The Financial Times' Editorial Board engages in 'Political Metaphysics' on the California Recall election.
Old Socialist scoffs!
In leu of an actual analysis, of the catastrophic loss for a Republican Party, controlled by Trump’s minions, in an etiolated California Version, the reader get this:
How telling, then, that his “victory” speech — the result will not be certified for weeks — was national in its scope. He warned that Trumpism was “not over” in the US, and likened democracy to an “antique vase” in its frailty. A cynic might sense an attempt to revive his old man-of-destiny aura.
In reality, Newsom’s line is one that Democrats are pushing elsewhere. The party is increasingly sure that most voters, whatever their grievances with the Joe Biden presidency, want no return to either the style or content of the Trump years. Tying Republicans to the semi-retired demagogue is the plan for next year’s midterm elections and beyond.
A collection of questions: Where were the Oligarchs of Old Pasadena, San Marion and the strivers in La Cañada Flintridge? Or that enclave in Palos Verdes?, the titular leader of the Party Arnold Schwarzenegger, The inheritors of the mantle of Howard Jarvis, or the onetime voters for George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson? they can’t all be dead! Not forgetting the Hollywood contingent, lead by the vacuous Rob Lowe, that proffered ‘Arnold’, as the antidote to the anti-charisma of Grey Davis. All those Respectable Republicans, of a past, that Trump trampled on with utter glee.
The question that might have occurred to an actual inquiry: who paid for the gathering of signatures, the first step in the Recall process? Perhaps Republicans who thought they could control a likely outcome?
No, no! the reader encounter political metaphysics, or is it just lame political handicapping? of the current and evolving strategy of the New Democrats to win in 2024. The final paragraph demonstrates, that the California Recall was an utter waste of $276 million!
California was a case in point. If Newsom’s victory was not a surprise, the handsome margin of it was. Had the Republicans summoned a candidate as moderate as 2003’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, the incumbent might have been in more trouble. As it was, the party put forward Larry Elder, a radio shock jock, among a wider gallery of eccentrics. Disgruntled voters could not risk such a change at the best of times, never mind amid a pandemic. Biden, for whom Newsom’s win is a relief after a tough summer, described Elder as a “clone” of Trump. Republicans should expect that line to hound them in other states until they renounce the man himself.
https://www.ft.com/content/9c466087-8fc9-44df-9c02-9e046b31aa0e
Old Socialist
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September 16, 2021 5:40 PM PST
reply In reply to Markdoc
The fact that the GOP nominated and helped to elect the 'mainstream candidates' like Reagan who campaigned against 'The Free Speech Movement in Berkley, in the most politically hysterical terms, is an object lesson in the notion of the Republican Party as politically rational. Or Pete Wilson of Prop 187 racism. Lets not mention the John Birch Society, as a safe place for Republicans, and vice versa , back in the day. Even though Reagan made noises like a true rational Republican. Don't mention his use of 'Welfare Queens Driving Cadillacs' as proof of Reagan, as a virtuous Republican!
I was born and have lived in California for 76 years. I have followed politics in this state since 1960 ! Your whole approach to California, is to act 'as if ' it were a slide, under microscope, that reveals a contagion . To paraphrase Voltaire your ignorance of California is vast! Not to speak of cliché ridden.
Thank you for your comment,
StephenKMackSD