The Morning Briefing: California Is Lost, Getting Rid of Newsom Won't Save It

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California Has Nothing But Bad Choices Ahead

Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Just stop with the coconut water nonsense.

It’s been just a little over three years since I left California to return to my native Arizona. I had spent twenty-four of the previous twenty-six years in the Golden State. My daughter was born and raised there. I considered Los Angeles my adopted, second hometown.

I loved the place.

Actually, I loved the California that I had originally moved to. The California I left was already in steady decline.

It is still as stunningly beautiful as ever, but the politics there are a cancer that is eating away at the state, no matter what the liberals living there like to say.

Governor Gavin Newsom has spent the pandemic passing the “Worst Governor in America” trophy back and forth with New York’s Andrew Cuomo. It’s almost certain now that Cuomo will be keeping it, but that doesn’t diminish the awfulness of Newsom’s actions since last March. There is a lot of impeachment talk swirling around both governors lately, but the effort to oust Newsom is much further along. In fact, it’s got some real legs.

Victoria has more:

The effort to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom already has nearly reached its goal of two million signatures. And the closer the campaign gets to its goal, the more desperate the governor seems to get.

The Recall Gavin 2020 campaign reports that it has collected a whopping 1.943 million signatures and has until March 17th to get every last one of them to the secretary of state’s office. The campaign needs 1.497 million to get both the recall and the replacement election on the same ballot.

There have only ever been two governors recalled in the United States, and California was the last state to do it, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Newsom could be tossed out. Given the political situation in California now, there really isn’t much chance that a new governor would be helpful.

I’ve been writing for years that conservatives should never get too excited about getting Democrats we don’t like out of office because there is almost always someone worse waiting in the wings as a replacement. It’s almost guaranteed that whoever would replace Newsom would be another Democrat, and that’s not a pretty sight in California.

The Republicans won the statehouse back after the recall of Gray Davis in 2003 by running one of the biggest movie stars in the world. And Schwarzenegger is also one of the most liberal Republicans in the world, so that wasn’t much of an upgrade.

The California GOP was an absolute joke the entire time I lived there, and I can’t imagine that the party has made a dramatic turnaround in the few years I’ve been away. As far as the major state-level offices in California go, the state is pretty close to permanent one-party rule.

For a long time I vowed to stay in the state and try to effect some political change. I worked very hard at that, to no avail. I have a lot of conservative friends still there trying to do the same. I’m trying to convince them that they’re tilting at windmills.

California may be able to be saved from Gavin Newsom but it can’t be saved from itself. Not for a long time, anyway. If the disastrous “top two” open primary system isn’t gotten rid of, the state may be lost forever.

It’ll still be gorgeous on the outside, but rotten on the inside.

Granny Maojackets Reminds Us That She’s the Worst

Area Alcoholic Grandmother tweets almost 20 year old reference that no one ever thinks about to show how hip and relevant she is. https://t.co/zEI1ko4bsL

— SFK (@stephenkruiser) March 4, 2021

Everything Isn’t Awful

Barstool Fund time again. You can donate here.

The call to Edwards Market. #BarstoolFund pic.twitter.com/inHNfSZlKU

— The Barstool Fund (@BarstoolFund) March 3, 2021

Bee Me

Virus That Has Killed Many People Around The World Now Spreading In U.S.https://t.co/gcTlW5rRXV

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 4, 2021

The Kruiser Kabana

Kabana Random

pic.twitter.com/BSJlI0nZCe

— Archillect (@archillect) March 4, 2021

Kabana Quirk

Every year locals tumble 650 feet down to the bottom of the hill chasing a Double Gloucester cheese. https://t.co/dlML0F9sXl

— Atlas Obscura (@atlasobscura) March 5, 2021

Kabana Tunes

There were few ’80s hair bands more hair band-y than Faster Pussycat.

I hope there’s not a “new normal” for my drum circle.

___

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PJ Media Senior Columnist and Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.” His columns appear twice a week.