The fires in California are horrible. My heart breaks for those people. I had a friend lose his house in a fire. Seeing what he and his family went through was awful. My brother-in-law lives up in Kenwood and is a volunteer firefighter there. When the wine country fires happened a number of years ago, they came down one side of his street. His side was saved by a change in wind direction. It’s a random act of nature that saved him. However, the same bad forest management practices that doomed LA doomed the wine country back then too.
Here is a photo of where the fire stopped. It was burning this fence, then just changed directions and died.
The bad thing is while the fires probably were not 100% preventable, better management from all levels of government would have made them far less severe and lowered the probability of them starting. California and the USFS made the decision that nature is far better than forest management. Plus, if you clear the brush and burn it animals don’t have places to hide and all that carbon goes into the atmosphere.
My grandfather was in the USFS his whole career. He passed away in 2010. I used to talk to him about his days in the forest service. He started in the 30s. Prior to that, the US had severe forest fires. Consistent fires over the years in northern Minnesota killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of land. My grandfather’s cadre of people felt that while we love and respect nature, people live here and actively managing forests does far less damage to the environment and civilization than forest fires. That means not only clearing brush but also means controlled burns and selling timber to timber companies. In some cases, it means clearcuts. When Bill Clinton took office, a new cadre of forest officers took control and had a different view of how forests should be managed. They were all for “natural” management.
We are seeing the spoils of natural management across the country today. When it comes to cities, people die and property gets destroyed. Every place isn’t like Yellowstone.
Adam Carolla went off on a rant after the fires happened. He has been talking about the mismanagement of LA, the state of California, and the United States and I agree with him. He is on the right side of history. He isn’t wrong.
But, his prediction about what will happen next politically I think is wrong.
California will not get red-pilled. The people who lost their homes won’t suddenly have a transformation like Saul into Paul and become Republicans. I think the psychological constructs of what is embedded into them are too strong.
Carolla is correct. Rebuilding will be a regulatory nightmare, be far more expensive, and take significantly longer than anyone thinks. California building regulations are absolutely bonkers. Many people will not be able to afford to rebuild because of them and insurance payments won’t cover the costs. Just cleaning up the aftermath of the fire will be a boon for crony capital left-wing environmental consultants. Everything revolves around climate change and a “warming planet”. It’s an incompetent cult.
Nope. The government in California will be able to deflect blame. There will be some people who lose their jobs and take the fall. Newsome won’t. The LA mayor will. Everyone will blame climate change and eventually blame Trump. Trump won’t have worked fast enough to get things rebuilt. Of course, he has nothing to do with it and neither does climate change. That’s on California and LA government. Already they are trying to redistrict the land from single-family to multifamily housing.
Here is why I think Adam is wrong in his red-pill prediction.
Remember, California is heavily gerrymandered. Election laws make it far easier to steal elections and stuff ballot boxes. Ballot harvesting is legal. The Teacher’s Union and SEIU work together to make sure their people stay in power. Even if everyone was red-pilled, it would take a massive effort to turn the tide. They would simply count votes until they won.
The other facet to look at is how political parties view situations and solve problems. Democrats always look to the government and increase the size and scope of it to solve a problem. Always. Republicans depending on the variation will rely more on the private sector.
Look at San Francisco. It’s a horribly messed up city. They aren’t turning Republican there. They are trying to work inside the Democratic Party. The private sector is still leaving. After the last election, they have a few new sane Democrats in charge, but it will take years to turn the ship around especially because the culture of the party is to use government to affect change and control.
Look at NY. Is it any different than SF? People are getting burned alive on the subway but let’s put congestion tolls in place. Illegals are crowding hotels, but let’s pass more rent control.
What about Chicago? Seattle? Portland? Is there any red pilling going on there? Sure, Republicans might have gotten a larger percentage of the vote but it’s still less than 50% and with the ballot harvesting and gerrymandering it always will be less than 50%.
Here is another issue.
Israel was brutally attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Some Jews who traditionally voted and donated Democratic woke up. Jews were persecuted on American college campuses around the country. Protest marches were organized around the country supporting Hamas, and saying Israel was a terrorist nation. Biden enabled Hamas and tried to slow Israel. He even had the boondoggle pier that sunk in the ocean. He sent aid to Hamas. Democrats endorsed his policy.
Yet, plenty of Jews voted for Democrats who didn’t support Israel. They still aren’t red-pilled and won’t ever be red-pilled if you understand psychology. Remember, Henry Ford was racist and Republicans are racist.
It is sad that people lost their homes. We need to help them out without forgetting about the people who lost theirs in North Carolina.
Further, it’s sad for America. California is an absolutely breathtaking state and the economic, civic, and political policies that have been put in place by Democrats in control there artificially inhibit economic growth. Slowly but surely, they are destroying California and the “California Dream”. That has an effect on dampening US GDP. The same goes for NY and IL too.
If the ham handed and destructive pandemic response didn’t change their attitudes, neither will this.
Yuri Bezmenov nailed it decades ago:
“As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell him nothing, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. ...he will refuse to believe it... That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization.”
Jeff, whether I agree with you depends on the day, on which side of the bed I am getting up on. Your post is from the bleak side. The arguments make sense.. But the problem with bleakness is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some people are beginning to wake up from the moral and financial atrocity that is the Democratic Party. Some people are changing and the events in CA will only inspire more. Will it be enough? Maybe not. But I take my inspiration from Trump. Fight, fight fight.