Tangle - California's election results.

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

We have most of the results from Tuesday's primaries now. One of the things many people were watching was how successful former President Trump's endorsements would be. Plus, a question about ammunition regulation.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about California and the elections that just happened there this week, specifically the one around Chesa Boudin, what it means for Democrats and progressive policies. There's a lot of commentary, a lot of eyes on these races. So I think it's pretty important that we do that.

Before we jump in, I want to let you know tomorrow in our subscribers only edition, we're doing something a little different. Tangle editor Ari Weitzman, who wrote our climate change explainer, will be responding to one of the debates that pops up in progressive circles, which is given the state of climate change, is it really responsible to have kids? This is something that has been the news this week. Some big name pundits have been talking about it. It's been percolating for years. He has an approach to the question I thought was worth sharing with Tangle readers. It is for subscribers only, so you have to be a subscriber to get it. You go to readtangle.com slash membership to do that. That will be a newsletter tomorrow coming

out, not a podcast, just a newsletter, but please subscribe so you receive it. Readtangled.com slash membership. All right, before we jump in our quick hits, I also want to give you some midterm results. Tuesday's primaries are now mostly complete. One of the things many people were watching was how successful former President Trump's endorsements would be in those races. I thought this breakdown from Politico was pretty insightful. So five of the 35 House Republicans who voted to establish a January 6th commission and investigate what happened that day faced primaries on Tuesday. Trump had vowed to exact revenge on all of them, and Politico asked how did they fare? Well, here are some of the results we got. In Iowa, Marianette Miller-Meeks

ran uncontested and won. In South Dakota, Representative Dusty Johnson won almost 59% of the vote. In New Jersey, Representative Chris Smith won 58% of the vote. In Mississippi, a 50% threshold state, Representative Michael Guess was forced into a runoff against a quote unquote MAGA opponent who attacked his vote for the commission. Trump did not endorse in the race, but people are wondering if he's going to jump into the fray soon. In California, where all candidates, regardless of party, run in the same primary, Representative David Valdau, who also voted to impeach Trump, looks likely to advance to the general election, though there are still plenty of votes left to count. So that's kind of where things stand right now.

All right, next up, our quick hit section. A man carrying a Glock 17 pistol was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home in suburban Maryland and charged with attempted murder after alerting police to his presence. The man traveled from California to Kavanaugh's home out of anger over the leaked Roe v. Wade reversal and the court's expected ruling in a gun control case. Number two, for the first time tonight, a Congressional House committee will publicly present evidence gathered about the events of January 6th. The committee's presentation will be nationally televised starting at 8 p.m. Eastern. Number three, the Justice Department has assembled a nine-person team to examine the local police response during the Uvalde mass shooting.

Number four, the House passed a package of gun control bills on a 223-204 vote. The bills raise the minimum age to buy a semi-automatic weapon to 21, ban high-capacity magazine sales, and establish new storage regulations. The package is expected to fail in the Senate, where other gun control negotiations are taking place. Number five, President Biden appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night, where he called on voters to make gun control a major issue and spoke about his executive orders as president. This is the busiest primary election week of the year.

Voters heading to the polls in seven states today, casting ballots in primaries that could determine who controls Congress. Some incumbents are sweating. There's the mayor's race in L.A., that D.A. in deep blue San Francisco, facing a recall after all the crime backlash. And concerns over rising crime could be what turns part of deep blue California red. Well, it wasn't just mainstream Democrats who had a decent night. It was a pretty good primary night for mainstream Republicans, as defined, say, not being so Trumpy. Well, some of the votes are still

being counted. I think what we saw last night in some ways kind of increases the suspense for next week. Let's start. On Tuesday, voters in California made waves by recalling a progressive prosecutor in San Francisco and sending a billionaire former Republican into a runoff in the Los Angeles mayoral race. The two elections were closely watched by liberals, conservatives, and political pundits across the country as a temperature check for Democrats and voters more broadly heading into the 2022 midterm elections. The New York Times, for instance, wrote that California sends Democrats and the nation a message on crime. Journalist Shane Goldmacher reported the two results made vivid

the depths of voter frustration over rising crime and rampant homelessness in even the most progressive corners of the country, and are the latest signs of a restless Democratic electorate that was promised a return to normalcy under President Biden and yet remains unsatisfied with the nation's state of affairs. Rick Caruso, a billionaire luxury mall developer, ran on a campaign of restoring order to Los Angeles, adding 1,500 police officers and promoted an endorsement from William J. Bratton, the former New York City police commissioner and chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, famous for his tough-on-crime approach.

