People of Southern California like myself have been on the receiving close of texts and calls from friends and family for more than a year then that confirmed we were safe from the flames ravaging Los Angeles County.  ,
A friend who lives in Alabama texted me one of these. He inquired as to how such massive tragedies may occur in a place like Los Angeles after I explained to him that we were safe and north of the fires. Able to resist the opening, I told him the government in California frequently, and in Los Angeles County particularly, had become sluggish, useless, and bloated and was no longer worthy or interested in serving its citizens. The president’s inability to respond to the flames and their actions were horrible and terrible, but in the end, they were not astonishing to anyone who has been paying attention. California had been stumbling toward some sort of catastrophe for some time.
My friend clearly responded with Hemingway’s popular line: It happens slowly, then immediately.
There will be day much to allocate blame and accountability for what happened in Malibu, the Palisades, Woodland Hills, Altadena, and Pasadena. However, even at these early rounds, some truths have been revealed about the deep-blue California and Los Angeles and the one-party, democratic system of government.
Second, worldview is not command, and management is not exchangeable. Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass immediately demonstrated her incapacity to deal with the disaster that was taking place on her observe within hours. California, a state controlled by the Democratic Party and where no Republican candidate is elected nationwide, elects its political leaders based on intellectual compliance and immanent traits. The end result is that far-left “firsts” who support the liberal agenda fill government positions. In one-party California, it is more important to have a person with the desired characteristics and philosophy than their actual capacity to do so.
California also picks its leaders based on DEI, and DEI usually falters under stress. From what Henry Kissinger properly observed, the intellectual capital that leaders will need to accumulate before ascending to the top will be able to rely on them. Democrats in California’s one-party structure don’t build academic money because they don’t want to.
Democrats advance through the social conveyor belt aided by the public employee organizations and their bosses. However, when they reach the top, the administration cupboard is empty. They lack the mental tools or training they need to navigate a problems. When Bass was questioned by investigators after returning from a trip in Ghana, she stood silent and shellshocked in a jetway at the airports.
If you are capable of surviving the issue, it is irrelevant if you are the first black woman mayor of Los Angeles. Or to quote Socrates, catastrophe bring politicians ‘ character to the level of their riches. The flames have revealed Mayor Bass ‘ character.
We are witnessing the decline of authority and credibility across all levels of government, and as my pal observed, it happened slowly, then immediately. In deep-blue southern California, the president’s target at all degrees seems to have shifted from serving citizens to low-grade philosophical preaching fueled by DEI. Little works, and worse than that, anyone expects anything to operate.
Los Angeles spent tens of billions on a disintegrating destitution problem that has affected some of the city’s roads, making them unwelcome in Calcutta. The state’s system is crumbling. There are frequent power outages and waters scarcity. It is completely plausible that Los Angeles may put more effort into painting fire hydrants with delight colors in light of this backdrop of failing and mismanagement to make sure those same hydrants had the pressure needed to fight fires and water.
And this is perhaps the scariest aspect of all. La is widespread. A Karen Bass or someone like her is a leader at every level of state, regional, and national authorities in California because it has embraced it. Perhaps she’s your town’s fire chief, more focused on achieving her department’s “diversity” goals and finding people who resemble her than ensuring firefighters are adequately trained and equipped for the job.
Bass is not an exception. She is merely the most well-known illustration of this new phenomenon because events conspired to highlight her and the spacious, costly, worryingly ineffective government over which she presides. She never had to become a leader, so her performance in the most unexpected circumstances does not come as a surprise. She is the by-product of a program that benefits and prioritizes qualities another than merit, ability, and skill. Unfortunately, the system that made Bass the president of Los Angeles is still in place and is spread all over.
Patrick ‘ System’ Bobko is a previous two-term City Council part and Mayor of Hermosa Beach, California. System is a happy Air Force Veteran and a student of the American Air Force Academy. He presently practices legislation in Southern California.
