PROGRAM NOTE: This is a long post. So long, in fact, that I have split it into three parts. Part I will consider the economic and political context that the recall is taking place in. It is more theoretical, perhaps even polemical, than the following parts but necessary to understanding what is going on in my opinion. Part II will take a dive into the polling in the recall election. Part III will discuss the abuse of the recall process and offer some solutions for the future.
——————————————————————————————————————
California voters are currently voting by mail on whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and, if so, on who should replace him. Election day is September 14th for those voting in person. Polling shows that Newsom is indeed in trouble, but not to the extent that former Gov. Gray Davis (D) was when he was recalled in 2003. Newsom still has high approval ratings for someone who is also polling about even when it comes to the recall question. Republicans are abusing the recall process around the country to attack progressive politicians who were duly-elected and California is the big prize for them. This special election, which will cost California taxpayers over $200 million only a year before the next regularly scheduled statewide election, should be a slam dunk for Newsom. It isn’t. Why?
A long time ago I told one of my labor union colleagues that the biggest problem with the Democratic Party is that the class interests of too many of its leaders align with Republican priorities. As a result, they often completely miss out on the things that are bona fide concerns for regular Americans. It’s hard to be a party for regular Americans when your leaders are rich but are not willing to play the populist game of demonizing poor people to win the votes of working people (or demonize Black folks or immigrants to win white votes) as the Republican Party does. Consequently, many people get really frustrated and angry at Democrats even when it is the Republicans who are responsible for the policy decisions impacting them. Through their rhetoric, platforms, and in most cases sincerely held belief, Democrats think of themselves as the party of working people. Through their actions, they often seem to many Americans to prioritize the interests of employers and the rich far more often than they should.
The California gubernatorial recall election is a consequence of this phenomenon. While Democrats can bring diverse corners of the electorate together under a big tent today, that is largely the result of the Republican Party turning into a cruel coalition of fascists, racists, idiots, conspiracy theorists/anti-Semites, and people who simply want to watch the world burn. While the COVID pandemic and related public health, education, and economic policies are very much fueling the organizing for the recall among certain segments of the California population, these concerns overlay the neo-liberal contradictions of the Democratic Party that undermine enthusiasm for the party among voters, even Democratic voters. That Newsom appears a poster child for these contradictions does not help his case for remaining in office.
Clearly, many Republicans want to attack Newsom as a rich elite who is out of touch – even though that is an apt description for almost every Republican elected official. Newsom should not be recalled for (seemingly) hypocritically attending a fundraiser at fancy restaurant indoors without a mask at a time when he was telling people to wear masks and stay home. He shouldn’t be recalled because he just sold an expensive house for what it was worth. And even if he is recalled it will likely not be for these reasons, but they underscore a narrative that is reinforced by real issues that are impacting voters. Issues like homelessness, crime, education, and public health.
One problem on the political Left is that there are some activists who – however good intentioned – demand the performative over good governance. Yes, the Right has that problem too, but they don’t care about competent governing. They are a revanchist political movement. The Left should not – and does not – replicate that model of cruel power mongering. There is really nothing worth supporting among the political Right in this country – where they mouth rhetoric that seems serious, they are just lying. If the past few years has not convinced you of this, nothing will.
Most voters will not support adapting to increasing homelessness in their communities but may support investing in real solutions to eliminate it – such as single residency occupancy hotels (which have been all but demolished in the pursuit of profit). Democratic leaders often believe the conventional wisdom that Republican talking heads throw out on the airwaves – again, because their class interests align with that conventional wisdom – and argue that real solutions like SROs are not politically possible. The political mistake here is compounded – accepting policy solutions that do little, if anything, to solve the problem but make some activists happy and ignoring solutions that might solve the problem but would make conservatives unhappy.
We don’t use the proper terminology in the United States very often when it comes to politics and economics, but homelessness is a failure of capitalism and capitalist solutions (or solutions that capitalists will tolerate) will not work. Capitalism is not a pragmatic system; it’s an idealistic theory of economics. It explains how things should work if everyone has equal opportunity, equal bargaining power, and perfect information. Show me a capitalist society with no strong socialist policies that has equal bargaining power and I’ll buy you a beer. Yet, the media and all of our institutions – especially the two major political parties – act as though capitalism is the natural state of economics and there is no alternative. And they do this even though there are many examples of anti-capitalist policies that benefit Americans, such as public education, Social Security, Medicare, and highway construction and maintenance (to name a few).
