California Democrats’ progressive dream exposed as public nightmare

The writing is on the wall for California Governor Gavin Newsom (right), seen touring the downtown LA business district of Pacific Palisades during the Palisades Fire. Picture: Eric Thayer/Getty Images/AFP

Whenever natural disaster strikes in America, one of two distinct narratives plays out in the coverage, depending on the political affiliation of the people in charge.

When hurricanes, floods or wildfires happen on a Republican’s watch, there’s an immediate volley of criticism locating blame for the loss of life and property directly at the feet of the authorities. It’s usually climate change, which we are repeatedly told is all the fault of conservative policies that promote carbon emissions and the destruction of the planet. But it’s also simple Republican incompetence in administering public services (see President George W Bush and Hurricane Katrina in 2005).

Or it might be down to a general indifference conservatives feel towards the plight of the disadvantaged. They care only about their wealthy friends so they make no real effort when the poor, always the worst hit in these circumstances, get flooded or blown away or burnt out of their homes.

When these disasters happen under Democrats, the story is different. It’s still the climate of course and therefore still Republicans’ fault, but any criticism of the relevant authorities for any failures in their preparedness or their response is immediately denounced as attempts by Republicans to “make political capital out of human tragedy”.

So when Republicans this week pointed out that the Democrats, who have exercised total administrative control over California and Los Angeles for decades, might bear some responsibility for the spread, scale and utter calamity caused by the wildfires in LA that have killed at least 25 people, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and caused dollars 50 billion or more in damage, they were quickly denounced as cynical opportunists, heartlessly exploiting human misery for their own gain.

Jimmy Kimmel, ABC’s late-night comedian and a kind of walking self-parody of the old media’s devotion to tired left-wing drivel, laid into Donald Trump and Republicans for their critique of LA’s response.

“I don’t want to get into all the vile and irresponsible and stupid things our alleged future president and his gaggle of scumbags chose to say during our darkest and most terrifying hour,” he said, and then proceeded to get into the vile and irresponsible and stupid things they’d supposedly said.

Now it’s true that, as ever, some of the Trumpian criticism levelled at California’s governor and the mayor of LA has been over the top. It probably isn’t the case for example that the response to the fires has been made worse by the prioritisation of diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the Los Angeles Fire Department, resulting in the promotion of incompetent black lesbians to positions of responsibility. LA’s emergency services (of whatever sexuality, race or gender) have responded with heroism given the scale of the challenges and their lack of resources.

But the list of things that Democrats in California can be blamed for is long and damning. The state insists on flushing stormwater and snow melt (at record levels in the last year) into the Pacific Ocean in order to protect the delta smelt, a tiny fish environmental activists have placed on the endangered species list, rather than into reservoirs.

California has cut funding for firefighting over several years while providing billions of dollars in subsidies for electric vehicles, solar and wind energy and other environmentally approved activities. Strict rules prevent the clearing of brush on forest floors and controlled burns to reduce fuel for uncontrolled fires. No new large reservoirs have been built in the state for 50 years.

Draconian housing regulations – in a state with massive housing shortages – restrict home construction in urban areas and force building out into the far suburbs in what are known as “wilderness-urban interface”, the very areas most vulnerable to seasonal wildfires.

There are many more. What they all have in common is the unshakeable commitment of California Democrats to the pious pursuit of high-reaching environmental ideals and goals that they believe are much more important than the immediate safety, wellbeing and prosperity of their fellow citizens.

This mindset reflects the defining world view of the modern left everywhere – and the reason it is being rejected – an ideology that elevates absurdly ambitious and dubiously achievable aims like global environmental transformation, social justice and intergenerational equity over the objective of building and maintaining safe communities where people can live and prosper.

California’s environmental rules are a perfect example of this warped view, with important lessons for governments everywhere.

The state imposes extraordinarily tight regulatory restrictions along with ultra-high taxes on economic and social activities, to try to produce a minuscule contribution to the reduction in global carbon emissions. In the process they burden their citizens and misdirect the state’s resources so it has a reduced ability to actually mitigate the environmental effects that progressive activists claim are the result of climate change.

It’s the same with social policies. In pursuit of social justice, California’s leaders lean over backward to avoid punishing criminals who shoplift and vandalise public spaces. Schools where children can’t read books or do simple mathematics are teaching critical race theory and the evils of American colonialism.

Helping their fellow Americans to live in affordable housing with adequate protection from natural disaster in crime-free neighbourhoods where they can send their kids to quality schools is of no interest to this breed of modern progressive: they have much more important things to do.

But politics is changing. For the California governor Gavin Newsom, the LA mayor Karen Bass and all the left’s ideologues, politicians and activists everywhere, the writing is on the wall. The progressive dream is being exposed as a public nightmare.

The Times