Jan.14

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

California Continues to Be a Political Football

As everyone presumably knows, the fires are still burning in Southern California. And, unfortunately, the forecast is that the Santa Ana winds are about to pick up. So, there's every chance this gets worse before it gets better.

We noted last week that Republicans were working hard to score political points off of this. This is a well-worn dynamic; in fact, one of the readings for (Z)'s History of California class is a collection of stories, taken from a 40-year span, of Republicans trying to score political points off of California. In the same way that Texas serves as a symbol of the excesses/problems of conservatism for liberals, California serves as a symbol of the excesses/problems of liberalism for conservatives. Put another way, the Golden State is a far better and more frequent whipping boy (whipping state?) than even more liberal states like Hawaii and Massachusetts.

This week, since the conversation about California has turned to federal emergency aid, the focus of political maneuvering has also turned to federal emergency aid. Joe Biden is working to send as much money to California as he possibly can, but he's limited by the facts that: (1) other states, like North Carolina and Florida, are also in line for some funding; (2) Biden has less than a week left in his term and (3) the extent of the damage, and thus the amount of emergency aid that would be correct and appropriate, will not be known for weeks or months.

What this means is that some meaningful portion of the federal aid for California will have to come from a purse whose strings are controlled by a Republican trifecta. And so, there is now much talk from that side of the aisle about "conditions" for that aid. At the moment, there appear to be three emerging schools of thought among GOP politicians:

1. Trumpy Fantasies: Donald Trump, as we noted in the item last week, has glommed on to the idea that California brought this on themselves through poor management of water and forestry. Does he really believe this? Last week, we weren't so sure, but having thought about it some more, we believe he actually does think this way. He tends to see everything in simplistic, black-and-white terms, and he pretty much invariably believes that all complex problems have simple solutions. Common sense tells you that California has been dealing with the challenges of fire, water, and forest management for well over a century, and if there actually were simple fixes, surely someone would have come along in that time, figured those fixes out, and implemented them. Of course, common sense is not something with which Trump is abundantly endowed.
   
   Anyhow, one of the lines of thought is that, in exchange for aid, California will have to admit that Trump is right and agree to "fix" the problems. This is the approach apparently favored by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who sat for an interview yesterday and declared:
   

   Obviously, there has been water resource mismanagement, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems. And it does come down to leadership. And it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty and in many respects. So that's something that has to be factored in. I think there should probably be conditions on that aid.

   As we note, we think Trump really believes this. We doubt Johnson actually believes it, and even if he does, we don't really see what concessions he might demand on this front.
   
   Indeed, this is about as realistic as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) solution to the problem: She believes the federal government should stay out of it, and that if Californians really want to stop their state from burning, they should make use of raincloud-seeding, so as to put the fires out "naturally." There are two problems here. First, while raincloud-seeding is a real thing, it is not a technique for extinguishing massive fires. Second, everyone knows that the real way to extinguish massive fires is Jewish space freeze rays.
   
   You have to feel some sympathy for Democratic politicians, both in California and in D.C., who have to deal with folks like this.
   
   
2. Wokeness: Another notion that is being bandied about is that if California wants federal aid, it has to dial back the "wokeness." For example, here is Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), the Senate's answer to Marge Greene: "If you go to California, you run into a lot of Republicans, a lot of good people, and I hate it for them, but they are just overwhelmed by, by these inner-city woke policies with the people that vote for them."
   
   As with the forest/water management angle, it's hard to imagine what substantive changes California might actually make on this front, even if Californians were willing. This seems a lot more like axe-grinding than anything substantive.
   
   
3. Debt Ceiling: The third notion being circulated is that Congress and president-by-then Trump will bestow federal aid on California, but in exchange the Democrats will have to support an increase in the debt ceiling. Of the three ideas listed here, this is the only one that would seem to have any possibility of actually happening. That doesn't mean that this sort of quid pro quo actually will happen, merely that it's at least plausible, as opposed to magical changes in water/forest management and/or "wokeness."

As Republicans try to leverage the wildfires for concrete political gain, there are a few obstacles worth keeping in mind. To start, Californians and their leadership are not especially interested in kowtowing to the incoming administration and eating some dirt, like naughty little liberals. Just yesterday, in fact, the state government set aside $50 million, $25 million to fund lawsuits against the Trump administration, and $25 million to resist deportation efforts.

Beyond that, it's a pretty bad look, politically, to add to the suffering of people, and to make them bark like a seal, just because you perceive them to be "lib'ruls." There is an unbelievable amount of empathy out there for Southern California right now, and being on the other side of that is not a great place to be. One might also point out that while California is blue, plenty of Republicans were hurt by the fires, too (in fact, the fires basically hit the most Republican-leaning parts of Los Angeles County). Another thing that might be pointed out is that for every $1 California gets from the federal government, it pays $5.03 in federal taxes. So, the folks in the Golden State are probably justified in thinking that the government should be kicking a little extra back, in this time of need.

Finally, if the Republicans cross this particular Rubicon, and start conditioning federal aid on "concessions," then they're going to receive the same treatment once the shoe is on the other foot. "Ah, you've been hit by a hurricane, Alabama? OK, we're happy to help you rebuild, but you have to strike all anti-abortion laws in the state." Our guess is that Tommy Tuberville, et al., would not be too happy about that demand. Preliminary indications are that many Republicans in Congress appreciate the trade-off that would be happening here, don't want to make it, and will push for emergency aid to remain non-partisan and condition-free.

For all of these reasons, we are skeptical that the efforts to squeeze some blood out of California will come to anything. But we just can't be sure. (Z)