There is an old joke among scholars about the physicist, chemist, and economist stranded on a deserted island. They have a can of beans but nothing to open it with. They need to figure out how to get the can open so they can eat. Like all good academics, they hold a symposium. The physicist has some scientific plan based in physics. The chemist has a plan based in chemistry. When it’s the economist’s turn he starts off with, “First, let’s assume we have a can opener…” The joke is funny because, well, it’s a completely fair shot at classical economics.
To simplify, “classical economics” is what the economics academy calls capitalist economics. While there are plenty of other schools of economics, classical economics continues to be the mainstream theory. Capitalism is a system that only works correctly in the abstract and on paper. In real life, the number of problems solved by capitalism is drowned out by the number of problems created by it. And capitalism itself has no solutions other than “you’re on your own.”1 We hear a lot of talk about market-based solutions – but those are just attempts to get capitalists to act differently by forcing a pricing structure on the system with some government subsidies (which capitalists will tell you are socialism, unless, of course, they are the ones getting the subsidies). Our health care system, for example, is largely a collection of market-based solutions to the problem of providing adequate health care to people who cannot afford it, especially when they get sick.
Let’s pick just one issue that illustrates the problem: homelessness.
Strange as it may sound, much of the progressive activist policy solutions we see these days when it comes to homelessness are of a kind that can coexist easily with capitalism. Policies like providing port-a-potties, needle exchanges, prohibiting police harassment, and other social services are easier to implement than expensive housing construction by local authorities trying to deal with their own growing homeless problems. The complaints from the Right about the social policies that seem overly permissive for antisocial behavior come largely from a moral, not economic or political, position. What really animates Right opposition is presenting solutions that are anti-capitalist, such as public housing. Such ideas motivate deep-pocketed capitalists to collaborate with the moralists on the Right (who seemingly oppose every solution to any problem that helps the poor unless it is run by a church). The well-funded media, lobbying, and political campaigns that these collaborations on the Right can threaten seem to always scare centrist Democrats into supporting solutions that capitalists can tolerate (meaning they will not be motivated to spend millions of dollars to oppose). We then see Democratic politicians – equally concerned about progressive activists being animated to withhold their votes or run primary challenges – supporting policies that certainly help some of the people in need at times, but do little to address the long-term problems, such as investing in community land trusts, building public housing or SROs, or some other solution that takes property partially or completely out of capitalist land markets.
The political problem here is that the result of not providing enough no- or low-cost housing to the unhoused results in homeless encampments popping up all over the place. They are sometimes in neighborhoods, but usually in places that are visible to lots of commuters, workers, and tourists. There are very real sanitation and safety issues associated with these encampments. Although these issues are more of a problem for the residents of these camps than the general public, the perception many people have is that it they are threats to their well-being. While progressives, in and out of government, work to find solutions to the symptoms of homelessness, capitalists and their political allies on the Right – who refuse to accept any real solution to the overall problem – stir up public opposition to encampments and direct blame at Democratic officials.
The problem for Newsom and other Democratic officials is that they are running the state. They have to find ways to deal with these problems even if it is against their personal class interests and even if big money capitalists complain. It is this neo-liberal way of governing, which wants to solve our most serious social problems by making capitalism work in ways it simply never can, which is at the root of the Democrats’ political problems with working- and middle-class Americans.2
All this is not to make a case for one system or another (although you can probably guess my sensibilities if you are a regular reader of my work) and it is not intended as a discourse on homeless or housing policy. It’s context for the political problem Newsom faces right now. There is no question he is a more competent governor than any of the dozens of replacement candidates on the recall ballot. If the election was a head-to-head with any one of those candidates, Newsom would win easily. But neither the recall vote nor the replacement vote is that kind of election. The recall is a referendum on Newsom, and that’s the real problem for him.
Some capitalists will argue that the purpose of government is for dealing with the inefficiencies of capitalism, but in practice – in this country anyway – capitalists oppose government intervention consistently.
White supremacy is a major factor as well, but it is an easy thing for the populist Right to use to animate people who are not seeing a Democratic Party doing much for them. And it is a mistake to think that “working class Americans” are all white. Many, if not most, working-class folks in America are non-white and many of the social and economic problems their white peers face are no different than their own.