Caruso will face Representative Karen Bass, the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a runoff. Caruso had 42% of the vote to Bass's 37% on Wednesday. In San Francisco, roughly 60% of voters opted to recall Chesa Boudin, a former public defender who made national news when he won his election for district attorney in 2019. At the time, Boudin ran as a champion of the progressive left and promised an end to the days of tough-on-crime policing. As district attorney, he eliminated cash bail, vowed to hold police accountable, and worked to reduce the number of people sent to prison. Reactions to these two California elections were swift and divided.

Today, you're going to hear some writing from the left and the right, and then my take. First up, we'll start with what the left is saying. The left criticized coverage of the election, saying it was less about policy and more about political apathy. Some argued that voters simply opted for the status quo. Others said the data did not support claims San Francisco had descended into chaos. The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board said the message was one of political apathy. Voter turnout was barely at 26% in San Francisco the morning after the election, the board wrote. It was even worse across most of the state. Sure, ballots will continue trickling in for days, but the story will stay the same. Voters weren't desperate for change, as one Los Angeles Times website headline put it.

They couldn't be bothered. It's been evident for some time that turnout would be dismal. On June 1st, only 15% of registered San Francisco voters had turned in their ballots, fewer than in the February or April elections this year. By Monday, that percentage had only risen to around 20%. The trend was similar across the rest of California,

where only 15% of registered voters had submitted ballots the day before the election. California is in crisis. So is San Francisco. Our housing costs are more than twice the national average. Thousands of unhoused people sleep outside every night. Elected officials and department heads are under investigation by the FBI. Thousands are injured and dozens die in traffic fatalities on city streets each year, the board said. And yes, we face significant criminal justice challenges that demand but have yet to receive a unified response. At the same time, nationally, we are facing another COVID surge, a never-ending series

of mass shootings, and a federal government that appears to be marching toward authoritarianism in 2024. Humans are not built to internalize this much trauma on a daily basis, but those crises and traumas make voting more important, not less. Yes, silence speaks volumes too, and you will get no argument from us that Boudin is a popular figure with a broad but disengaged base in San Francisco, but it was apathy and resignation, not overt anger or definitive vision, that ruled the day in San Francisco, but it was apathy and resignation, not overt anger or definitive vision, that ruled the day in San Francisco and across California in Tuesday's election, and that's simply unacceptable. In the appeal, Jerry Ionelli said the recall was about preserving the status quo. Whatever policies progressive prosecutors may implement to make the legal system less unjust, the people who are most over-criminalized and policed still suffer disproportionately from a lack of housing,

health care, clean air, transportation, and good jobs, Ionelli said. And in the end, we cannot provide these things in earnest without substantially raising taxes on the wealthy or otherwise fundamentally changing the way society works. Although decarcerating America is certainly a worthy objective, simply not arresting the largely low-income and black and brown people who populate America's prisons is not enough. But the status quo has created a pretty solid quality of life for, say, the realtors who dump money into the Boudin recall campaign.

Many of the people who donated to the recall effort rely on heavy-handed cops to make their businesses work, he added. Police are often agents of gentrification, and many of the city's realtors seem fine with empowering law enforcement to displace and disappear homeless people if it means they can sell a few more warehouse lofts. Having to see poverty on your way to a Hawaiian barbecue beer hall kind of dampens the mood, after all. Other major funders of Boudin's recall included big players in Silicon Valley like David O. Sachs, the founding CEO of PayPal, who also invested in Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Airbnb, and other major tech companies. Whether they realize it or not, these donors benefit financially

when the poor are warehoused in prisons and jails, stigmatized as felons, or shot dead in the street because those options are all far cheaper for the wealthy than actually funding social services. In Mother Jones, Samantha Michaels said blaming Boudin for crime is empirically wrong. Earlier this year, the San Francisco Chronicle analyzed police incident data to compare the city's 2022 crime rates with rates during the previous four years, Michaels wrote. And, contrary to what the viral videos might suggest, the paper found that overall violent crime in San Francisco had declined during the pandemic, hovering at its lowest point since 1985. From 2019 to 2021, according to an analysis by Mother Jones, rape, robbery, and assault in the city decreased by 45%, resulting in 185 fewer cases, 27%, 846 fewer cases, and 6% 158 fewer cases, respectively. That's a far cry

from Gotham. Some property crime rates did get worse during the pandemic, like burglaries, which rose 52% in the city in 2020 and stayed elevated in 2021. But as office buildings reopen and more workers return to the city this year, Burglary rates are also returning to normal, she said. And overall, property crime in the city dropped by about 11% from 2019 to 2021, according to police data. Homicides are another exception to the trend of falling crime. Murders rose by an estimated 30% nationally during 2020, the biggest single-year increase on record.

