Don's Tuesday Column

        THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   7/12/2022

Gavin presumes to lead, just a fake

California’s Governor Gavin Newsom clearly aspires to national office, thinks he sees the makings of a President of the United States (POTUS) each morning in the mirror, and now presents the nation with moves and words that reveal much. Much about “the man who would be king,” and much about the Democrat Party that would easily embrace his brand of politician, with much adulation from progressives.

Having cruised to his 2018 election (62 to 38 percent) followed by a similarly solid defeat of last year’s recall (also 62 to 38 percent), the state he presumes to lead displays the same stark ideological divide we find in America. The state map shows Newsom disfavored by 60 to 70 percent of almost every county north of Sacramento not having ocean beaches—including 72 percent of Tehama County’s 23,000 votes.

It bears noting that Newsom’s schtick on our state’s stage only reinforces our cynicism at his duplicity, hypocrisy and arrogant pretense. You see, he took a little “vacay” to Montana, a state on Sacramento’s “travel ban” over the horrors of not allowing biological boys and men to unfairly compete against girls and women while calling themselves “transgender.” Fortunately, Newsom didn’t use state funds—except that his security detail accompanied him and is paid by taxpayers.

In spite of presiding over the nation’s worst homeless crisis, the flight of businesses and middle-class families to “red states,” imposing hundreds of “emergency orders” upon our state’s citizens while he blithely ignored his own mandates over COVID—Newsom carried his “winning ways” and message across the nation to the home state of his political polar opposite, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida.

He told Floridians they’re losing their freedoms and should flock to California for…poopy, needle-covered sidewalks, highest-in-nation gas prices and taxes? “Newsom enforced a ridiculous set of capacity restrictions and business closures while allowing his own winery to remain open and famously dining indoors, maskless at the French Laundry in Napa Valley.

“He purposefully kept public schools closed while his kids attended private schools that reopened for in-person instruction in 2020. Then after multiple lockdowns that permanently shuttered thousands of California small businesses and kept Disneyland closed for over a year, Newsom recently ran a laughable political ad in Florida claiming to be a champion of freedom…

“When California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a bold, in-your-face ad in Florida this week, Democrats thirsty for an aggressive voice in their party began to take notice. ‘Democrats have been wanting someone who is willing to proactively throw a punch or two at Republicans and we haven’t seen much of that from the White House or other Democratic leaders lately,’ said one top donor in the party. ‘It was somewhat refreshing.’” (“Gavin Newsom punches GOP to Democratic applause,” Amie Parnes, thehill.com)

So, “throwing punches” is cheered by Dems but when Donald Trump says “fight like hell” it’s calling for “insurrection”? If our friends on the left didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all. While many Republicans have muted support for the former (and future?) president, the tens of thousands of wildly cheering attendees at Trump’s “Save America” rallies from Tennessee to Illinois, Nevada and Alaska suggest iceberg-like, massive, below-the-surface support for his energy, inflation, economic and “America First” record.

It surely irritates and discombobulates the Democrat left to know that everything they have thrown at Donald Trump for seven years still needed fraud to deny him a second term. It has also given him a growing list of accusations that proved baseless:

Russia collusion hoax; Steele Dossier hooker story; Russia paying bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; Trump calling Neo-Nazis “fine people”; Trump suggesting taking/injecting bleach to fight COVID; he overfed fish in Japan; Trump cleared protesters with tear gas for a bible photo-op; Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation; elections were fair because no court found major fraud; January 6 was an “insurrection” to overthrow the government.

Each of the above was “seriously” (cue furrowed brows) promoted endlessly by the “news” media with “walls closing in” conviction; and then when the next hoax surfaced, never a “sorry, we sure got that last one wrong.” Trump told us they were hoaxes and he was right. His approval tops the list of political leaders, beating Bernie Sanders, Mike Pence, Biden, Harris and Pelosi. Biden’s approval, meanwhile, sank to 36% (Monmouth).

“Donald Trump has become more popular since the January 6 Capitol attack” (Harry Enten, CNN, 6/11): “A majority of Americans (55%) now believe that Trump was either not or only partially responsible for the rioters who overtook the Capitol, according to a recent NBC News poll. That's up from 47% in January 2021…In raw numbers, Trump's been ahead in more polls against Biden over the past few months than he was for the entirety of 2020. (i.e. Emerson College, Trump 45%, Biden 39%)

“Trump's favorable rating with Republicans is at or slightly north of 80%. His ‘very favorable’ rating is in the low 50s. By this measure, Trump is more beloved by Republicans than Biden is by Democrats.” It has to gall Democrats to read this, knowing they fell for those hoaxes, while succumbing to another rage-and-hysteria-inducing helping of the latest outrage de jure: Trump wanted to personally lead an armed insurrection, or (how’s that go?) that America’s being run by an “ultra-nationalist, Christian Right-Wing Supreme Court that resembles the Taliban more than a western liberal democracy.”

Fanatical progressives should take a breath, check their blood pressure, go for a walk, watch birds—but mostly find perspective over what and who constitutes actual evil in this world; it’s not Trump, DeSantis, Christians or even Supreme Court conservatives.