For California politicians and health officials, coronavirus rules are as follows: No Thanksgiving for thee, but lavish birthday parties and trips to Hawaii for me.
That was the crux of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “apology” after he was caught violating his own coronavirus guidance to attend the birthday party of a lobbyist at an upscale French restaurant. Newsom smiled and laughed his way through an explanation passed off as an apology. “We’re all human,” he said while apparently lying that the dinner took place outdoors.
This while Newsom is considering imposing a curfew and warning ahead of Thanksgiving that gatherings with people from more than three households, like the one he attended, are prohibited.
It wasn’t just Newsom at that dinner, though. Naturally, he was joined by the CEO of the California Medical Association and one of its top lobbyists. And Newsom isn’t the only politician violating “the spirit” of the Golden State’s coronavirus rules either.
Democratic Assembly member Wendy Carrillo and former Republican Assembly Leader (now independent) Chad Mayes are both in Hawaii for a legislative conference, palling around with lobbyists at a Maui resort. Two other state legislators also reported purchasing plane tickets for the event in campaign finance filings.
Meanwhile, restaurants, gyms, and places of worship are all being closed as Newsom slams the “emergency break” on reopening. Millions more California students are being forced back into online instruction. All of this in the most populous state in the country, which already had the highest poverty rate and second-highest homelessness rate in the nation.
With California’s unemployment rate stuck all the way up at 11%, the very people out enjoying lavish indoor dinners and Maui resorts are poised to plunge the state back into more strict lockdowns with no end in sight. Californians have been living under mismanagement for years. Under the coronavirus, that mismanagement is augmented by leaders’ open contempt for the struggles that residents are being forced to endure by their own government.
This has been the case across the country, from Andrew Cuomo in New York to other California politicians like Nancy Pelosi. The blatant hypocrisy of politicians and policymakers goes far beyond the idea that they don’t care about you. They think they don’t have to abide by the rules they demand everyone else submits to because they think that their convenience is more important than everyone else’s livelihoods.
