Commentary

Almost every California governor or senator looks longingly at the White House. According to biographer Ian Halperin, even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did so and was planning a national movement to excise the Constitution’s requirement that the president be born in the United States.

So at this point in his carefully planned career, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s every action is aimed 2,730 miles east—if he drives from his Capitol office in Sacramento on the I-80 freeway in a Tesla to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He has said he won’t run in 2024 if President Biden seeks reelection. But Biden is old and might not run. And there’s always 2028, when Newsom will be just 61 on Election Day.

Look to his Second Inaugural Address (all hyperlinks in the quotes below are in his online original). The key message I get is he’s appealing almost entirely to the leftwing, grievance wing of the Democratic Party, which dominates in primaries. He starts out recounting the humble roots of his Irish immigrant ancestors. But then there’s a long section about all the people who suffered before he became governor, especially immigrants:

And of course, the 1990s brought a wave of anti-immigrant xenophobia, manifesting in Proposition 187. These are dark moments in California’s journey. But in the end, we confronted our errors with humility and conviction, paving the way for rights and freedom to prevail.”

I opposed Prop. 187 in editorials when it was on the 1994 ballot, because it made nurses and teachers into government enforcers. It was a badly designed attempt to get control of immigration and the costs it brings, something that still needs to be done, but at the federal level.

He naturally attacked Republicans:

Red state politicians, and the media empire behind them, selling regression as progress, oppression as freedom. And as we know too well, there is nothing original about their demagoguery. All across the nation, anxiety about social change has awakened long-dormant authoritarian impulses.

“Media empire” is a joke. Despite The Epoch Times, Fox News (sometimes), and some other outlets, the media remains dominated by the left-wing Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, etc.

And it’s on the Newsom-left where much of the “authoritarian impulses” lie. “They make it harder to vote and easier to buy illegal guns,” he said. But gun control is always on the agenda of the real authoritarians. Oppressors need to grab guns before really cracking down. And Newsom proudly has signed dozens of new gun control laws.

As for “making it harder to vote,” almost every other democracy in the world insists on showing a valid ID card to vote, and usually voting in person on a single day, with few exceptions for mail-in ballots. That’s the only way you can get honest elections.

Newsom:

While they cry freedom, they dictate the choices people are allowed to make. Fanning the flames of these exhausting culture wars. Banning abortion, banning books, banning free speech in the classroom, and in the boardroom.

That’s what he and his followers believe. But it’s leftwing Amazon that really bans books. When public schools remove a book promoting critical race theory (CRT), they’re making an educational choice to refrain from teaching race-based politics. This is the proper use of public money, which is controlled by taxpayers. The CRT books themselves are not banned, and can still be found on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble.

Environmental Obsession

Newsom: “But they sell calm and indifference when the threat is greenhouse gases destroying our planet, or big oil raking in windfall profits at your expense.” California’s draconian crackdown on carbon-based energy has had no effect on what the world is doing. It only makes life more expensive and miserable for us. The International Energy Agency reported Dec. 16, “The world’s coal consumption is set to reach a new high in 2022 as the energy crisis shakes markets.”

I’ve written earlier in The Epoch Times about the governor’s attempts to impose a “windfall profits tax” on oil producers, which would be passed on to consumers.

Inevitably, like every state politician, he portrays California’s economy as the fourth largest, even though it’s just a subsection of the giant U.S. economy:

But California offers reason for hope. “There is no soil better adapted” to liberty and opportunity – the sense of possibility, than here in our home state. Now, the fourth largest economy in the world.

He goes on about abortion, specifically the passage of Proposition 1, the country’s most permissive abortion law. And he attacks his red state “small men” rivals in the “statehouses” in Texas and Florida for banning most abortions:

Government by the people and for the people, requires people willing to fight to protect and advance it. Just like Californians did last year, when we overwhelmingly voted to enshrine reproductive rights into our State Constitution. We chose choice. In our finest hours, California has been freedom’s force multiplier. Protecting liberty from a rising tide of oppression taking root in statehouses. Weakness, masquerading as strength. Small men in big offices.

If that’s the case, then why are people fleeing to states with abortion restrictions and no state income taxes? His own budget proposal for fiscal year 2023-24, released shortly after his inaugural address, includes this chart on p. 146:

The net migration out of the state to other U.S. states is even bigger:

Births are down sharply as well. All those abortions are taking a toll. And it’s just too expensive here to have and raise kids. Young folks especially are leaving for states where they can afford a home with a yard for the kids to play in.

Fleeing Paradise

Californians are fleeing Newsom’s California for the red states he attacks, especially Texas and Florida. That’s why the state in 2022 lost one congressional seat, while Texas gained two, and Florida one.

Of course, it’s not all negative. Newsom highlights some of the good things:

The most venture capital and startups in America. … An advanced industrial economy in biotherapeutics, genomics. Aerospace and battery storage.

Although Elon Musk has moved most of his battery operations to Texas.

High-speed internet connecting the Central Valley to the Central Coast. Rebuilding roads from Yreka to San Ysidro. Providing clean water from Colusa to Coachella. A new Cal Poly in Humboldt, conveying more scientists, engineers, researchers, Nobel laureates than any other state.

Also, we suffer more PC nonsense about CRT and other leftist fads in the university social-science departments.

Newsom:

We open our arms not clench our fists. We turn our gaze upward, not inward. Freedom is our essence, our brand name – the abiding idea that right here, anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything.

But see what happens when you don’t pay your massive state income tax bill on time. Then you move to Texas or Florida or Tennessee, which extract no such tax.

I keep wondering when Newsom and other Democratic hopefuls are going to appeal to the working-class folks I grew up with in Michigan, and similar ones in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and other Rust Belt swing states. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe Democrats will just win all the presidential elections, so their primaries are the only elections that matter.

Meanwhile, another California friend just told me he’s moving to Tennessee.