they would not be forced to pay a price for subjugating the safety of their citizens in the here and now. But the bill has come due, and the bell has tolled for their political futures.
The grim situation is entirely analogous to the issue of sanctuary cities. Virtue-signaling, holier-than-thou mayors and governors believed there would be no consequences for declaring themselves proud sanctuaries for illegal immigrants – until they were suddenly overrun by the reality of feeding, housing, and protecting thousands of them at the expense of their own citizens.
The issue of priorities, competence, and leadership might best be summed up in a single question: If Florida’s Ron DeSantis was governor of California instead of Newsom, how many more lives and how much decimated property could have been saved?
While answering that question involves the engagement of thoughtful – but not idle – speculation, anyone who has paid attention to the relative responses to 2024’s two devastating hurricanes that ravaged Florida and the ongoing California apocalypse would almost certainly reach the same conclusion. Like former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the wake of 9/11, DeSantis was, as always, actively engaged in even the most minute details of the storms that threatened to devastate the Sunshine State, holding near-daily press briefings and Q&A sessions, reassuring reeling Floridians that the full weight of the state’s plentiful emergency resources was being employed. He was large and in charge, willing to accept full responsibility for salvage operations. In short, the citizens of Florida – like those in New York when the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists – knew for sure that DeSantis was on the case and doing everything in his power to mitigate the damage.
Nothing But Politics and Platitudes From Progressives
In striking contrast to DeSantis’ legendary management of disasters – even Joe Biden gave him high marks in recent years – Newsom and Bass were virtual no-shows, after the city and state had taken an ax to their budgets for fire prevention and protection. They also subjugated effective forest management, leaving massive amounts of uncleared brush that have intensified the infernal blaze while throwing more and more taxpayer funding at pie-in-the-sky climate change initiatives, DEI, and the festering homelessness that has come to define Newsom’s governance. Newsom spent more than $6 billion to make California the first state to offer Medicaid to illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, the cost of basics like food, gas, and housing has soared to the point that California, once viewed as paradise, has, for the first time in history, seen its population recede instead of grow. During Newsom’s governorship, middle-class residents, overburdened by taxes, regulations, and the cost of living, have been fleeing the state for the friendlier climes of Texas, Florida, and elsewhere.
As for Bass, despite an all-caps warning from the National Weather Service two days before the wildfires struck, stating a “LIFE-THREATENING, DESTRUCTIVE Widespread Windstorm” was headed for LA, she refused to cancel her scheduled trip to Ghana, of all places, for an ultimately meaningless ceremonial appearance at the inauguration of that country’s new president. She not only left her constituents hanging out to dry but refused to answer pointed questions about it when she finally returned home after much of the damage had been done. In doing so, she broke an unambiguous pledge made in her mayoral campaign. Indeed, Bass told The New York Times after her first rally in 2021 that she promised to remain hunkered down in her city and country: “[N]ot only would I of course live here, but I also would not travel internationally — the only places I would go would be D.C., Sacramento, San Francisco and New York, in relation to L.A.” Bass had already broken her promise by traveling out of the country on the taxpayer’s dime three times to attend the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris!
Newsom, glib beyond compare with his meticulously coiffed Hollywood good looks, has offered nothing beyond banal platitudes in refusing to accept even a modicum of blame for a catastrophe that is bound to become the headline in his theatrically crafted progressive legacy. Instead of stepping up to the plate and demonstrating leadership in a time of severe crisis, he created a website – allowing no comments – citing widespread “misinformation,” as if that does anything to help those whose lives have been destroyed or, at best, changed forever. The consequences of his misplaced priorities are that these still-raging wildfires, according to Accuweather, will exact the greatest financial toll in the history of American natural disasters — upward of a staggering $250 billion.
Passing the Buck
Not content simply to try to quiet critics, Newsom has all but blamed local officials for a crucial reservoir that was empty and fire hydrants that went dry. Most infuriating – and revealing – was a conversation he had with a victim of the wildfires that quickly went viral in which he pretended to be on the phone with President Biden. When the woman said she didn’t believe him and asked to listen, Newsom quickly pivoted, saying he was unable to reach the president. If the governor still plans to make a presidential run, even after his brand of politics was delivered a near-death blow in the 2024 election, he will only prove what so many have postulated for years: He is driven by blind ambition without regard to the steep cultural and economic decline he has overseen in a state that is now the front-and-center representation of all that is wrong with the ideology of progressives.
The actions and statements of Newsom and Bass suggest that the unquestioned primary responsibility of public officials – keeping their constituents safe – is secondary to their purely political agenda. And nothing could be more damning in the eyes of hundreds of thousands of citizens whose lives have been lost or destroyed. In this state, famous for recall elections, more than 100,000 LA residents have already signed a petition demanding Bass’ “immediate recall” or resignation. A similar movement to remove Newsom is likely to follow once this disaster has subsided.
If ever there was an event that brought into excruciating focus everything that voters chose to reject in 2024, it is this California calamity. It proves afresh that there is no such thing as a free lunch in politics. Even the most clever politicians focused on seizing the faux-moral high ground at the expense of the voters who put them in office will one day see their chickens come home to roost.