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The California Model of Governance Scares Working-Class Moderates
“Democrats Can’t Offer Voters Less for More,” fumed Ross Barkan for The Intelligencer on Tuesday.
“Why Kamala Harris’ home city kicked out its progressive leaders,” revealed Alexander Nazaryan for MSNBC on November 12. “Oakland’s mayor and district attorney were both sent packing in a recall vote. Leaders in other Democratic-run cities should take notice.”
“Voters in Oakland recalled their mayor, Sheng Thao, and their district attorney, Pamela Price (she represented Alameda County, where Oakland is by far the largest city),” Nazaryan noted. “Both lost by about 30 percentage points, a gobsmacking margin for the city that Vice President Kamala Harris calls home.”
“Progressive mayors, legislators and prosecutors have suffered similar rebukes — or are facing fatal plunges in popular support — in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and other cities,” added Nazaryan. “Many of them promised transformative change, only to become entangled in the realities of governing, which have never lent themselves well to ideological rigidity. And cities have suffered as a result.”
“Americans from what we coastal elites call ‘flyover country’ go to Washington and see an empty downtown, storefronts shuttered and security guards in front of both chain pharmacies and…