Gavin Newsom, Ineffectual Hypocrite

By Kyle Smith

Thursday, April 01, 2021

 

Live by looks, die by looks. Gavin Newsom is governor of the largest state in the Union not because he can point to any success whatsoever in more than two decades as a professional politician but because he looks the part. His hair is perfectly gelled, a superb mix of salt and pepper. His wife, Jennifer Siebel, is so pretty she not only acted in Hollywood for a time but once dated George Clooney. In California, you may have noticed, looks can get you far. A reporter for SFGate went on the campaign trail with Newsom in 2003, when he was running for mayor of San Francisco, and reported this: “At a campaign stop in Chinatown, merchants and shoppers clamored to have their photo taken with him. Several said they favor Newsom because they want a ‘good-looking mayor.’” 

 

You know what doesn’t look so good to Californians? Telling people to avoid restaurants, then heading out for dinner at The French Laundry — home of the $850 meal, possessor of the highest rating in the Michelin guide — to party with a dozen members of the state aristocracy (lobbyists and CEOs). The wine bill alone for Newsom’s notorious November 6 Napa Valley blowout reportedly came to $12,000. The Gavinocracy violated at least three California coronavirus prohibitions: They didn’t stay six feet apart, they came from more than three households, and they didn’t wear masks while chatting. Newsom defenders initially protested that the gathering was “outdoors,” but this turned out to mean only that there was a sliding glass wall near their party. And the dinner was so boisterous that the wall had to be closed because other diners complained about the noise.

 

The effort to recall Newsom was already under way when the Napa No-No happened. But as California stewed under the tightest lockdown restrictions in the country, the episode cemented views that Newsom isn’t exactly living up to his rhetoric about being the people’s governor. This wasn’t just one for the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame, like the time Chris Christie went to a New Jersey state beach over the Fourth of July weekend during a government shutdown. Going to a public beach is at least something regular people can afford. Not even the adultery of a televangelist can compare to Newsom’s blunder; no televangelist ever presided over anything comparable to California. Newsom went to America’s ritziest eatery to dine with fat cats while telling everyone else to stay home and break out the Skippy and Spam. Newsom is the LeBron James or Tom Brady of hypocrisy: the Greatest of All Time. We may need to rename the concept after Newsom, the way Cy Young became a pitching award. During the pandemic, Los Angeles public-school students locked out of their schools for a year have learned to settle for a union-negotiated three hours and 45 minutes of staring at their computer screens each day; private-school students such as Gavin Newsom’s four children returned to school back in October. Newsom opposes water bottles on principle but drinks bottled water himself. Last summer he shut down most of the state’s wineries while keeping his open.

 

After Newsom’s Laundry excursion, enthusiasts for a recall went from angry to livid, and easily gathered more than 2 million signatures against the 1.5 million they need to verify to trigger an election this fall. California Democrats are denouncing this grassroots effort as the product of crazy right-wing conspiracy theorists but are at a loss how to defend their slicked-back Marie Antoinette. A homeless encampment today sits in front of Exchange L.A., the sleek nightclub where Newsom held his victory party less than two and a half years ago and that has now been shuttered for a year as if torn from The Big Book of Ironic Political Symbols. Newsom’s draconian shutdowns caused state unemployment to reach as high as 16 percent. As of mid March, 87 percent of the population was classified as living in a “purple zone” and subject to tight economic restrictions. The Los Angeles school system, the second-largest in the country, is the only one of the top ten whose students have not seen the inside of a school for an entire year. Even New York City’s movie theaters reopened before California’s did. Disneyland in California isn’t slated to reopen until late April (though theme parks can return to doing business on April 1), and even then outdoor activity will be heavily restricted — 15 percent capacity at theme parks, no more than 100 people at an outdoor event. Disney World in Florida, meanwhile, has been up and functioning since July. 

 

With all of these efforts, Newsom bought himself a COVID death toll just a bit better than the one in elderly Florida, “God’s waiting room,” but with the crucial difference that Florida didn’t crush its businesses. California still has 8.4 percent unemployment as against Florida’s 5.1 percent. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, lifted all business restrictions six months ago and hasn’t looked back. California looks like it won’t be back to normal until at least summertime. Despite typical showy Newsomian gestures like opening Dodger Stadium as a vaccine site, as of mid March more than a quarter of the vaccine doses distributed to the state were sitting on shelves. As of March 12, California ranked 42nd in the country in vaccine distribution. Maybe there is more to governance than jabbing Donald Trump, whom Newsom targeted in his 2018 victory speech: “It’s time to roll the credits on the politics of chaos and the politics of cruelty. . . . Now is the time for decency, for facts, for trust, and now is the time for truth.” Californians can’t be faulted for wondering when it will be the time for effective management.

 

Newsom’s brand is to please his left wing with sweeping affirmations that he shares their values. He unilaterally suspended the death penalty in 2019. This was very nearly a meaningless feel-good publicity stunt; only 13 persons have been executed in the Golden State since 1976, and none since 2006. Newsom, who made his fortune in a wine business bankrolled by his billionaire friend Gordon Getty, gives lots of speeches railing against inequality and inequity and homelessness but utterly failed in two terms as San Francisco mayor to reverse any alarming trend there. Yet he floated upwards, elected lieutenant governor under Jerry Brown in 2010, and then moved on to the governorship against token opposition in 2018.

 

Though San Francisco had an early outbreak last spring, California was largely untouched by the virus until the fall. Newsom pulled the “emergency brake,” as he called it, on November 17, and plunged California into the harshest lockdown restrictions in the country, then shut down all indoor and outdoor dining statewide on December 5 for two months. Even New York City, the hottest hot zone on earth, never took such a severe step. California saw one of the nation’s worst COVID spikes anyway, and in January suffered 15,000 deaths, by far its worst month. Newsom’s decision in March to give his state-of-the-state address in a chillingly deserted Dodger Stadium in honor of California’s COVID dead — roughly one for each seat in the stadium — was a head-scratcher. Newsom railed against the recall effort in a space that is much like his leadership: a void. 

 

California’s triple frustration with the business shutdowns, the school closures, and the slow vaccine rollout would be bad enough if voters thought Newsom at least cared about such things, but the French Laundry incident is vivid evidence to the contrary. “Tyrant. Ass. Idiot. Jerk,” began a story by a Sacramento Bee reporter who set out to report on what people are saying about Newsom. A San Diego weatherman dolled up as “King Newsom” mocked the governor in the greatest moment for San Diego television since Ron Burgundy. “We’re the little people, they’re the big people,” wrathful West Sacramento voter Jeanie Kayl told the Bee. “The rules don’t apply to him.” Californians will have to balance that against his undeniable achievements, a complete list of which follows: He’s still good-looking.