I have taken the entirely adult decision to pour a little bourbon, Buffalo Trace, over a couple of ice cubes, and write a blog post. Now, prior to retiring last March, I poured some bourbon over ice cubes before bed pretty much nightly. But in my “don’t have to do it tomorrow again” retirement phase, I decided that was one bad habit I could pass on. But tonight, the night after the night, there’s plenty to celebrate, and I want to blog a little. Bourbon on the rocks it is.
So handsome Gavin beat the coup. For those of my readers outside the Golden State, Governor Gavin Newsom scored a 64% victory against the effort to recall him from office. The recall was utterly pointless, a trumpian ‘publican effort to hamper a popularly elected governor from governing. The cynicism of the Republicans, as we are well aware, knows no bounds. They are anarchists, preferring failed government to anything with which they disagree.
But the issue for me is what it portends for liberalism, broadly. Newsom is probably the most prominent liberal centrist in the country, not formally as far left as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though there are likely very few positions on which they disagree, especially in regard to economic issues. Notwithstanding his outstanding liberalism, I think Newsom would be a stronger presidential candidate in 2024 than Kamala Harris. Possibly because he is a white male and she a female person of color. But more so because she has a political ineptness that was plainly on view in her disastrous presidential run in 2020. He is as smooth as Brylcreem. His victory speech was impeccable.
But, be that as it may, we won. In California, a state that is solidly Democratic. And that raises the question of why we don’t win more often. There is a lot of breast beating about how liberalism is in crisis — it is always in crisis, it seems. Whether it is failing because of the theater of the absurd of the woke cancelers, or because it cannot get po’ white trash to vote for their own best economic interests, or because tin-pot dictators around the world and here in these United States run amuck. Or whatever reason you want.
Why is liberalism in crisis? The recall election shows the answer pretty clearly. At bottom, it is because of the US Constitution! The framers, in their desire for unity with slaveholders, crafted a document that curses us to this day. In this majority liberal country, if the Senate were elected on a per capita basis, and if the presidency were decided by a free vote of the citizens, and if electoral boundaries were decided impartially rather than by the partisan states, liberalism would be in power nationally and conservatives would be tailending us. If this country had fair electoral laws, we would be in charge.
Instead, we have to spend an estimated half a billion dollars fighting off a phony recall whose only purpose was to mess up government.
There’s no easy answer. But let’s not beat each other up over here in the center. Let’s remember that the constitutional system is designed to prevent liberal power, and the nut jobs on the right have exploited that to the fullest.
That said, at least we won here last night.
And with that, good night. But I do want you to know I have one more task. I am five pounds short of clay balls to refashion the aquatic terrarium I have been working on. So Amazon to the rescue, as much as I hate to say it (postscript, turns out I got it at Petco).
Clay balls and bourbon, and a successful no on the recall. A California life.