What California's Recall Election Says About America

[brooklynite]

The Atlantic

How did things go sideways for a governor who three years ago won his first term by the biggest margin in California history? The recall vote shouldn’t be close. It shouldn’t even feel close. Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one in California, and the state is home to nearly as many Democratic-leaning independents as Republicans. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by almost as many votes here last November as there are people in Wisconsin. But aside from a few scattered campaign events and an Elizabeth Warren TV ad for Newsom in heavy rotation on local news, there’s almost no sign that a recall election is coming.


But with less than a month to go before September’s extra Election Day, Newsom told me he feels as though he’s fighting not only for his own political existence, but for California’s future and for the entire Democratic agenda. He’s been obsessing over right-wing TV, wondering about the future of democracy, and he says he’s staying up late agonizing over COVID-19 deaths. He has watched Fox News pounce on his 10-year-old son for not wearing a mask. He overheard his 11-year-old daughter tell her brother, “You’re going to lose the recall for Daddy.” “You did nothing wrong,” Newsom said he told his son later. He has since pulled his children from the not-always-masking camp they were attending, wary of another COVID-hypocrisy scandal. The recall effort started as a protest against Newsom’s positions on immigration and the death penalty, and was propelled by Trump-inspired amateur stunt politics (a radio call-in show, hosted by recall organizers, called “Friday Night at the French Laundry,” for example). And it exploded because of wider frustration with Newsom’s handling of the pandemic. How this ends depends on how many of California’s 22 million registered voters fill out recall ballots mailed to them earlier this month. In theory, recalls are supposed to be distilled democracy, a way for voters to change their minds and hold their leaders accountable in the long periods between regularly scheduled elections. Many don’t realize, though, that the ballot contains two separate questions: first, yes or no on the recall, and then, in case a majority votes to recall Newsom, a ballot that does not include the governor’s name but does include 46 others. Newsom noted, he could receive 49.9 percent of the vote, lose the recall, and be replaced by a governor elected with 14 percent of the vote. This is the way democracy could play out in the largest state in the union—home to 40 million people—and the fifth-largest economy in the world.

Newsom’s aides worked hard in the spring to dissuade other well-known Democrats from entering the recall race, in the hopes of delegitimizing the process. He’s telling voters to vote no on the recall and skip voting on the second question altogether. If Newsom is recalled, his potential replacements include the radio host Larry Elder, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, the 2018 GOP gubernatorial nominee John Cox, and the assembly member Kevin Kiley, all Republicans who have embraced Trumpism to varying degrees. Newsom, meanwhile, has the support of pretty much every Democratic official and group in the state. Big-name donors have gotten involved on Newsom’s behalf too: The Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has donated so much money to the anti-recall effort that his name appears at the bottom of the governor’s commercials. (Laurene Powell Jobs, the chair of the board of The Atlantic, has donated $400,000 to a committee called Stop the Republican Recall of Governor Newsom.)

A poll released at the end of July showed that Newsom was on the edge, and that set off a round of concern. Critics point out that the poll included a relatively small number of Democrats, in an attempt to simulate what appears to be their still-lower enthusiasm for voting in the recall. This may have made the race look closer than it is.

[KarenS]

1. "Perception is reality"

I was taught that a long time ago in Corporate America,,,, tis true.

[thucythucy]

2. We have a cohort of millionaires and billionaires who throw their money

into campaigns that support those who enrich their wealth, and against those in favor of any and all limits on their ability to abuse and exploit their workers, the environment, and the public in general.

They have hired people who full time look for ways our 18th century constitutional system of government can be used to further this agenda, including packing the courts with right wing ideologues and transforming the Republican Party and much of the media into their tools. Unfortunately, the Constitution itself was written in large to protect their interests--the Electoral College being one notable and horrifically damaging example, the ability to gerrymander being another.

This is what gave us the Brooks Brothers riots of 2000, the Tea Party, Trump and MAGA, Q-Anon and the anti-vaxxers, and now this recall and other abuses of our election systems.

Until we figure out a way to defang all this, nothing will change and we'll spend our lives in a constant effort to tread political water to keep from drowning entirely.

[Midnight Writer]

6. Exactly right.

[FirstLight]

3. The whole fiasco is going to be either abandoned or dragged out

The fires they all blame on newsom are making it impossible to deliver ballots... especially to the rural areas that are rife with trumpists...

It will be interesting to see how it goes

[kimbutgar]

5. The areas that are destroyed by fires in California are the same counties that are TFG

Territory and were big anti mask.

I wonder if they are wearing those masks now in the shelters Newsom put in place and wonder if they will even send in their ballots.

[Lovie777]

4. What is different from red states. ....

blue states will count all ballots either mail in or at the polls. We will make sure red areas mail in ballots are easily excessed and obtainable by mail in ballot boxes that are routinely picked up.

Blue states believe in democracy.

[maxrandb]

7. You can call the California recall process just about anything

except Democracy, because it sure as hell ain't that.

[ripcord]

8. If Newsom loses the recall democrats have no one to blame but democrats

Voter apathy among democrats unless the presidency is on the line is a common and shameful thing in California. The only reason republicans do these recalls is that they can count on a large number of democrats not to get off their lazy asses and vote.

[beaglelover]

9. Agree 100%!

[Elessar Zappa]

10. If Newsom wins,

the legislature needs to do something about their ridiculous recall process.