And they rose in San Francisco Francisco too, by about 36% between 2019 and 2021. Most were from shootings. But again, let's put the data in perspective. In San Francisco, the 36% spike in homicides equates to 15 additional homicides in 2021, compared with the year before the pandemic, when there were a total of 41 homicides. Even with that uptick, San Francisco has one of the lowest homicide rates of all major cities in the United States, roughly six killings per 100,000 people last year, compared with 10 per 100,000 in the similarly populated Washington, D.C. All right, so that is it for The Leftist Saying, which brings us to the right's take. The right says it is an ominous warning for Democrats. Many criticize the anarchy caused by Boudin's policies. Some say voters can no longer ignore the issues they are facing.

In the Washington Examiner, David Drucker said it is a warning to Democrats. In a pair of municipal contests that coincided with California's regularly scheduled primaries, voters in the two most consequential metropolises in the nation's most populous state delivered what amounted to a dire warning for the Democratic Party ahead of the midterm elections in November. Amid anxiety over public safety and pervasive homelessness, voters in San Francisco recalled Democratic District Attorney Chesa Boudin, while voters in Los Angeles made Rick Caruso, a wealthy businessman and Democratic centrist, the favorite in a fall mayoral runoff with Representative Karen Bass. In other words, even in deep blue California, the Democrats are not finding shelter from the political storm of

2022, driven by dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden poised to dislodge them from power in Congress. To be sure, what happened in San Francisco and Los Angeles this week hardly means a red wave is cresting over California, Drucker said. Governor Gavin Newsom and most other Democrats running for statewide office who advanced to the November ballot in the state's top two all-party primary will easily win this fall. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history,

and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. But if Democratic voters and ethnically diverse Democratic strongholds such as San Francisco and Los Angeles are punishing incumbent Democrats and pulling the lever for change

because they feel ignored on issues they care about most, it's not hard to imagine what awaits them elsewhere in the United States, in battleground states and swing house districts where Republicans are competitive and the GOP brand is not toxic. To borrow a phrase from Walter, where voters are more hospitable toward the GOP base and less liberal. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said if voters want safer streets, their only recourse is the ballot box. As California goes, so goes the progressive movement in America, and on Tuesday it suffered a major political rebuke. The recall of left-wing prosecutor Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and the rise of mayoral candidate Rick Caruso in Los Angeles are at punishment for progressive policies that have produced rising urban anarchy, the board said. The prosecutor had ridden into

office as a champion of criminal justice reform, which in practice turned out to be a little or no prosecution for crimes that have made San Francisco streets a showcase for drug abuse, vagrancy, homeless camps, shoplifting, and assault on the innocent. The recall is a de facto endorsement by the city's left-of-center voters of broken-windows policing. That's the insight that failing to prosecute minor crimes leads to a larger culture of disorder and lawlessness, the board said. That policing strategy worked wonders in New York and other cities in the 1990s and 2000s, but Progressive dismissed it as crime rates fell and voters became complacent. Mr. Boudin blamed right-wing billionaires for his defeat, which is amusing since he and other left-wing prosecutors in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere were elected with the help of

billionaire George Soros. Voters are merely catching up with the harsh reality of what Progressive policies have wrought. This is what happens when the left dominates the Democratic Party and takes power, but voters have had to relearn that lesson the hard way. In City Journal, Joel Kotkin said the results were an encouraging development against Democrats' monopoly on power in California. Democrats control every statewide office and seem assured of a veto-proof majority in both houses. They dominate local media. They are, in effect, the only party with power and reach statewide. And, notes analyst Dan Walters, they now operate in an increasingly stealthy fashion, with few worries about Republican or media scrutiny, he said. And yet, at least modest

signs of recovering sobriety emerged last night from two cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles, that have been the linchpins of progressive takeover in the state. It could simply be the case that some things become impossible not to see. In San Francisco, homelessness, petty crime, and a general deterioration of what was once America's most gorgeous city has spurred a grassroots rebellion backed by business to get rid of Boudin, the far-left prosecutor who was loathed to prosecute. The Boudin defeat parallels a similar reversal of far-left politics earlier this year, with the city's recall of three school board members, Kotkin added. A new centrist coalition could be in the offing, combining the remaining middle class with Asian

