Most of us likely know the stratospheric levels of hubris and conceit many politicians can achieve. As they constantly press onward after exposing their towering hypocrisy, they constantly climb to new ear-popping heights of lowness.
But California Governor Gavin Newsom’s latest display of insulting pathological posturing might put many others to shame.
On Thursday, January 9, CNN broadcast to its tiny viewership an on-the-street interview by Anderson Cooper with Newsom. And, as the glow of hellfire and smoke rose like Cthulhu behind them, Cooper tipped his hand on his own bias by saying to Newsom, “I hate to even ask this question, but the President-Elect chose to, uh, attack you, and blame you for this.”
WTF are Anderson Cooper and Gavin Newsom doing standing in front of a burning building?! Oh right, they’re making sure people know Trump Is bad. Disgusting. pic.twitter.com/X2uVVnaWCN
— Cali-Florida Patriot 🇺🇸🐊 (@CaliPatriot20) January 9, 2025
In other words, Cooper implies that Trump’s criticism is ill-advised, perhaps misplaced or incorrect, or, perhaps what seems most clear in his implication, the criticism is uncalled-for - uncouth. And, of course, he claims that Trump’s criticism of Newsom’s policies is an “attack,” which some might see as a fair descriptor, while others might take the word as a prejudicial descriptor, painting Newsom as a poor, innocent victim of the exploitative Trump.
And, as revealing as Cooper’s question is, Newsom’s answer is both shocking and even more revealing.
“One can’t even respond to it. I mean, it’s—You know, people are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids, lost their schools. Families, completely torn asunder. Churches burned down. This guy wanted to politicize it. I have a lot of thoughts, and I know what I want to say. I won’t," he responded.
So, off that grandiloquent pomposity and deflection, let’s dive into the hypocrisy.
Let’s step back to 2020. September of 2020, to be exact, and the days immediately following what now is known as the Creek wildfire. That is a fire that the feds claim lightning started in the poorly managed Sierra National Forest, wiped out nearly 380,000 acres in Fresno and Madera counties, destroyed half of the homes in Big Creek, and caused half a billion dollars in damage.
If folks didn’t get to hear about the poorly managed federal lands, or if they weren’t aware of the fact that the US Constitution doesn’t allow the feds to own or operate any land other than an area for the Capitol, military garrisons, and territories, they might remember one flagrantly, jaw-droppingly infuriating aspect of that terrible period.
It came when Gavin Newsom turned the burned-out cinders of a private home into a Public Relations set-piece.
I remember it. In fact, on September 18, 2020, I wrote about it for MRCTV, noting that Newsom not only brought along then-VP-Candidate, Senator Kamala Harris, they brought with them a literal “photography pool” as they traipsed around on other people’s property.
Property that had been devastated, and which the owners, who were in an entirely different state, didn’t know had been burned to ashes… until they saw Newsom and Harris online, kicking through the remains of their home.
Related: Newsom Accused of Faking a Call with Biden to Avoid Facing Fire Victims
Here’s how the man who dislikes “politicizing” tragedies like wildfires acted, at the time, complete with Newsom’s regurgitation of his unfounded, inapplicable “climate change” canard:
Fox26 TV reporter Marie Edinger notes:
‘An Auberry family says California Governor Gavin Newsom and vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris trespassed during their tour of Creek Fire damage.’
This, a photo-op which Newsom used September 15 to Tweet the mystical nonsense, ‘Climate Change is real’, without, of course, offering any viable supportive information (because he can’t, because there isn’t any) that anthropogenic climate change is anything more than politically manipulated data sets, and that, even if there WERE man-made global warming – sorry, climate change – it’s unethical to claim that any fire, let alone the CA fires, are connected to his bogeyman.
In fact, as Anthony Watts noted on September 16:
‘Using satellite technology, NASA determined that between 2003 and 2019, global fires have dropped by roughly 25 percent. This makes the ‘climate change is worsening wildfires’ argument completely moot.’
Don’t expect Gavin or Kamala to Tweet the above info and link any time soon.”
They did not, and they did not apologize for their acts of trespass and opportunism.
So, it rings hollow for Newsom to claim that Trump is politicizing the fires.
And this double-standard becomes even more infuriating when one realizes that Trump, a property developer who for decades has had to consider and mitigate fire liabilities, offered valid points about the poorly managed government lands, and that he has, at least since 2018, implored the California government to clear dead brush and better husband the state-run wilderness.
By the way, in 2018, 85 people died in the Camp Wildfire, near Paradise California, 18,000 buildings were ruined, and 153,000 acres were torched. And the source of the fire was pinpointed to Pacific Gas and Electric power lines shedding sparks on government land, a problem for which PG&E was convicted on 84 felony counts.
Today, Newsom adds to the history of mismanaged government power, and tries to claim Trump is “politicizing” the matter.
Here’s a tip for Governor Newsom. Everything the polis does is, by definition, POLITICAL. By laying claims over the land, the water, the fire teams, and by renting their “public lands” to power monopoly Pacific Gas and Electric and their spark-tossing powerlines, the polis has taken over what should be private property control and REAL liability adoption. They have stolen personal control from what should be REAL property owners and shifted it, politicized it, turned all of it into the Tragedy of the Commons, while destroying responsibility and increasing the moral hazards and risks of externalities associated with bad decisions. Anyone familiar with economics, ethics, or even the meaning of the word “polis” can grasp these facts.
And today, Newsom bickers and tries to deflect. He erroneously claims that Trump never tried to open up water availability to California, when, in fact, Trump moved to redirect millions of gallons of water from going into the sea, and Newsom sued to stop the action.
You know, back in 2020, Fox26 reported on what the son of the homeowners thought of Newsom and Harris’s opportunistic posture on THEIR LAND:
“What has me really frustrated right now is the fact that these two politicians used my parents loss for a photo opportunity to push their political agenda! Political party wouldn’t have made a difference in this moment. Decent human beings that have character and class, wouldn’t air someone else’s misfortune on national television!”
Indeed, decent human beings wouldn’t do that.