In Los Angeles, a Carnival of Grievance Politics

What a spectacle, what a carnival, what a glorious, over-the-top bacchanal of grievance politics we’ve seen unfolding in Los Angeles this week. On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported on a conversation secretly recorded nearly a year ago among Los Angeles city council members Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo, and Kevin de León. Also participating was Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

During the conversation, Martinez spoke in crude terms about the son of fellow councilmember Mike Bonin, saying, “Parece chango,” which in Spanish means, “He’s like a monkey.” It must be pointed out that Bonin’s son is black and was adopted by Bonin, who is gay, and his husband. Add the gay factor to an already explosive racial situation and you have the precursors for the circus we have witnessed this week. As Howard Cosell learned almost 40 years ago, you don’t go around referring to black people as monkeys, at least not where anyone will make it public.

Surely neither Martinez, Cedillo, de León, or Herrera believed their conversation would be made public, hence the casual ease with which they talked about Bonin’s son. And it wasn’t only blacks who would find cause for outrage in the leaked recording. Also discussed in less than complimentary terms were Armenians, Jews, and Mexicans of Oaxacan descent. And though neither Cedillo, de León, or Herrera echoed Martinez’s comments, their silence as she blathered on can reasonably be viewed as tacit acceptance.

Related: Fighting Words: White Democrat LA Mayoral Candidate Bristles After Being Called White

The recording provides a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the L.A. city council, which one suspects is much like any other similar body, which is to say it is composed of mediocrities unfit for almost any other profession, people who form coalitions so as to maximize their own power, whether or not the exercise of that power is in the best interests of their constituents. The larger topic under discussion was the redrawing of the council district map, which occurs every ten years.

Looking at the current district map, one can see what appear to be nonsensical boundaries for certain districts, which are pinched in some areas and elongated in others so as to include some prized business, school, transportation facility, or ethnic enclave. The First District, for example, is contorted so as to stretch from parts of South L.A. through a section of downtown and all the way to Highland Park, a distance of about ten miles. The district is miles wide in some places, two or three blocks in others, encompassing neighborhoods with little in common save for the political muscle wielded by whoever holds that particular seat on the council, currently the compromised Gil Cedillo.

The similarly compromised Kevin de León holds the seat in the 14th Council District, the borders of which make no more geographic or demographic sense than those of the First. And the boundaries of Nury Martinez’s Sixth Council District look like they were drawn by someone in the final hours of a three-day bender, reflecting whatever horse-trading that went on to have the border zig and zag through Van Nuys and other San Fernando Valley neighborhoods.

More entertaining than the recording itself has been the aftermath, with its hand-wringing and rending of garments. The pile-on for the three council members, particularly Martinez, was immediate and ferocious, and Herrera has already resigned from his position. Martinez resigned as city council president on Monday, and on Tuesday she announced she was taking a leave of absence from her seat, issuing a carefully crafted apology she apparently hopes, when coupled with her absence from the public eye, will save her political hide. It won’t. Even President Biden (or whoever it is that makes such decisions in his name) has called for Martinez and her two implicated colleagues to resign from the council. (Update: Nury Martinez has now resigned from the city council.)

Unlike Martinez, who wisely skipped the meeting and cowered in her bunker, Cedillo and de León took their seats in the council chamber in blithe denial of the downfall that awaits them. They left when the crowd relentlessly jeered at them, making it clear the meeting could not proceed until they had gone. The meeting’s highlight, if one can call it that, came went Mike Bonin tearfully spoke of the healing and reconciliation that may occur, but only after his three offending colleagues resign.

Bonin himself is leaving the council next year, having been term-limited out, and though he basks for the moment in the rosy light of victimhood, his departure will be celebrated by many of his constituents, particularly those whose neighborhoods have been blighted by the homeless. I, too, was once one of his constituents, and his haughty, condescending response to well-founded complaints about the homeless problem was a large factor in my decision to move my family out of the city where I was born, where my father was born, and where I lived and worked for nearly my entire life. (I’ve lived in a suburb for about ten years now and wouldn’t go back to L.A. if you gave me a house. The homeless problem, already intolerable when I left, has only gotten worse thanks to Bonin and his like-minded colleagues on the council, and the city is otherwise colossally mismanaged.)

As a former LAPD officer, I confess to a certain level of schadenfreude in observing Martinez’s public disgrace. This is not her first display of arrogant hypocrisy. Recall that she was among the loudest voices in Los Angeles advocating the defunding of the LAPD in the summer of 2020, only to have it revealed she had insisted her local LAPD station post a 24-hour detail outside her home. What goes around, as they say.

A possibly lucrative business in the coming days will be searching for hidden microphones in those places where L.A.’s politicos gather and engage in what they presume to be private conversations. Anyone who believes Martinez’s privately held beliefs aren’t mirrored among some of her colleagues now feigning outrage hasn’t been paying attention. L.A. city government has long been a cesspool of venal grifters, with two former council members under indictment and a third already in prison, to cite just the most recent examples. Whoever rises from the swamp to replace Martinez, Cedillo, and de León will be every bit as loathsome as they are. You can count on it.