San Francisco Bay Guardian | Vote NO on the Newsom recall

Newsom in 2008. Photo via Wikipedia

If there’s a publication in San Francisco that was as critical of Gavin Newsom as the Bay Guardian, we don’t know about it.

We have never endorsed Newsom for a local office before. We resisted his approach of attacking homeless people, which catapulted him into the mayor’s office. We opposed his budgets and policies that preferred the rich to everyone else.

In just over a term in office, he created both the failed SFMTA and the city’s failed homeless policy. He fronted SPUR’s “Muni Reform,” which created the deeply dysfunctional agency that brought the nation’s first urban transportation system to its knees, trapped in what the agency’s current director repeatedly calls the “death spiral.”

In the same brief tenure as mayor, he also created the political and political framework – “care not cash” – for San Francisco’s disastrous homeless policies and reduced them to a position with a disdain for robust public sector policies to support and maintain affordable housing he’s carried into the governor’s office.

In short, Gavin Newsom created the political and political context for two disasters that continue to challenge San Francisco to this day: affordable housing and public transportation.

While Newsom was mayor, San Francisco became a worse place, not a better place.

He didn’t do much better as governor. The state is on fire – and Newsom, as when he was mayor, has made no move to dissolve and let PG&E be taken over by public authorities. With its own agents enabling the company to devastate the state, its only response was to find ways to save the monopoly.

He supported the Yimby Laws to allow real estate developers to control local land use. He cannot figure out what to do with the high-speed rail (and the absolute necessity for the future of the state in a time of climate crisis). He is far too close to the same Sacramento lobbyists who support Republican politics.

And then came COVID.

His administration, filled with political ops pretending to “do things for the Californians,” failed to notice that Jerry Brown cut the public health budget to the bone, budget for budget, including money to provide emergency supplies such as personal protective equipment Maintain the health of workers and do not take corrective action to fill the empty stocks.

Newsom should not be held responsible for outages in the early months of the pandemic as no government was ready to respond to a global and rapidly evolving pandemic of airborne virus.

But he gave in to “business interests” early on and opened up too early, as would later the governors of the red states and contrary to the line of the current callers. When events forced him to shut down businesses and offices and produce effective public programs, his true incompetence and fondness for non-bid billion dollar contracts with private companies was revealed.

And then there is unemployment. Without making a big digression into the state’s multilevel failure, it has been clear for more than a year (!) That it is a pathetic failure that actually harms unemployed Californians – millions of them, as the governor declares.

The state vaccination program was handed over to a private health company with longstanding political support through a no-bid agreement negotiated by Newsom’s employees.

Gavin Newsom is a corporate democrat. Corporate Democrats always play quick and easy, always looking for a “win-win” deal with the private sector where all risk is public and all profits are private.

Newsom has always been about Gavin Newsom first and foremost. His politics are and always have been aimed at promoting his career. And this recall is no different.

Newsom’s arrogance and that of his close advisers this spring allowed him to pretend the recall was just a nuisance and he would easily survive. He hasn’t done anything to excite or encourage progressive voters to just assume that – as in the last election – we could go with him because there are no options.

And that stance – and its political scramble – deterred any leftist candidate who would have both encouraged progressive turnout and would be a credible alternative if Newsom (and it is now a real possibility) loses it.

That was almost certainly a strategic mistake – for both the governor and the California progressive movement.

So now we are stuck with a bunch of far-right Republicans who, at a critical juncture, could potentially win the government of the nation’s largest state. We’re talking about people who don’t believe in the minimum wage, who don’t believe in science, who are supporters of Donald Trump.

There is currently no way that a Republican could be elected governor in this state unless he is removed from office. And if it did, the result would be terrible.

Let’s not forget: the US Senate is 50-50 split. Should Dianne Feinstein – and it is becoming more likely every day – not end her term in office, a GOP governor would put a Republican in this seat – by 2015. That would be the end of the Democratic majority.

We get the topic of enthusiasm. We’re not thrilled to endorse a candidate who promised us sole health coverage and then stepped back the minute he took office. It’s hard for someone who hasn’t done anything to tackle income inequality to take to the streets.

But it is time we all on the left face the consequences of sitting it out or voting yes. There is massive national impact.

There are two questions on the ballot: Should we call Newsom back and who should replace him? Because of the cowardice of the Democrats, there is no credible alternative. There is no one to vote on on the back of the voting slip. We leave it blank.

Newsom will run for re-election in just 15 months. We strongly recommend a progressive candidate to enroll in primary school.

But now, hold your nose and vote no to the Newsom recall.