It is no secret that Newsom and the rest of California’s ruling political class are closely tied to unions and are happy to do their bidding as long as the campaign spigots remain open. As such, schools in California have largely remained closed even as the CDC, WHO, and the President have all said schools are safe to reopen and in fact need to reopen for the mental health of our children. The teachers’ unions have made their desires clear. They have no intention of returning to a classroom this year. They’ve been using the excuse of making sure every teacher is vaccinated before a return but that’s all it is…an excuse. The truth is the unions are using vaccinations as cover for their true intentions of squeezing as much extra funding out of the state and federal governments as possible. There is also the specter of getting paid to stay at home. Some teachers — the good ones — have found the online format to be frustrating at the least, harmful at worst. Sadly, too many teachers have decided that turning on a computer to “educate” leaves them a lot of free time to pursue other interests like interpretive dance.

Now, Governor Hair Gel Newsom is almost certainly facing a recall election, something that has been almost unheard of in California history. His support for the disastrous AB5 legislation that killed independent contracting coupled with frightening policies that have increased crime and homelessness and compounded by his small-business-killing COVID restrictions have made him one of the most unpopular California governors of all time. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back has surely been his refusal to allow students to return to the classroom. On top of that, California (a state with friendly weather year-round) has not allowed student-athletes to return to competition, a decision that has crippled the future college and scholarship possibilities of tens of thousands of students.

Parents are pissed.

The recall effort picked up major speed in the waning days of January and now, pending signature verification, looks to be completely viable. Now that parents of every political stripe have burned through their last ounce of patience, Newsom is suddenly interested in getting the kids back to school.

Sadly for him, it’s too late to decide to be on the side of the people. Newsom made his bed with the unions years ago, and his constant capitulation has taken any teeth out of any influence he may have had as a governor when it comes to saving our education system and our students. Like many politicians of his pedigree, Newsom only operates on the basis of what is in his own self-interest. His gross miscalculation was that the teachers’ unions would always be the loudest and most important voice in the room.

But the parents are pissed.

A recall turns out to be the one thing of which Newsom is terrified. If it is successful, his White House ambitions will go up in smoke. Newsom will become a cautionary footnote. With such terror looming on the horizon he now wants to listen to parents and get kids back to school.

Because the parents are pissed.

But the unions don’t want to go back. He chose their money over the health and safety of the people he was elected to serve. Now, when he needs the backing of those people, he has been abandoned. It is obvious his pleas to the unions to head back to school are based in a desperation to avoid a recall, but predictably, those pleas have no impact on the unions he sold his soul and his governorship to.

The parents are pissed and they realize he chose the unions over their children. There is no coming back from this, even if he manages to cheat his way out of this recall.

Newsom let his greed override any good sense he may have had. His talk about reopening will fall on deaf ears.

It is too little too late. Newsom is officially a victim of his own greed.