Doomsday predictions of global warming have long been a popular, quasi-religious part of 21st-century liberalism. But some California Democrats will insist on treating climate change as a matter of political survival in the wake of recent wildfires that devastated the state. [emphasis, links added]
The monumental incompetence displayed by Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass during the crisis goes beyond just bad visuals and some excruciatingly embarrassing moments from two career politicians.
It also creates the possibility that even in a one-party state dominated by Democrats, they could be held accountable for a severe lack of leadership and poor decisions This turned a natural disaster into an unprecedented catastrophe, killing dozens of people and destroying more than 12,000 homes and buildings.
While it may be fanciful to think that this could be the turning point in reversing the Democratic landslide in California, A recall election is highly likely for both, Bass in particular, and could actually force her out.
That's if voters in this fire-ravaged state are prepared to take a hard look at some of the evidence of glaring missteps that have left some reservoirs empty, fire department budgets under-budgeted and neglect of proper water, land and forest management practices, at least. Alleviating the suffering and billions of dollars in damage to the people of the state.
While Newsom and Bass came under intense media scrutiny, their actions did not go unpunished. Poor crisis management skills and decisions that caused the problem to turn from a serious problem to something more serious.
But the response from the mostly liberal chorus at newspapers like the Los Angeles Times was to defend both of them.
Los Angeles columnists including Mark Barabak and Steve Lopez have accused President Donald Trump and other Republicans of “politicizing” the fires.
They prefer to blame “nature” and climate change.
Despite the poor performance of those in charge, liberal pundits can still be relied upon for their loyalty to their party. But the party line on the disaster is not entirely the result of demagogues.
Rather, it is a concerted effort by the entire legacy media to divert public attention away from evidence of incompetence, which is often rooted in DEI policies and liberal ideologies like extreme environmentalism.
Instead, coverage of the fires in major media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Washington Post was filled with a steady stream of articles insisting that the fires were partly or mostly the result of global warming.
As journalist Michael Shellenberger noted, Most of these articles are based on “junk science” rooted in assumptions about rainfall and warming temperatures that are not supported by empirical evidence.
Some journalists and scientists blame Los Angeles' lack of rain on climate change. This is ridiculous. From 1877 to 2024, there is no trend in annual rainfall.
Climate change is not the cause of the Los Angeles fires. Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass are. https://t.co/JftaPPPMLV pic.twitter.com/iX4Q7TxfdH
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) January 10, 2025
Like much left-wing commentary, these articles seem to be primarily a form of virtue signaling, arguing that even The mildest suspicion of claims that climate change is causing more extreme weather than in the past is “denial” and must be dismissed rather than examined or debated.
This is also supported by the way left-controlled search engines like Google approach the topic.
The search for Newsom and Bass and the fires, or how prioritizing DEI over life-saving skills or environmentalist-based management decisions affects fires, has produced pages and pages of articles dedicated to “debunking” anything about They are wrong.
readers are informed All that happened was nature's revenge on man for his courage in building in a dry climate.
But even left-wing media outlets are starting to take notice, just as they work to educate Americans on how to vote in the 2024 presidential election. Not all Californians are ready to repeat what the media is telling them.
As one Politico columnist ruefully noted, even in those Los Angeles districts where Trump lost to Kamala Harris by more than 60 percentage points, Most people don’t blame climate change for their lossesbut prefer to focus on the more direct causes of the problem, Including the failures of Democratic politicians.
This is a huge potential problem for Newsom and Bass.
Government by referendum (including recall votes) is the last remnant of the political progressive wing that dominated California in the early 1900s.
Read “Rest” from The Federalist Papers
Top image via NBC News/YouTube screencap
