Turnabout is fair play.
Texas got clever. They figured out a workaround to ban abortion. The Supreme Court let them do it.
Now California is using the same technique--against guns.
Of course California Governor Gavin Newsom is planning to run for president in 2024. He is filling a void.
Newsom is taking visible action on an issue highly popular with the public. He will get criticized for it by the NRA. The controversy makes his actions newsworthy and the criticism shows he is wiling to pay a price. That brings him credibility as a person of principle, standing up to the NRA.
There are favorable unspoken messages imbedded in Newsom's actions. One is that Newsom can act while Biden and Democratic senators are helpless. Another is that Newsom is a fighter who will take bold in-your-face actions. A third is that he recognizes that the Supreme Court has replaced the president as the seat of power in America. If you want to look like a giant killer you need to take on the giant.
This is not a typical mid-term election. The traditional and expected outcome in the midterm is for the presidential party to lose congressional seats. But Biden's win did not sweep in on his coattails Democrats in marginal and vulnerable seats. The opposite happened. Republicans gained seats. Biden does not need to be checked by congressional majorities of the opposite party. Republicans call him weak from senility; Democrats admit he is showing his age. He is an unlikely tyrant. The Democratic majority in the House is narrow. The Democratic majority in the Senate is non-existent. Manchin is strong, not the Democratic majority. Democrats are already handcuffed by Republicans.
The strong out of control tyrant is the Supreme Court. It is decidedly, openly, joyfully conservative and Republican. They just took away a right and they hint that others are at risk. Red state legislatures are grabbing opportunity with trigger laws and total abortion bans. Republican senators are openly talking about rolling back gay rights and forms of contraception and positing national bans. A Republican attorney general wants to prosecute a doctor who provided an abortion to a 10 year old rape victim. The counter-trend in the 2022 midterms is likely to be against the people really running things, the 6-3 Supreme Court and extreme behaviors in the red states.
Newsom is riding that counter-trend, hoisting the Supreme Court on its own petard. California has attempted to make it impossible for the Court to distinguish their law from Texas'. California replaced the word "abortion" with "gun violence." Newsom is daring the Supreme Court to expose its hypocrisy by overturning California's gun law while allowing the Texas abortion law to stand. He said,
We believe this will be litigated in the Supreme Court and we believe the Supreme Court will be challenged. Because if there's any principle left whatsoever -- and that's an open ended question -- with this Supreme Court, there is no way they can deny us the right to move in this direction.
I have been skeptical that a governor from a bright blue state had the right instincts and policies to win the midwest battleground states. California's extraordinary success in wealth-creation through technology and world trade puts it out of step with old-style "rustbelt" manufacturing states that want protective tariffs. California's problems involve excess wealth and overcrowding in the places creating that wealth. The battleground states are hollowing out. I also thought Newsom was too attractive in a Hollywood way to be credible as an advocate of working class Americans. He doesn't project struggle about kitchen table issues.
I might be wrong on both counts. People look up to tall, good-looking people. Maybe there is no such thing as too attractive. In any case, Newsom is showing political skill and courage. He is positioning himself as a regulator of something most people want regulated. He picked a popular issue and picked his enemy. That is what winners do.
Newsom rocks! Hard for me to grasp he was once married to Don Jr.’s girlfriend. Ayyyyy!