California’s Arrogant, Lazy, Incompetent Authoritarian in Charge (ALIAIC, yes I know I added the word incompetent), Governor Gavin Newsom, has been busy calling the kettle black over the last several days. Newsom has been calling President Trump an authoritarian because he federalized California National Guard units to keep the peace in Los Angeles, a peace that ALIAIC Newsom and Mayor Bass specifically refused to ensure because they don’t like federal immigration laws.
To those who haven’t been following this story, ALIAIC Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass refused to enforce local law to prevent assaults on law enforcement officers, car burnings, looting and rioting in Los Angeles because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were in Los Angeles enforcing federal immigration law, and capturing murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, human slave smugglers, and others who were in this country illegally. Some smug California law enforcement officers around the state said they “don’t enforce federal laws” as if the actions of the illegal aliens are not a violation of law. Nobody asked them to do that. However, rioting, car burnings, looting, blocking streets, throwing rocks at law enforcement officials, and a variety of other crimes and misdemeanors committed by those engaged in the rioting are violations of state law, and these Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, bowing to their political masters, are not enforcing those laws, as is their duty.
But what of the question of who is the authoritarian?
Did Trump shut down thousands of churches and synagogues and other places of worship, and threaten to jail priests, pastors and rabbis for the crime of holding church services, despite the fact that the laws were executive orders issued without legislative authorization and in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution, as held by the US Supreme Court? Well No, that was Gavin Newsom, who declared martial law and issued regulations not passed by any legislative body, simply because of COVID, copying the same authoritarian playbook as Adolf Hitler, that famous authoritarian, did in Nazi Germany. Understand the context. When COVID started to become an issue, ALIAIC Newsom’s government issued orders to senior care facilities requiring them to admit seniors who had COVID. Then when the seniors in these facilities started dying by the thousands, ALIAIC Newsom used these deaths to declare a health emergency, and issue orders controlling places of worship throughout the state. Create an emergency, then use that emergency as a reason to intrude on people’s lives and businesses, an age old authoritarian tactic.
Did Trump shut down thousands of small businesses, pursuant to a martial law order justified by a false emergency, created by bad government policies, all of which was done by executive order enacted without legislative authorization? Well No, that was ALIAIC Newsom, taking his cue from authoritarians around the world, who have used false emergencies to declare martial law, and then used that declaration to justify any number of oppressive actions. Thousands of businesses went bankrupt, employees lost their jobs, and families everywhere struggled to pay their bills as a result of these illegal and unwarranted orders. ALIAIC Newsom thought it was ok for him to violate the orders he issued, but threatened everyone else with arrest. In what free country is that right?
Did Trump conspire with social media companies to suppress the free speech rights of people who questioned the illegal actions of the government pursuant to COVID? Well No, that was Newsom and his fellow Democrats around the country.
Presidents Kennedy and Johnson federalized National Guard units to enforce federal laws when local law enforcement officers wouldn’t and our Republic survived. ALIAIC Newsom has threatened local school board members with jail for trying to protect the rights of parents to determine their children’s upbringing when he signed a law making that action illegal, so we know that he is willing to intrude on local control when it suits him. However, when Trump tries to quell riots that ALIAIC Newsom and Newsom’s Democrat political friends incited, ALIAIC Newsom puts on the mantle of the Founding Fathers and claims he is protecting freedom and state’s rights.
I can point out any other number of actions by ALIAIC Newsom that put the lie to his protestations that he is the fount of freedom, and Trump is an authoritarian, but I don’t have the room here to catalogue them all. Suffice it to say, whether it is his keyboard typing social media posts or his lips moving, you can count on whatever message he is sending is false. In his mind, he is not bound by the same rules he wishes to enforce against others, whether it is you and me, or President Trump.