I'm freakin' gobsmacked at the Democrats' tone-deaf politics here.
Remember from the other day, "
Beach Lockdowns" (PHOTOS).
People are not wearing masks, and folks are only slightly better at "social distancing."
Tonight my young son and I went down to the Balboa Peninsula, in Newport, and it was the same thing again.
At the Wedge, the beach and the parks are closed and taped off. You can't even sit on a bench on the sidewalk. But people ignore the signs and few, if any, wear masks. And especially at Balboa, it's not just young people. Perhaps it's mostly local residents who pay local property taxes and feel like they own the place, but older couples were just cruising along without regard to the protocols set in Sacramento.
Which leads me to question recent polls showing
overwhelming numbers of Californians
down with the lockdown mandates, the distancing protocols, and especially the closed beaches. It's not just hippie protesters down in Huntington Beach. I suspect the numbers of anti-lockdown types are not shown in recent data. Here's the L.A. Times' piece from last week, which purported to show a 75 percent acceptance rate (or "approval rate," if you could call it that) of Governor Gavin Newsom's "stay-at-home" order: "
Californians broadly trust state government on coronavirus — but mistrust Trump, poll finds."
The Times's poll, conducted along with the U.C. Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, uses a massive online panel of essentially non-randomized respondents. The I.G.S.'s
methods disclaimer says that "stratification" techniques are used to adjust normally anticipated sampling errors, but of course less well-off respondents are already less likely to be included, and frankly, affluent Californians, especially at the beaches, have more time and knowledge important to political participation, and are thus more likely to give a big F.U. to Newsom's mandates. And given the dire straights of polling in recent years, in any case, folks should interpret these results with a large dose of salt.
And now the "experts" are saying it could be a year or more until Newsom's stay-at-home mandates are completely lifted. And about enforcement? No doubt
the Newsom regime's "suede-denim secret police" will be coming for your "uncool niece."
See, from yesterday's paper, "
California reopening would start slow, not be complete for a year or longer, expert estimates":
SAN FRANCISCO — So when might California be ready to really loosen up its statewide stay-at-home order?
One expert told The Times it would be a slow process that could take more than a year. But as some counties have pushed to reopen faster, Gov. Gavin Newsom is moving ahead with initial steps in the second stage of his previously outlined four-stage plan.
Newsom, who has said he understands frustrations with the projected pace of reopening, announced on Monday plans to allow some retail businesses to reopen as early as Friday for curbside pickup. And he said some counties would be able to move faster than others to reopen more types of businesses.
Some health experts on the local and national level have cautioned that some coronavirus restrictions — like sports teams not being allowed to play to packed stadium crowds — may need to continue through the rest of this year and into next year...
Stage 4: Full opening:
The full end of the stay-at-home order, allowing the resumption of:
* Sports with live audiences
* Convention centers
* Concerts
Expert forecast: This may not be implemented until the middle or latter part of 2021, Kim-Farley said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said that, even under the most optimistic scenarios, it would take 12 to 18 months for a vaccine to become available.
Last week, Fauci said it might not be possible for sports teams to resume play this year.
“Safety, for the players and for the fans, trumps everything,” Fauci said in an interview with the New York Times. “If you can’t guarantee safety, then unfortunately you’re going to have to bite the bullet and say, ‘We may have to go without this sport for this season.’”
Still
more.
Orange County's beach communities are some of the last bastions of conservatism in the state, and yet Republicans still couldn't hold these seats in the 2018 midterm elections. As long as the Democrats maintain their one-party dictatorship in Sacramento, it's hard to see the overall political balance shifting any time soon.
We may be in for some more rowdy protests in the near future, and I'm not ruling out political violence if radical leftists refuse the kind of compromises necessary to govern such a diverse state, one with a large minority of gun-toting Gadsden flag-waving patriots. Talk about one "long, hot summer."
