Photo: Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Getty Images
Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass, and the 2028 Summer Olympics: All three, to different degrees, have been imperiled by the deadly wildfires still tearing through Los Angeles.
All natural disasters are, in some form, political tests, and they aren’t always fair. No government can save every life when a hurricane rages, floodwaters rise, or fires scorch thousands of parched acres in a matter of days. As much as technocratic competence matters, there’s only so much it can accomplish. Los Angeles, so bereft of rainfall, was due to burn, and no executive, working their wonders, could have staved off such a disaster. The Santa Anas can’t be managed away.
And not all the criticism of Bass, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, has been fair. The actual story behind cuts to the local fire department under her leadership is rather complex, and it’s far from apparent a few extra million dollars would have mattered in a cataclysm that is doing tens of billions of dollars of damage to the city. The department’s funding woes also predate Bass, extending back to the aftermath of the 2008 economic crash. Elon Musk has baselessly (and predictably) blamed the spread of the fires on a fealty to diversity initiatives; Donald Trump, on the attack, hasn’t helped matters either.
But the reality for Bass is that her political career might be coming to an end. She broke a pledge not to travel abroad as mayor, finding herself in Ghana on a specious political trip as the wildfires first erupted. She has struggled mightily to communicate to her city, freezing up at reporters’ questions and offering little in the way of inspiration for residents desperate for a leader. Los Angeles operates under a weak-mayor system with great authority invested in the city council and the county board of supervisors, but this doesn’t diminish Bass’s symbolic role in a time of crisis. Rudy Giuliani made a glaring logistical error in the years leading up to 9/11 by placing the NYPD’s emergency command in the World Trade Center — following the 1993 bombing, the department argued this location wasn’t especially wise — but he was, for those few months after the attacks, a national icon. He understood that his role was to exude charisma and sangfroid. (He returned to form in the decades to come and will end his life as a bankrupt Trump sycophant.)
Bass is in such danger because it’s straightforward to recall politicians in California and such an effort, as Bradley Tusk has pointed out, wouldn’t be difficult to fund. She is in the crosshairs of the wealthiest Angelenos, who suffered the brunt of the fire that ripped through Pacific Palisades. Her 2022 opponent, Rick Caruso, is a billionaire real-estate developer who could spend millions of his own money to drag Bass out of office. California voters, in a restive mood of late, already drove out the mayor of San Francisco and the progressive district attorney of Los Angeles in general elections last year and recalled another progressive DA in San Francisco in 2022. It’s not hard to imagine that she’s next. It doesn’t help that Bass, who spent decades in Congress before ascending to the mayoralty, speaks like a risk-averse legislator.
In a recall election, there wouldn’t be another candidate on the ballot; voters would simply have an up or down choice on Bass. Given her unpopularity and the amount of money that would be spent to oust her, survival seems improbable. She has to hope, above all else, that Caruso or someone else doesn’t decide to fund a near-term recall so she can try to recover her standing.
Newsom, meanwhile, is a term-limited governor who wants to run for president. His case was always fraught: California has been besieged by various crises, both natural and man-made, during his two terms as governor, and the state exists in the average voter’s mind as the locus of the national homelessness surge. California liberals, after Kamala Harris’s popular vote loss, aren’t exactly in demand. There’s a slickness to Newsom — an unctuous quality — that can be alienating.
But he is a genuine political talent and a fierce communicator. He gleefully debated Ron DeSantis on Fox News when it looked like the Florida governor was the front-runner for the Republican nomination. He relishes combat in a way few top Democrats seem to, and he’s quite comfortable on television. Reliable Democratic voters who want their party to fight again — and their leaders to not shirk interviews — may find much to like in Newsom.
The wildfires, though, could damage him. His many rivals for the 2028 nomination will be happy to question California’s wildfire-prevention efforts and water management. A Bass recall won’t help matters, especially if it’s successful while Newsom strains to save her. What Newsom will need to deliver on is a massive, state-financed rebuild that is both expansive and efficient. He will have to marshal his government for a reconstruction the likes of which have rarely ever been seen, all the while preparing for climate change — since Los Angeles likely hasn’t seen the last of deadly large-scale wildfires.
All of these goals will run headlong into the 2028 Summer Olympics. There are no indications the Olympics will be moved or that Los Angeles leaders will ask for them to be held elsewhere. Hosting will become a point of pride and a symbol of the city’s rebirth. The World Series, played in New York in October and November of 2001, wasn’t relocated, after all. Yet Newsom and Bass will need to confront a sobering truth: Building out the infrastructure for the Olympics while reconstructing whole neighborhoods is going to be deeply challenging, both logistically and politically. Residents might like the idea of the Games more than the actual competition for contractors and raw materials. What happens if homeowners find themselves running into delays because the Olympics become a priority? What happens if the wildfire recovery is slowed in any fashion? Will the city and state willingly fund the potential cost overruns of the Olympics? Bass and Newsom will need real answers.