residents and business interests. Naturally, progressive C. Boudin is a victim of incipient Trumpism. In Los Angeles, too, signs of progressive failures are hard to miss. Just drive around or visit a park where homelessness is ubiquitous. Small businesses are fed up with petty crime and people sleeping in their doorways. And the economy, here as well as in San Francisco, has been slow to recover. Los Angeles and San Francisco rank near the bottom of all U.S. metros in terms of job recovery. The key issue for Los Angeles and for California lies in jettisoning one-party rule, particularly as that one-party shifts ever further leftward.

All right, that is it for the left and the right's take, which brings us to my take. All right, that is it for the left and the right's take, which brings us to my take. I'll be honest, I'm a little disappointed in the Boudin recall. As I've written here several times before, my most radical and left political views are probably my deep dissatisfaction with our criminal justice system. I think it is a stain on our history that we still keep millions of people in cages across our country, the highest incarceration rates in the world. It is clear to me that this policy of incarceration is not working to reduce crime or improve our country's safety if it ever has. Even worse is that we murder some of these people in the name of justice. Boudin came in with a radical posture, demanding change in one of our country's most populous cities, and I wanted to see how his policies worked. It was an opportunity to put many of my worldviews about criminal justice to the

test. Instead, the plug got pulled before he even really started. I know from being dialed into the news that San Francisco may look like a war zone of post-apocalyptic crime and debauchery. Fox News has, incredibly, mentioned Chesa Boudin 1,400 times this year. I've seen the videos of people stuffing trash bags full of products in pharmacies, and of elderly Asian people being beaten in the street. I also know from living in New York City that these kinds of news stories can mislead viewers into believing everyone is simply living amid this constant state of lawlessness and accepting it. I once had a reader explain to me that New York City,

where I live, had turned into a crime-ridden cesspool that was uninhabitable. When I explained to her, patiently, that in my eight years here, four in Harlem and four in Bushwick, I had never witnessed a shooting, robbery, or violent assault, and that actually the city could be quite nice and my neighborhood was very safe, she didn't believe me. She lived in Pennsylvania and hadn't been to New York in 20 years. The truth is, San Francisco, like New York and other major cities, faces deep problems. That's what happens when you stuff millions of people into a few square miles. The most critical issue in San Francisco is competition for housing, which sends prices skyrocketing and exasperates homelessness. Some 74% of land is zoned for no more than three-unit homes, and most of the city has a maximum 40-foot height limit for all its

new development. Until San Francisco addresses its housing crisis, it won't really matter who is leading the city. Many of their issues will persist. Population density, especially with such limited housing, often leads to conflict, which increases violent crime. Cities are often hubs of drug trafficking, which increases addiction, overdoses, and mental health issues. It is not easy to make a city function well. And yet, the image of a city on fire doesn't match the reality either. Many journalists and academics have made the points better than I can, but the truth is the data tell a different story. Chase Boudin took office in January of 2020. If you compare crime rates from January to June of 2021 and 2022 to the same range in 2019 and 2018, this is what you get. Rape, robbery, and assault are all down. Burglary is up. Motor vehicle theft is up. Larceny theft is down. By any objective measure, it's a pretty

mixed bag. Some crime has gotten worse in San Francisco. Some crime has gotten better. Much of it can be tied to the beginning of the pandemic, and none of it is that far outside of what is happening nationally, on average. What is frustrating about Boudin's ouster is that I don't feel like we actually got a chance to see his policies at work. San Francisco's problems long predate him. The difference is that he actually had a set of fresh proposals on how to address them rather than reverting to the same failed tactics of the last few decades. So, was it a rebuke of progressives or voter apathy? A message on crime? A reaction to the national climate? Some have even pointed to a list of violent criminals who were released and rearrested on Boudin's watch as the reason for his ouster. How about all of the above? I thought Amy Walter from the Cook Political Report put it best.

