California Governor Gavin Newsom may have survived the recall effort but apparently, he learned nothing from the episode and he’s expressed his desire to buckle down on the main reason his job was threatened in the first place.

According to CBS News, Newsom’s recall victory gave him the idea that what the voters really want is tougher lockdowns and measures when it comes to COVID-19. In fact, he believed it was a message for all Democrats to “stiffen our spines and lean into keeping people safe and healthy.”

“Don’t be timid. Lean in,” he told CBS. “Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about formal authority of setting the tone and tenor on masks — on vaccines and masks. But it’s the moral authority that we have: that we’re on the right side of history and we’re doing the right thing to save people’s lives.”

Funny enough, Newsom was aware that the draconian measures he took during the pandemic were what put his job in danger in the first place, but with his survival, he’s taken it as a mandate to mandate.

Despite the stringent lockdown measures, California continuously proved to be one of the worst states in terms of COVID hospitalizations, outpacing even the states Democrats looked down on for not taking the virus seriously enough. For instance, Florida and Texas combined still didn’t match up to the number of hospitalizations California saw.

(READ: Graph Showing Difference in Case Rates Between Florida and California Is a Wake-Up Call for America)

Because of his orders, California underwent a period of stagnation even worse than usual as its economy sank further into the mud. To boot, Newsom continued to prove he wasn’t just a bad leader making bad decisions, but that he wasn’t concerned with following his own rules either as he appeared at a high-end restaurant amidst his lockdown.

It’s here we see the results of giving authoritarians like Newsom power. Despite the fact that Californians united to try to push him out, his recall survival lead him to believe that want people really want is more lockdowns and a tighter grip on their lives. It’s likely that more or less any reelection of hard-left authoritarians will trigger the same thought process.

What this means for Californians going forward remains to be seen, but judging by the past, we have a pretty good idea and it will involve even more suffering for the already suffering California citizens.

But while Newsom may have learned nothing, the rest of us can learn a lot from what he does next.