I’m referring to the 2021 recall election of California Governor Gavin Newsom, of course.
Vote — definitely vote — and vote “No” to the recall.
I’ll tell you why.
Here is the text of the Proponents’ Statement of Reasons:
The ground for this recall are as Follows: Governor Newsom has implemented laws which are detrimental to the citizens of this state and our way of life. Law he endorsed favor foreign nationals, in our country illegally, over that of our own citizens. People in this state suffer the highest taxes in the nation, the highest homelessness rates, and the lowest quality of life as a result. He has imposed sanctuary state status and fails to enforce immigration laws. He unilaterally over-ruled the will of the people regarding the death penalty. He seeks to impose additional burdens on our state by the following; removing the the protections of Proposition 13, rationing our water use, increasing taxes and restricting parental rights. Having no other recourse, we the people have come together to take this action, remedy these misdeeds and prevent further injustices.
California Gubernatorial Recall Election Official Voter Information Guide
Like most rhetoric these days, this statement is a giant serving of hysteria, misdirection, and outright lies. Let’s take them from the bottom up.
“Restricting parental rights” seems to refer to Newsom’s closing of both public and private schools during the worst of the 2020 pandemic, to be replaced with distance-learning. Both groups were represented in a lawsuit to prevent the closing, presenting it as a “parental rights” issue: public school parents lost their case, private school parents won theirs.
https://hslda.org/post/9th-circuit-newsom-violates-parents-rights
Real issue: Pissed-off parents who lost a state lawsuit against the governor.
Water rationing is currently a request in California, not mandatory, though it may become mandatory soon. “Rationing our water use” is, of course, part of the job description of a Governor during a statewide drought of the sort we are experiencing. People were asked to let their lawns die (we did). Boo-hoo. The Central Valley farmers are going to take economic hits. That’s agriculture in a drought. The Governor does not control the rainfall.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/newsom-hints-mandatory-water-restrictions-230000930.html
Real issue: Pissed off farmers and suburban lawn-owners in a drought.
“Removing the protections of Proposition 13” refers to Gavin’s support for Proposition 15, which removed the Proposition 13 protections on commercial properties valued at more than $3M dollars, leaving homes and small businesses (the real purpose of Prop 13) unchanged.
Real issue: Pissed-off greedy corporate real-estate owners.
“Unilaterally over-ruled the will of the people regarding the death penalty.” This appears to be true, if grotesquely over-stated. The national consensus, as well as the state consensus on imposing the death penalty has been changing: every election held in California on this matter has less support for retaining capital punishment, and the last time it came up, it was nearly abolished. Newsom did issue an executive order suspending prisoner execution, which was already under moratorium by Federal Court order since 2006.
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/12/702873258/gov-gavin-newsom-suspends-death-penalty-in-california
Real issue: Public blood lust thwarted.
“Highest taxes, homelessness, quality of life…” Taxes are set by the legislature, not the Governor. Plus, linking these three different items together is the core of the Libertarian/Randian econo-religious creed, which bears no relationship to economic reality.
No single reference for this: read any decent modern book about economics and monetary theory.
Real issue: Popular appeal to the rich and the stupid.
The rest of this Statement is about “illegal immigrants.” The complaints are empty, and just plain wrong. I’ll cite only one source, from the CATO Institute, which is a Libertarian institute founded by Charles Koch, and is on the whole very much in political alignment with what used to be conservative talking points. Even the CATO institute thinks that the arguments against immigration are simply wrong.
https://www.cato.org/blog/14-most-common-arguments-against-immigration-why-theyre-wrong
Real issue: American racism, xenophobia, Fox Network propaganda, and hysteria.
The governor of California faces a normal re-election in 2022, just fifteen months from now, regardless of who sits in the governor’s seat. If the recall fails, it will be Newsom seeking re-election. If the recall succeeds, it will be one of the forty-six inexperienced, unknown opportunists on the recall ballot who will face re-election.
There’s really no need for this recall. If the public doesn’t want Newsom, they can vote him out in 2022. In fifteen months.
Real issue: Petitioners are counting on people blowing off this recall election and not voting, since they have almost no chance of voting Newsom out in a general election in 2022.
So all of the above raises the question: why are we having this bullshit recall election?
Even if Newsom is recalled over this laundry list of inflated whines, the proponents don’t have a single good candidate on the list of forty-six. (I have no doubt there will be at least forty-six objections to that opinion, which I will comfortably ignore.) Anyone on this list that they replace Newsom with will almost certainly be run out of office in 2022.
So what is the point?
I suspect that it has something to do with the 2022 national elections. Given what the Republicans were involved with in 2020 — pressuring secretaries of state to “find” votes that weren’t there, and the Department of Justice to claim fraud that wasn’t there, and culminating in a violent attack on the Capitol during the counting of the state votes — I cannot see this bullshit recall effort of a Democratic governor in any benign or even neutral light.
If Newsom can’t carry the vote in 2022, well and good. But given the national situation, in the midst of a second pandemic and only seven months out from a failed insurrection inflamed by the President of the United States himself, we should not recall Newsom fifteen months early.
That would be irresponsible.
Vote, and vote NO to the recall.
Themon the Bard 
Joe Biden’s drop in popularity is a threat to our freedom and democracy. I’m casting a spell that invokes all gods, nature spirits, and demons to make the American public like Joe Biden again. Who’s with me on this?
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