Quote, politics isn't that complicated, she said. If you're the party candidate in charge and things aren't going well, voters will punish you. In San Francisco, LA, homelessness and reports on crime levels have made voters feel less safe. It doesn't mean those voters are pro-GOP or less liberal. Across the country, just about everything seems broken. Gas prices are skyrocketing, the pandemic refuses to end, inflation is high, horrific stories of mass shootings still permeate the news, and things are no calmer when you look abroad. If Walter's theory is right, which I think it is, then the stories out of California are an ominous sign for Democrats in November,

many of whom are running as incumbents. Even voters who say the economy and the country more broadly are just fine for them believe things are bad for everyone else. As Derek Thompson has written, many Americans are in an everything is terrible but I'm fine mindset. What does this mean for progressive policies on crime? That story, I think, is a lot harder to suss out. Progressive district attorneys like Boudin have gained power all across the country, and some of the results

have actually been quite encouraging. Not all politics is national, and not every city may react the way San Francisco and Los Angeles just did. Still, though, if you are wanting for a fresh approach on crime and incarceration, you'd have to be delusional to see this development as anything but a setback. All right, that is it for the right and the left and my take, so we're moving on to your questions answered. This one is from Cynthia in Beaver Creek, Oregon. She said, I'm wondering why there's no discussion of control of ammunition in the gun control debate. I think this could dovetail nicely with your idea of licensing gun ownership. One would need that license to buy ammo. And even if we didn't have gun licenses,

which I think is a splendid idea, we could control the amount of ammunition bought much as we control the sale of cold medications bought today. So I've actually seen a lot of people discussing this, and a few Tangle readers have written in asking why I don't talk about ammunition regulations in the gun control debate. Generally, I do think there is an interesting case to be made here. In simple terms, it wouldn't matter how many guns were out there if there were no bullets to load them, or even if it was hard to buy the bullets. ABC recently ran a whole story on the quote-unquote feckless ammunition laws that allowed the Evaldi shooter to carry 1,657 rounds of high-velocity shrapnel, creating ammo. Current regulations often allow for the purchase

of massive amounts of ammunition and high-capacity magazines without a background check or even a face-to-face interaction, the report read. That being said, ammunition laws right now are pretty similar to gun laws. You cannot purchase or possess ammunition if you have a felony conviction or a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction, nor can you if you have been committed to a mental institution. Age limits are 18 for rifles and shotguns and 21 for other guns. What ammunition doesn't have is a background check system similar to those for guns, which would definitely be a sensible thing to add if you ask me. Federal law does not address high-capacity magazines since the assault rifle ban lapsed in 2004. One study published in 2019

suggests changes could help. There was a 62% higher death rate in mass shootings with high-capacity magazines, the researchers found. In short, yes, I'm open to even more regulations on ammunition, and I think there's reason to believe they could help even if it's just on the margins. All right, next up is our numbers section. I know these might be a little bit hard to follow on the podcast, but I'm going to give them to you anyway. These might be a little bit hard to follow on the podcast, but I'm going to give them to you anyway. The number of reported Larson-Reed thefts in San Francisco from January 1st, 2022 to June 5th, 2022 was 13,424. The number of reported Larson-Reed thefts for the same time period in 2021 was 11,151. The number of reported Larson-Reed thefts in San Francisco in the same time period in 2019

from January 1st to June 5th was 15,844. In other words, it was significantly higher in 2019 than compared to 2021 and 2022. The number of burglaries in San Francisco from January 1st, 2022 to June 5th, 2022 was 2,464. In 2021, the number was 3,343. And that number in 2019 was 2,140. So it was lowest in 2019. It peaked in 2021. And it's kind of coming back to 2019 numbers now. All right, last but not least, our have a nice day section. This one is about Will Johnson in New South Wales in Australia, who planted 15,000 trees in shelter belts that have brought his farm back to life. A shelter belt is a collection of trees and shrubs planted in a line to protect paddocks from the elements. Mr. Johnson said the project revitalized his property. When we moved to this farm, there were quite a few paddocks that didn't have any trees at all,

fully cleared and not much left on the landscape, he told ABC. The bird life has increased really well. There are a lot of small native grass birds that you see in those days. Now a group of scientists are studying his farm and others like it to see how sustainable these projects are and how successful bringing trees back to these farms is at revitalizing them. Turns out they're doing quite well. There's a link to this story in today's newsletter and you can go click it if you want to read more about it. All right, everybody, that is it for the podcast.

Like I said at the top, if you want to hear from us tomorrow, the only way to do that is to go subscribe. ReadTangle.com slash membership. You can become a member of Tangle and you get our Friday editions, which are exclusive content only for people who cough up,

you know, just a few bucks a month. Cheaper than a beer in those cities, as I like to say. If not, we'll see you on Monday. Have a great weekend. Peace. like to say. If not, we'll see you on Monday. Have a great weekend. Peace. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Thanks for watching! of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.