California Governor Newsom Risks His Kent State Moment
BY CHRISS STREET, AMERICAN THINKER, NewCali News
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s move to take Democrat leadership by closing Orange County beaches risks a violent youth confrontation like the 1970 Kent State shooting.
Gov. Newsom’s April 30 executive order closing Orange County beaches to slow the spread of coronavirus sparked a viral protest with about 1,000 mostly young and very angry people coming out on May 1st near the Huntington Beach Pier. Protestors shouted “U-S-A” and waved “Freedom: We the people” and “Recall Gavin Newsom” signs.
But Newsom knows that with over 80 percent of Americans still in support of closing non-essential businesses, the biggest political winning category for handling the COVID-19 pandemic has been America’s 50 governors. According to a new Harvard/Northeastern/Rutgers study, governors received a 66 percent average approval rating for handling of the outbreak, versus a 44 percent approval for President Trump.
The Harvard study found that Newsom had one of the highest scores for “Reacting about right” to the COVID-19 outbreak with a score of 78, three points higher than the score of 75 for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The two lowest scoring governors in the survey were Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with a score of 60 and Hawaii Gov. David Ige with a score of 55, both were blamed for failing to close beaches.
Newsom’s rise is especially impressive, given that the average of the Morning Consult, Monmouth University and Quinnipiac University pre-pandemic poll approval rating of just 42 percent, 5 points lower than the 47 percent for NY Gov. Cuomo. Newsom response to the pandemic kicked his approval up by 41 points, versus a 31 percent gain for Cuomo.
Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes responded to the governors’ order by stating: “The photographs I saw, quite honestly, were a stark contrast to what the governor’s acting on.” The Sheriff Barnes emphasized: “I have no desire to enforce…through arrest.”
Gov. Newsom has the authority to use California state troopers, park rangers and the National Guard to enforce his beach closures. But he risks out-of-control confrontations with frustrated young people, like the May 1970 protests at Ohio’s Kent State University.
Responding to turmoil from Vietnam War protests, the local mayor of the City of Kent declared a “state of emergency” on May 2 and requested Governor James A. Rhodes send in the Ohio National Guard to maintain order. As the Guard members began arriving that evening, they found the Kent State’s Reserve Officer Training Corps building on fire. With student and non-student protestors celebrating the flames and jeering at firemen, the National Guard members lined up and launched tear gas to disperse the protesters.
Governor Rhodes went on TV to proclaim the protestors were unpatriotic: “They’re the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we’re up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America.”
Protests against 1,000 National Guard troops simmered for the next two days. But with classes resuming on May 4, anti-war protestors screamed “Pigs off campus” and hurled rocks at 75 advancing Guardsmen brandishing rifles with bayonets. Twenty-nine soldiers eventually opened fire, killing four of the students and creating a national crisis.
Newsom knows the risks he faces if the Orange County protests create a violent confrontation. But he also is keenly aware that former Vice President Joe Biden’s bid for the Democrat Party presidential nomination may collapse over sexual assault charges by Tara Reade, one of his former Senate staffers.
With a Fox News interview with Ms. Reade scheduled for this weekend, Biden gave an interview to MSNBC morning show host Mika Brzezinski. But when pressed to open the seal to search his approximately 1,875 boxes of documents and 415 gigabytes of electronic records held at the University of Delaware, Biden refused.
According to Constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley:
“Biden’s refusal to open his records drew objections from advocates for victims of sexual assault. Biden also had missteps like calling the allegation “irrelevant.” The one thing that I will again raise is that this controversy should spark a debate over the privatization or control over what should be public documents by politicians.”
If Biden’s presidential nomination is sunk by the blow back from his former social justice allies or from new sexual assault allegations, Gov. Newsom would be the Democrats most competitive substitute. But Gavin Newsom better hope those OC beach protests do not gain enough support to destroy his political future.
