Newsom
© AFP/Justin SullivanCalifornia Governor Gavin Newsom
The votes are counted, the result complete: The citizens of the once-Golden State are so indoctrinated with wokeness they can't vote for any politician who isn't wholesale progressive. Nothing else explains Gavin Newsom's victory.

That stretch of sun-drenched, overpriced real estate along the Pacific is an undeniable, unmitigated disaster, and it has sunk deep into that status under the watch of Getty family trust fund baby Newsom. I would challenge anyone to debate the fact that the puddle of oil in Sacramento's state house is an abject failure and to offer any researched and confirmed numbers to back up any claims he's been a sustained success. Beyond that, I'd love to encounter anyone who holds enthusiasm in their hearts for this slick ventriloquist dummy masquerading as a national-caliber leader.

The statistics detailing the unquestionable garbage fire are omnipresent. One online search can keep you reading for hours. However, just as an example, we can begin with the state's rankings by US News and World Report.

Keep in mind that California is the most populous state in the Union and claims to possess the seventh largest economy on Earth (The latter is now dubious due to the huge economic backslide overseen by Newsom). Those facts should lend the Golden State massive resources and constructive insurance provisions to maintain some level of stability. Still, California ranks 20th in education, 28th in crime, 31st in infrastructure, 35th in natural environment, 36th in fiscal stability, and 50th out of 50 in opportunity.

In a recent interview, when challenged about such dire numbers, the only real success Newsom pointed to in a childish tirade was a state boom in venture capital. Denying he was out of touch with the concerns of the average citizen, he quit the interview and returned to arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic into line for his post-recall victory speech (Take my word for it. You don't want to waste your life watching any video of this effete, feckless empty suit).

If you follow American news to any degree, the dark stories oozing east out of California are never-ending and consistently ugly. Unchecked wildfires rage throughout the year as state forestry commissions fail to take action. Lenient law and order policies release violent criminals back into the public to indulge in stunning recidivism rates. Panicked, self-righteous management of Covid-19 destroyed thousands of businesses and raised the state's unemployment rate north of 7%. Fraud in the poorly managed and under-equipped state unemployment office awarded billions of dollars to international scammers while citizens waited months for help.

The one realm in which California still holds its addled head high above the rest of the nation is homelessness. The World Population Review ranks Cali #1 with 150,000 homeless, with the masses largely huddled in Los Angeles and San Francisco. However, a federal report put that number north of 160,000 before the pandemic, easily suggesting that the post-Covid number must now be creeping beyond 200,000.

In response to the hellscape wrought by Newsom and his drones, a grassroots effort successfully generated a recall election that failed to oust the buffoon-in-chief from office this week. The only way such an incompetent midwit could keep his job in the face of such undeniable failure is that the vast majority of California voters are so conditioned and so brainwashed that they simply can't conceive of voting for any political figure who isn't wholesale progressive. That's an astounding accomplishment for both the state's Democratic Party chieftains and the Hollywood establishment that's largely insulated from California's smog of decomposition.

The excuse most neatly sheared progressive voters gave for rejecting the recall was the emergence of conservative talk show firebrand Larry Elder as the leading opposition candidate. It's not fair to expect California voters - where super majority Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 - to support such a candidate.

However, let's not pretend the extremist Elder was the only other option. The first question on the recall ballot simply asked if a voter thought Newsom should be taken out behind the barn and put down. If harboring some vestige of sanity and voting "yes," the citizen was then asked to select a replacement candidate. That list included 46 people.

If Elder was indeed cancerous for California voters, they had 45 other choices. So, you would think a sensible, free-thinking human would free their state from its ongoing nightmare of ineffectiveness by choosing one of the more reliable individuals from that list.

Hey, Cali? If you don't like Elder, don't vote for him. I get it. I wouldn't vote for him. If a Republican was repugnant to you, there were other Democrats and left-leaning independents. Choose whatever alternative is least offensive.

No. Newsom survived. Why? There's only one possible answer. That two-to-one Democrat majority underwent brainwashing so effective that the active electorate is now more of a religious cult than a group of informed voters. They look around and see the homeless multiplying, the infrastructure crumbling, and crime soaring. They can register that these conditions are either a direct threat to their lives or their quality of life. Still, they cannot bring themselves to question their party or progressive leaders.

That's zealotry. Those are humans who will sacrifice their lives and their children's futures to honor the prophets and obey the holy writ. Those are twisted minds who simply cannot comprehend any other solution but to obey and protect the progressive officials who are actively destroying the daily existence of their loyal parishioners. Between sessions of self-congratulatory kneeling and scraping, the pious peasant believers will rest easy knowing they're suffering in a collapsing state while adhering to the one true faith.

The next version of Heaven's Gate is taking notes. There are North Korea propaganda officials who wish they could push that kind of loyalty. There are lemmings plummeting from cliffs that wish they could maintain such formation.

Of course, more former Californians - as well as former California industries and companies - are escaping the cult compound every day in search of saner pastures. They will allow the state behind them to burn, because the voters staying behind choose to walk into the fire, holding hands and taking selfies.

If you point your nose skyward, you might smell the smoke. When you do, remember that those smoldering chose to fan the flames.