As I watch videos and pictures of the utter devastation caused by wildfires in Los Angeles, I actually feel sick to my stomach. The city looks like something straight out of hell, and efforts to quell the blaze have been hampered by short-staffed fire departments and absent water.
Some 70,000 residents of Los Angeles County have been ordered to evacuate; at least two people have died per CBS News. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses have burned or are threatened. The Santa Ana winds are blowing at 80+ miles per hour. It is, in a word, bad.
Gavin Newsom is to blame. And as Democrats turn their eye to 2028 and hopes of reclaiming the White House, this should end his political career.
He has been governor of the state since 2018 and has either failed to implement policies that would help prevent and mitigate wildfires, including water storage and reservoirs.
In 2014, Californians overwhelmingly voted to spend billions on water storage and reservoirs.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 8, 2025
Gavin Newsom still hasn’t built it.
Now no water is coming out of the fire hydrants. pic.twitter.com/seK4FOhGjq
Instead of building those reservoirs and water storage, they released the water back into the Pacific Ocean. Even Vox noted the mismanagement:
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Much of the water delivered to the Golden State in this year’s storms is now flowing back into the ocean rather than being saved up for the rest of the year. That’s partly due to inadequate infrastructure and limitations in how quickly the landscape can absorb water. But it’s also due to water management decisions, including deliberately limiting water storage in reservoirs below capacity due to flood control requirements. In fact, the state is releasing water from its reservoirs in the hope of soaking up some of the incoming rain.
In fact, they haven't built a new reservoir since before I was born:
FUN FACT
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 8, 2025
California hasn’t built a new major water reservoir since 1979.
But the mismanagement and failed leadership doesn't end there. In 2020, Edward Ring of the California Policy Center highlighted how kowtowing to environmentalists on forestry management led to widespread fires that damaged thousands of acres of woodlands and homes.
Year after year, environmentalists litigated and lobbied to stop efforts to clear the forests through timber harvesting, underbrush removal, and controlled burns. Meanwhile, natural fires were suppressed and the forests became more and more overgrown. The excessive biomass competed for the same water, soil, and light a healthier forest would have used, rendering all of the trees and underbrush unhealthy. It wasn’t just excess biomass that accumulated, but dried out and dead biomass.
What happened among California’s tall stands of Redwood and Ponderosa Pine also happened in its extensive chaparral. Fire suppression along with too many environmentalist-inspired bureaucratic barriers to controlled burns and undergrowth removal turned the hillsides and canyons of Southern California into tinderboxes.
In 2009, after huge blazes wiped out homes and forced thousands to evacuate, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich observed: 'The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today.'
In 2019, Donald Trump threatened to cut off wildfire relief funding for California if the state didn't enact sensible forestry management policies. As CNBC reported at the time:
President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to cut off federal relief aid to California for wildfires, prompting a swift response from new Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom that 'disasters and recovery are no time for politics.'
'Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen,' Trump tweeted. 'Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!'
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been helping on the ground in California after wildfires in November collectively damaged or destroyed more than 20,000 structures and killed at least 89 people. The largest blaze was the devastating Camp Fire that destroyed most of the Northern California town of Paradise, killing at least 86 people in the nation’s deadliest wildfire in at least a century. FEMA also has been providing help in response to the Woolsey and Hill fires in Southern California.
No time for politics, Gavin?
Environmentalists stopped all forest maintenance and now blame climate change for their laws that caused all this. Oh and they didn’t have time to maintain their water resources or make sure their fire hydrants worked because they were too busy painting all the sidewalks with… https://t.co/xlZ3ckrvCv
— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) January 8, 2025
Residents of Los Angeles are in this mess precisely because he played politics with forestry management, homelessness, crime and environmentalism in the first place. All of those things created the perfect storm and now countless LA residents have lost everything.
Back in 2021, homeless persons camping under a California overpass started a massive fire. That fire damaged the overpasses. Newsom has spent tens of billions to combat homeless and homelessness in the state increased.
And here's a homeless woman setting a fire in LA:
A homeless person is starting a bunch of fires in California claiming that "They're doing a good thing."pic.twitter.com/zL44VIaU4B
— aka (@akafacehots) January 8, 2025
I doubt this woman, if ever identified and arrested, will face any sort of jail time for setting fires. Because Newsom bristles at the thought of making criminals face consequences for their actions, lest he be seen as racist.
After Donald Trump was reelected, Newsom called a special session to protect the 'fundamental rights' of Californians. By which he means keeping illegal immigrants in the state and making sure women can kill their unborn children.
Meanwhile, California is also tens of billions in debt, still hasn't completed a high speed rail project they started almost two decades ago, and is dead last of all states in terms of people moving to the state (for the fourth year in a row).
Through all of this, Gavin Newsom has been the face of California politics. If the Democrats held an open primary after ousting Joe Biden, it was possible he would have been the Democratic nominee this year. He is certainly on the short list for 2028.
But these fires should torch and future political prospects for Gavin Newsom. They are the latest in a line of policy failures and poor leadership, and he cannot be allowed to implement the same disasters on a national scale.
Relegate Newsom to the ash heap of political history, where he belongs.
