California Democrats Pile Out Of Clown Car At Their Convention

The California Democratic Party held their annual convention over the weekend, and there was a lot to talk about. They didn’t talk about any of it, but there was a lot to talk about.

California is sinking. The legislative analyst warns that “the state’s negative fiscal situation is now chronic.” A sociopathic governor offered a ten-year plan to end homelessness, back in 2008, while serving as the mayor of San Francisco. Eighteen years later, the state has spent tens of billions of dollars to eradicate homelessness, after which the homeless population is much higher, and no one can say where the tens of billions of dollars actually went. Capital flight is accelerating. Major longtime California businesses are going elsewhere. Refineries are closing, taking a fifth of the state’s fuel production, in a state with a major military presence that requires fuel for national security.

So here’s what California Democrats talked about, and yes, there will be vulgarity in this clip if you play it. The mere appearance of Katie Porter should serve as a fair warning.

Here’s the Los Angeles Times discussing the rest of Porter’s speech as a candidate for governor:

Porter was also the most extravagant in her promises, pledging to deliver universal healthcare to California — a years-old Democratic ambition — free childcare, zero tuition at the state’s public universities and elimination of the state income tax for those earning less than $100,000.

Unstated was how, precisely, the cash-strapped state would pay for such a bounty.

An all-you-can-eat buffet of free stuff and Trump sucks represented the ideological substance of California’s late-AWFL Khmer Rouge party.

A single Democratic gubernatorial candidate is making an effort to de-radicalize the party in California, positioning himself as a centrist moderate who wants to solve problems and stop engaging in theatrics. On his “Mahan for California” campaign website, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan says things like this: “California is one of the highest taxed states in the nation and independent analysts have clearly identified billions in fraud and waste. Let’s make government accountable to results, root out the fraud, and require state, county, and local governments to do better by working together before we ask hard-pressed taxpayers to pay even more in taxes.”

Mahan’s speech at the Democratic Convention … didn’t exist, as the state party said he had declared himself a candidate too late to be invited to speak. Each gubernatorial candidate got four minutes to make their pitch for an endorsement from the party convention, so imagine how hard it would have been to wedge another candidate in with only a month to prepare.

But Mahan was a presence outside the convention hall, where warnings appeared about his secret agenda — and again, vulgarity warning, but it’s hard to talk about California Democrats without taking notice of their one consistent message:

“MAGA Mahan” is becoming a thing in California, as he says that we should stop wasting tax money and filthy cities full of homeless encampments should be cleaned up. See, he sounds like a disgusting Republican.

While Mahan didn’t speak, Nancy Pelosi did, and she started with the fun choice of tearing up her speech. See, just like when, you know. So stunning. So brave. So much Chardonnay. Click on the time-stamped link to watch a few absolutely agonizing seconds of the way she was introduced. I warned you.

Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff also spoke. My thoughts on that don’t exist, or I would offer them here.

Delegates had a whole weekend of opportunities to eat ice cream and play abortion games:

Evening hospitality suites were even more gloriously decadent, as delegates got a chance to drink smoothies with a candidate for insurance commissioner:

Imagine. How much fun. That would. Uh. If you hear somebody say “insurance commissioner,” dawg, you know you’ve found the PARTY.

The California Republican Convention is scheduled for April. In recent years, a statewide gathering of California Republicans was more or less a wake, but we’ll see. I don’t plan to attend, but if there are late-night smoothies with a possible future insurance commissioner, put me down as a maybe. These are obviously the political gatherings where one goes to solve California’s growing list of problems.

Chris Bray is a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army, and has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, not that it did him any good. He also posts on Substack, at “Tell Me How This Ends,” here.