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Once upon a time California was a truly great state. After World War II people were moving West. It was beautiful. It worked. It had good cops. It had fabulous business opportunities. Taxes were modest. Roads were being built. GI’s coming home from the war went to live there, went to school there, married there, had kids there, got educated there. Wow, what a place.

Richard Nixon came out of California. Ronald Reagan came out of California. S.I. Hayakawa, California. George Murphy. The great Pete Wilson. George Deukmejian. Even the liberals weren’t all that liberal. And most of all, California worked. But that was then. 

Now, it doesn’t work anymore, as everybody knows. So today is the big election day, jungle primary day, and the big race is really for Los Angeles’s mayor. Now I won’t forget my pal Steve Hilton, with a Trump endorsement — I hope he does well in the gubernatorial race, but all the talk is about Spencer Pratt running for Mayor against Karen Bass.

This is a very important race, but it’s not really a policy debate, and it’s not really a partisan political race in the usual sense. I think it’s more a question of whether moms can win back Los Angeles as a good place to live. And this chap Spencer Pratt is going for the moms’ vote. Of course it’s about the fires. It’s about the homeless, it’s about drugs, and schools, and safety. That’s why I think it’s about moms. And I have a feeling they’re going to vote their gut. It’s not so much about policies as it is about moms and their families.

My friend Victor Davis Hanson writes how the Democratic party itself has been hijacked by a bunch of left-wing Jacobins. Crazy people of whom Mayor Karen Bass is a card-carrying member.

Today’s Democrats don’t mind Nazi tattoos. They want the southern border to be open. Everything is about racism, DEI. They’re for cashless bail. Biological men in women’s sports. Arrest violent felons and put them back on the streets. Radical abortion on demand. And virtually no place for God and religion.

For some reason, these democratic left-wing Jacobins have completely lost touch with working-class folks of all colors, shapes, and sizes, which is why President Trump has whooped them two out of the last three elections: maybe three out of the last three elections.

As I said before, I really don’t think this election is a heavy dose of policy. Today’s election is not about Mr. Trump. It may not even determine whether Los Angeles ends up in dystopia or recovery for the next 20 years. Instead today’s election is about a nice guy whose home was burned in the fires, with a clever sense of humor, a lot of common sense, and an appeal to Los Angeles moms to please come home.

As governments across the world restricted the movements of their citizens during Covid lockdowns from 2020, people spent more time online. We bought more online and socialised more online, and this brought us closer to the people who want to scam us. At the same time, realistic video impersonations, voices, websites, and texts became more commonplace, and scammers increased their use of social media including WhatsApp.