The pendulum always swings back, sooner or later. The pendulum for national Democrats has swung way to the left, led, as has so often been the case for at least half a century now, by California.
California under Gavin Newsom has given "progressive" Democrats the opportunity to strut their stuff. That state's jungle primary system gave California Democrats a near-lock in the state legislature, allowing them to do pretty much anything they please, and the residents of the once Golden State are (literally) paying for it. Could this be the start of the Overton Window moving back towards, well, sanity?
There are signs of hope, not only in California but nationwide. First, in California, a local sheriff is blasting Newsom over crime and proposing some very specific things that can reverse the trend.
Riverside County, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco is helping lead an effort to reverse a 2012 ballot measure he says is directly contributing to the homelessness and crime crisis in the Golden State and is calling on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to get on board.
"California, we're in a very trying time right now when it comes to public safety and for the most part, from a law enforcement perspective, we can say that, we can attribute the majority of our issues that we are having, or at least, there's some type of a correlation to them, to the passage of Prop 47 in 2012," Bianco told Fox News Digital.
Proposition 47 was, of course, the ballot initiative that reduced a range of crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and reduced charges and penalties for shoplifting of up to $950; this led to a wave of retail crimes and business closures across the state. Sheriff Bianco, along with business owners and managers, are pushing for a repeal, and are taking to California's initiative system to do it; that's called fighting fire with fire.
The ballot measure Bianco is hoping will be on the ballot this November, which he calls the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, will undo the lowering of narcotics possession penalties from felonies to misdemeanors, will allow judges to recommend rehab for drug and substance abuse, and will allow prosecutors to add the value amount of multiple thefts together in order to meet the $950 threshold set by Prop 47 thus cracking down on serial thefts.
Gavin Newsom urged voters to vote "no" on an earlier such attempt and is not in favor of the current effort. On his head be it.
Newsom has signaled he opposes the changes to Prop 47, which Bianco says is an example of a failure of leadership.
With California's productive residents leaving for greener pastures and with business closures rampant, not only due to crime but also due to overbearing taxes, regulations, and minimum wages, things are looking dire.
See Related: CA Legislative Republicans Demand Answers from Newsom on Panera Exemption, Newsom Dodges Scrutiny
Retail businesses, both local and national chains, are chiming in to try to reform this broken system. The first such attempt failed.
Voters passed ballot initiatives in 2014 and 2016 that downgraded some drug and property crimes to misdemeanors and allowed for earlier releases from prison, and in 2020 they rejected a ballot measure that sought to restore some of those penalties. Gov. Gavin Newsom urged voters to vote no on that measure, and his current chief of staff ran the opposition campaign.
More recently, Newsom and Democratic lawmakers have rebuffed calls to revisit those past ballot initiatives, instead advancing a package of bills targeting repeat or organized retail theft, enhancing penalties for selling fentanyl, and making it easier to prosecute car thieves.
But the times, they are a'changing.
But the ballot measure’s backers believe enduring public frustration with retail crime and public drug use have shifted the landscape significantly since the 2020 measure failed, increasing the public’s appetite for more stringent penalties.
They have raised more than $7 million and, in a sign that the idea could resonate with California’s overwhelmingly Democratic electorate, they have won endorsements from San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, both Democrats.
It's important to note that San Francisco and San Jose are two towns that have trouble not only with crime but also rampant homelessness, with Bidenville encampments taking over sidewalks and parks. These Mayors are likely feeling the heat from residents who are fed up.
There's one problem, though, that may stymie this turn-around in California, and the out-migration mentioned above is precisely what might cause roadblocks. Yes, the productive are leaving, and it's also true that the productive are more inclined to vote for conservative and libertarian policies. The remaining people in California are the handout class and the wealthy coastal elites, and that is going to continue to be a barrier to reform in California.
But the show may have already gone on the road. There are signs that national Democrats are growing increasingly nervous. There is that old saying, "As goes California, so goes the nation," but while we hate to see this happening now, that sword has two edges, and a pushback that begins in California may cause problems for Democrats nationwide. One such rather surprising indicator is that younger voters are beginning to turn away from voting for Democrats. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are becoming conservative Republicans or even libertarians, but even if some cohorts of younger voters turn to the even farther left, electorally, that still helps the GOP.
If they lose their upper hand in recruiting new voters, turning out the early vote and seizing every opportunity to improve their chances for victory in battleground states, then the electoral map could very possibly transform into a landslide victory for Trump and the Republicans.
It was almost laughable watching Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign chairman Jim Messina panicking last week over that one electoral vote when confronted with the math that shows Joe Biden having only a very narrow path to victory in 2024.
Of course, when Democrats panic they will say or do anything to try to regain the upper hand. That’s why they turn out a new anti-Trump hoax every week, such as “The Bloodbath Hoax,” “The Immigrants are Animals Hoax,” and “The Trump Thinks He Is God Hoax.”
Will the reversal come in time? Will it happen at all? That's hard to say. As someone once famously observed, predictions are hard to make, especially about the future. But there are indicators, if one looks for them, that the political atmosphere is changing, that people are getting schooled in how "progressive" policies fail, and that maybe, just maybe, people are deciding they've had enough.
In November, we'll get a much more emphatic indicator. Cross your fingers - and vote. Maybe we make California the Golden State once more.
