Thank a god that the California recall election didn’t turn on the latest complaint of actress Rose McGowan, a former “Hollywood Democrat,” and now a serial “victim.” Gov. Gavin Newsom easily survived the ridiculous recall effort that cost the state $276 million that could have been used on something the state actually needed. But McGowan, who waited 20 years before she came out with her allegations against Harvey Weinstein, had to stand with Larry Elder and put her two bits in. It was very “brave” of her to do, just as it was "brave" of her to wait all those years while others had to endure Weinstein's depredations, and for just a $100,000 “hush money” payout (she later boasted of refusing a bigger payout before her allegations went public).
But in truth McGowan was no “braver” than former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert, who was one of the lead detectives in the Green River Killer case; Gary Ridgway was already “officially” a suspect in April 1983, yet no one was “brave” enough to keep tabs on what he was doing, resulting in at least 25 more confirmed killings after that date over the next 15 years. Reichert nevertheless rode his “hero” status when Ridgway was eventually arrested all the way to election to a seat in the US. House of Representatives—although I’m sure, deep down, he wishes he had taken Ridgway more seriously all those years ago, especially in 1982, when Ridgway was first arrested for assaulting a prostitute who was likely intended to be one of his early victims.
In any case, McGowan’s “brave” allegations about Newsom’s wife, feeding off her “hero” status in the “MeToo” movement, probably annoyed voters as being a desperate ploy not just to derail the “no” vote, but just another reason to remind people that she was still alive and out of work in Hollywood, since no one wants to hire her for fear of being accused of something that she just thought of; after all, this is someone who has made such accusations as gay men being naturally “misogynist,” while of course not acknowledging that lesbians could just as well be accused of being “misandrist”—a term we don’t hear often enough in this society.
But this was just one minor detail in a years-long abdication of common sense and allowing Republicans and other opportunistic crackpots to take advantage of California’s incomprehensible recall law, and the continuing effects of Trumpitis in this country. Let’s remember why the former county sheriff’s sergeant, Orrin Heatlie, started this recall drive in the first place; it wasn’t because of Newsom’s pandemic response, or about wildfires, the power grid, or even about government “overreach.” It was about his “anger” over a video he happened to come across during some web surfing in 2019 in which the governor was telling immigrants that they didn’t have to open the door for law enforcement unless they had a warrant, since during that time Trump’s ICE was acting like a front for Gestapo thugs.
Heatlie was, as reported by the Sacramento Bee, a racist and anti-immigrant white nationalist. That of course probably wasn’t going to attract a lot of signers to his recall petition, especially Latino voters like these who would be easily “caught up” in the “moment”:
As I wrote about previously, the “official” recall website is just a grab-bag of the usual right-wing conspiracy nonsense that has more to do—when it isn’t simply decrying the loss of “freedom”—with problems that Newsom has little control over and has only a limited ability to “fix.” But there was weakness behind the paper wall: exit polls showed that a large majority of voters thought that Newsom had either done “just right” in regard to his handling of the pandemic—or “not enough.”
While early polling suggested that there was a good chance that Newsom would lose the recall in light of supposed lack of “enthusiasm” by Democratic voters, that started to change when the anti-recall campaign starting picking up steam and credibility when it became clear that Republican voters—already a small minority of voters in the state—not only were unable to rally behind an electable alternative, but the candidate that had the largest share of the alternative polling, a far-right radio host of sound bites and no real policy ideas, Elder, was just too easy pickings to remind Democratic voters what the stakes were. They knew that if they didn’t come out to vote, there was a real chance that Newsom could lose by 0.0001 percent, and they’d have a “governor” who was the “top choice” of a lunatic fringe.
Although Elder’s vote percentage is currently twice what polling had indicated, this was apparently due to most Democratic voters not bothering to vote on the second question—thus far 45 percent of the total who voted on the first question—which artificially inflated Elder’s numbers. Although some commentators are claiming that Elder’s seemingly “high” percentage of the votes on the second question indicates he will be a “contender” in the 2022 gubernatorial race, that of course depends on whether Trump actually campaigns for him—which he did not do during the recall campaign (he probably thought Elder was a “loser”)—and just how much more “crackpot” his policy whimsy can get.
Democrats on the national level can learn something from all of this. You can’t just pile on Joe Biden because you are “disappointed” by some of the things that have happened that are beyond his control, such as what “moderates” in the Democratic caucus are doing to hold up the passage of measures he wants, or the collapse in Afghanistan (which was always a house of cards ready to fall at any moment), or what Republican governors are (or are not) doing to control the spread of the Delta strain of COVID. All this is doing is putting in the minds of independent voters that voting for Biden was a “mistake” when it clearly was not. Furthermore, it only undermines the Democrats’ own position in the coming midterms by sowing such doubts without providing context.
The California recall showed that if Democratic voters realize what the stakes are and what the consequences are for not doing what they must do to keep from losing the gains they have made, they can prevent this country from sinking deep into the morass of insanity and fascism. Apathy is something that simply is not the acceptable play at this still very dangerous moment in the country’s history. And make no mistake: it is far from over as long as the Trump pandemic continues, if it goes “untreated.”
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