In California: Pearls Before Swine?

Today, Californians head to the polls to decide two questions: (1) Should Gavin Newsom be removed from office?, and (2) Who should replace Newsom if a majority answers yes? Recent polling would seem to indicate that Newsom will remain in office.

That is too bad if it turns out to be accurate.

Larry Elder, the candidate who seems most likely to replace Newsom in the event that he is recalled, recently wrote a column that appears in the Orange County Register. Like the candidate, it is far from perfect, but it is about the best description one could hope for for the proper purpose and scope of government coming from a politician today.

Elder states his case positively in part:

Image by Amber Kipp, via Unsplash, license.

Clearly government has its place, albeit limited. It exists to protect the public.

The federal government exists to protect its citizens from outside enemies, such as during war. Which is why citizens pay taxes for a military. State and local governments exist to protect law-abiding citizens from criminals. Which is why citizens pay taxes for a police force. From this perspective, inane calls for defunding the police are neither humane, nor righteous.

And what if he loses? He has reviewed Newsom's track record of failure and properly rated his hypocrisy as "merely add[ing] insult to injury." Elder correctly names a recent attack on his campaign staff as both a consequence of Newsom's competing theory of government and a portent for things to come should the governor remain in office:

Recently, staffers of my campaign were attacked when I visited a homeless encampment in Venice Beach. Such violence and lawlessness are precisely what the government should protect its citizens against. Yet crime and homelessness in California have soared under Gavin Newsom.

Elder has spoken clearly. Will Californians hear him? Can they hear him?

Or are they so far gone that they will refuse to consider alternatives to a state of affairs that already has many of them leaving the state or preparing to leave?

-- CAV