"I Don't Recall"
The California gubernatorial recall played out exactly as one might expect in one of the bluest states in the country. But Democrats can still take an important lesson from what happened.
I'm Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If someone sent you this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you'd like to subscribe: you can sign up here.
Much Ado About Nothing
Yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom easily beat back a recall effort against him in what has to be one of the least surprising electoral outcomes in recent political history. California is one of the bluest states in the country, and no Republican has won a statewide election there since George W. Bush was in the White House — in 2006. Newsom easily winning is what was supposed to happen.
So it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions from what turned out to be a colossal waste of more than $270 million, other than California desperately needs to change its laws regarding recall elections. This recall effort was, from the beginning, a partisan effort by Republicans to remove Newsom, the costs to the state be damned. As one friend in California said to me last night via text, “the recall process, the initiative process, and the constitutional amendment-by majority-initiative process” that exist in the state are dumb. Indeed, the situation in California would suggest that the state has too much democracy — and gives voters too much direct power to fundamentally transform public policy. We elect people to office to make major policy decisions on our behalf and not leave those choices, whether it’s property taxes, bilingual education, same-sex marriage, or recalling a governor, to the specific whims of the ballot box.
In a state where Republicans would struggle to get elected dog catcher, there is little consequence or accountability for the party organizing a recall via petition-signing and then squandering hundreds of millions of dollars in a pointless election. It’s easy to say that voters can punish Republicans for wasting so much time and money on this recall effort, but how exactly? Already, the state’s voters have made clear they have little interest in voting for Republicans.
Having Said That …
Still, there are some interesting takeaways that should factor into the nation’s politics in the near term.
Last week, I cited a smart piece from Ron Brownstein on how Newsom’s path to victory offers a roadmap for other Democrats.
Newsom has focused less on selling his accomplishments than on raising alarms that his Republican opponents will exacerbate the coronavirus pandemic by repealing the public-health protections, such as vaccine and mask mandates, that he has imposed to fight it. He’s linked the GOP candidates running to replace him not only to Donald Trump but also to Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas, who have blocked mandates and other measures to combat the disease.
Few governors have been as aggressive as Newsom in implementing strict public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, California was one of the first states to shut down its economy and enact mask requirements because of COVID-19. Newsom’s mandated vaccines (or regular testing) for students, teachers, healthcare workers, and state employees. That appears to have been a political winner for him. Exit polls showed that the pandemic was the number one issue for voters and that 70 percent of Californians support mandating mask-wearing in school. As Brownstein points out, it’s hardly coincidental that in the two gubernatorial races this fall — Virginia and New Jersey — the Democratic nominees (former Governor Terry McAullife in Virginia and incumbent Phil Murphy in New Jersey) are hammering their Republican opponents for opposing mask mandates. This strategy reflects not just a continuing fear of COVID-19, but I would also surmise anger about the minority of Americans who are keeping the pandemic going by not getting vaccinated and not wearing masks..
I realize this is anecdotal so take it with a giant grain of salt, but I have been genuinely taken aback at the growing fury among liberal friends over the current COVID situation. Those who have gotten vaccinated are being held back by Americans who refuse to take the pandemic seriously, and people are understandably pissed. What makes this situation so politically salient is that it’s not difficult to point at those responsible — not just the unvaccinated but also the Republican politicians catering to them. I don’t live in Texas or Florida, but I can’t even imagine the anger I would feel about my kids going to school where mask-wearing is not mandated because the governor won’t allow it. We tend to think of political fury as a phenomenon of the right, but we ignore its role in Democratic politics at our peril.
The Other Great Motivator: Fear
Still, I think the pandemic argument doesn’t fully explain what happened in California or the current dynamics in Democratic politics. What is motivating Democrats, I believe, is not primarily the pandemic or even the party’s legislative accomplishments in Washington. It’s Donald Trump. The former president has become the dividing line in American politics — either you are with Trump or against him. And if you’re really against him (as most Democrats are), that is a massive driver of voter behavior. Arguably, fear of Trump is what made Joe Biden the Democratic nominee in 2020. Democratic voters saw him as the candidate best able to defeat Trump in a general election. And Newsom went out of his way to link his key opponent, Larry Elder, to not only Trump but also to those national politicians like Ron DeSantis in Florida, who are acting like mini-Trumps.
It’s more than just personal dislike of the former president. Trump has come to embody every policy and development that upsets Democrats — whether it’s the pandemic and vaccinations, the ongoing assault on democracy, even the onerous abortion law in Texas (upheld by a Supreme Court that includes three justices appointed by Trump). In other words, all these policy issues are conflated with fear of Trump, fear of a Republican Party that has sworn loyalty to him, and fear of him coming back into power in 2024.
I suppose it’s possible to disentangle people’s concerns about the pandemic with their concerns about Trump, but I’m not sure it makes sense. In an era of intense polarization, everything is conflated. For example, here’s the map of the 2020 election returns in California:
Now, here’s a map from yesterday’s recall:
The election results on Tuesday were remarkably similar to the election results in 2020. How Californians voted for president largely determined how they voted on the recall.
The New York Times map makes the point even clearer in depicting the intensity of the vote.
To be sure, this isn’t necessarily surprising. Past voting patterns are a pretty strong indication of future voting patterns.
But here’s an even more interesting map that shows how politics and the pandemic are also conflated.
So as this map suggests, one's position on the pandemic and how they voted on Tuesday (and in 2020) are broadly similar. What makes this particularly interesting is that Trump has called on his supporters to get vaccinated, and he's not the face of GOP opposition to vaccine and mask mandates. He's far more fixated on attacking Biden and relitigating the election he lost that year. Yet, in the voting patterns on Tuesday, that didn't matter.
We know that the voters who still call themselves Republicans are going to support Trump, but the recall election was a helpful reminder that this phenomenon goes both ways — and that unwavering support for Trump among GOP voters (and the policies and views he has come to embody) is a prime motivator for Democrats too.
If I was a Democratic politician, one conclusion that I would draw from Tuesday's results is that if I'm running in a state like California, I likely don't need to be checking the help wanted ads for a while. Blue state incumbents, if they can avoid a primary fight, are in the proverbial catbird seat. The second lesson, however, is that running against Trump and portraying my opponents — and the policies they support — as being like Trump is a winning strategy. And you don't need to be precise. Trump, Republicans, anti-vaxxers, abortion and voting restrictions, and January 6 can all be tossed into a big bowl of wrong that pisses off Democrats. Partisanship and fear of the other side are the key drivers in our national politics.
RIP Norm McDonald
Norm McDonald is legitimately one of the funniest comedians I’ve ever seen. There are so many great clips of him, but these three are among my favorites.
Wait until the end on the first one … it’s worth your time.
The Better Than Ezra joke is pure genius.
This might be my favorite Norm McDonald clip. The jokes are all sophomoric and G-rated, but it’s a complete inversion of the usual X-rated, scatological material at Comedy Central’s Celebrity Roasts. McDonald’s adherence to the routine, which only gets funnier as it goes along, is what made him so unique.
CA's state initiative and petition rules are, as you know, what gave us Proposition 13, which had a domino effect on the rest of the country. Such a huge state, their state can change the world. Get those citizen activist rules out of there.
It is as though Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious (deceased, I know) are in charge in FL and TX. What are they trying to prove? That they can kill their voters? I guess they have done that. I have never seen such irresponsibility in government since Trump and his acolytes came to power.