The three-ring circus that is the race for governor in California has taken many a twist and turn in the run-up to the state's June 2 primary. Voters are straining to sort out a remarkably weak and depleted field and determine the two finalists who will face off in November and succeed incumbent Gavin Newsom. One of the remaining candidates, Tom Steyer, is doing his best to purchase a nomination with tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money invested in industries that are anathema to the very voters he is seeking to persuade.
The Cali Clown Show
After reaching the head of the pack, Eric Swalwell was forced out of the race by multiple allegations of sexual assault that could land him in prison. While Swalwell accomplished little as a congressman other than joining the cacophonous chorus of Trump derangement in Washington, he at least had name recognition and was viewed by progressives as a fighter. In his absence, the race has descended into debates about which of the remaining six Democrats would be the least deficient as a candidate, the lowest common denominator.
Republican Steve Hilton has conducted an effective campaign and is leading the pack in most polling on the so-called jungle primary that groups all candidates of both parties together on the ballot. But he is polling at less than 20%, and while the other contenders are splitting the remainder of the vote, Tom Steyer, the hedge-fund billionaire turned progressive warrior who ran for president for a minute in 2020, has lapped the field in spending, pouring well over $100 million of his own money into his gubernatorial campaign. This is no surprise given that Steyer spent the incredible sum of more than $340 million from his own coffers in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary before dropping out after finishing a distant third in the single election he completed in South Carolina.
Steyer has declared himself “the only progressive in this race,” a dubious claim that has opened him up to attacks from those on the far left who consider him toxic because his hedge fund profited mightily from investments in private prisons used to house ICE detainees and “dirty” coal plants. At the California Democratic Party convention in February, protesters donned orange prison jumpsuits to draw attention to the sins of Steyer. Of course, the billionaire has now apologized, telling the Los Angeles Times about his prison investment: “It was a mistake, and I sold it over 20 years ago, thinking, not that it won’t be profitable, it’s just a mistake. I don’t want to be in that business.”
Of course, he expressed his regret after making a killing off those investments, and now is touting progressive economic policies, taxing extreme wealth, green energy, and a single-payer healthcare system, all under the guise of affordability, the Democrats’ default mantra these days. But his claims have been met with widespread skepticism. “This election is about who you can trust to fight for you,” former Rep. Katie Porter, who is languishing in single digits, said during an April 22 gubernatorial debate in San Francisco. Referring to Steyer, she said: “One candidate is a billionaire who got rich off polluters and ICE prisons and is now using that money to fund his election.”
Steyer on Capitalism: Good for Me, Not for Thee
How success and wealth should be treated in the political realm represents arguably the most striking contrast between the Republican Party of Donald Trump and the Democratic Party, increasingly dominated by progressive elites who demonize success.
Whether you love or hate him, President Trump has always advocated for the system that made him wealthy, while Steyer epitomizes the quintessential limousine liberal. Billionaires on the right don't apologize for their wealth or success. But billionaires on the left attempt to explain away their wealth and assuage their guilt for amoral but highly profitable investments by supporting flagrantly anti-capitalist policies. Hell, George Soros got rich on manipulating currencies. What screams capitalism more than that? Yet Soros attempts to dismantle the very system that made him wealthy. And the same goes for Tom Steyer. Message: Capitalism is good for me, but not for thee. Help me get over my guilt by dismantling the system that provided me with excessive wealth.
This is akin to a person who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy from the court because he’s an orphan. Mr. Steyer, why was it only after you had accumulated more than a billion dollars in wealth that you renounced your own unbridled capitalism?
Progressives Twisting Themselves into Pretzels
Despite his heavy baggage, which also includes a less-than-likable personality, Steyer is still attracting support among the anti-capitalist left. But advocates for his candidacy are forced to twist themselves into pretzels to reconcile their support for him with their hatred of capitalism. A particularly amusing example comes from author Jeff Cohen of far-left Salon, in a piece titled, “Tom Steyer can make California golden again.”
“I generally loathe billionaires, hedge-funders and everyone in the financial speculation elite,” Cohen wrote. “I remain skeptical that someone as wealthy as Steyer, who operated at the heights of amoral financialized capitalism, can deeply understand and fight for working-class interests.” But … then he goes on to express his support for the exact type of oligarch the Bernie Sanders crowd attacks day after day. In a hilarious attempt at political jiujitsu, Steyer told the LA Times: “I know that people are skeptical of billionaires, and I’m skeptical of billionaires.” Nice try.
There is something uniquely noxious about those who build or inherit generational wealth and then renounce the very system that lined their pockets with gold. We have seen this happen among the wealthy descendants of John Rockefeller and Henry Ford, among many others, who have bankrolled all manner of massive left-wing projects that their benefactors would never have supported, and might never have otherwise survived. Wealthy and guilt-ridden is no way to go through life. Tom Steyer wants to change the rules after he's already won the game and left himself wide open to the charge of insincerity at best and hypocrisy at worst.
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