Gavin Newsom’s White Privilege: Instead of debating ideas, progressives call Larry Elder a white supremacist.

Gavin Newsom’s White Privilege: Instead of debating ideas, progressives call Larry Elder a white supremacist.

By William McGurn 9/13 Wall Street Journal Opinion Mainstreet

If the polls going into Tuesday’s recall election in California hold up, Gavin Newsom will keep his job as governor. But if he does, no one should ever again take seriously progressive complaints about white privilege.

Because if white privilege is a thing, Mr. Newsom is drenched in it. Mr. Newsom’s father was a well-connected state judge who once managed one of the trusts for the family of oil magnate J. Paul Getty. As for his son, the Los Angeles Times says that “a coterie of San Francisco’s wealthiest families has backed him at every step of his rise.” This privilege is reflected in the $70 million Mr. Newsom raised to fight the recall—more than five times the $13 million raised by his leading challenger, Republican Larry Elder.

“California has become the epicenter of neo-feudalism, and Newsom symbolizes this new autocracy,” says Joel Kotkin, a fellow in urban studies at Chapman University in Orange County. “The irony is that Elder is attacked as the candidate of the rich and greedy by this new elite—high tech, teachers unions, the media and some of the state’s wealthiest citizens.”

Covid has put this privilege in stark relief. While many of California’s public schools remained closed, for example, Mr. Newsom’s own children were at a private school that offered in-person learning. Perhaps the governor’s most Marie Antoinette moment came when he was caught flouting his own guidelines by dining out with a group of lobbyists at the French Laundry, where, the New York Times reports, “dinner for two costs more than many people earn in a week.”

In sharp contrast, Mr. Elder is a talk-radio host whose father, a former Marine, took two jobs as a janitor to support his family before opening a small cafe. Mr. Elder grew up in South Central L.A., and his former high school was featured in the 1991 film “Boyz n the Hood.” If elected, Mr. Elder would be California’s first African-American governor.

So guess who’s the white supremacist in this race?

In August the Los Angeles Times published an opinion column headlined: “Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned.” A few days later, MSNBC’s Joy Reid accused Mr. Elder of falling victim to “white supremacist narratives.” Another Times columnist attacked Mr. Elder for promoting the “white grievance politics” of David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan. Last Thursday a white woman wearing a gorilla mask showed up at an event to harass Mr. Elder. She threw an egg at his head. Not a peep of protest was heard from progressives.

Yet far more interesting than Mr. Elder’s race is that he calls himself a “small ‘l’ libertarian.” The tragedy of this recall is that California voters never heard a full debate over what he means by that. Because if tearing down privilege is the goal, a healthy dose of libertarianism is the ticket. For the antidote to privilege is competition and opportunity.

Take housing. Of all the reasons people are leaving California, the high cost of owning a home tops the list. Mr. Elder hopes to bring down costs by increasing supply, and he proposes to do that by reducing the environmental regulations that make it so hard for anything to get built. The green policies so favored by progressives tend to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.

Or take education. The recent scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that progressive California isn’t working for its Black and Latino children, with some of the nation’s largest racial achievement gaps. “If we determine racism by results, our public education system is among the most racist in America,” says Will Swaim, president of the free market California Policy Center.

This failing structure is fiercely protected by the teachers unions, which naturally back Mr. Newsom. By contrast Mr. Elder’s “small ‘l’ libertarianism” would give all kids the choice to attend a good school, whether public, private or religious.

Put it this way: If you’re one of the haves, California—with its beautiful weather, healthy lifestyle and great outdoors—has much to enjoy. But if you’re middle class, or aspiring to become middle class, Californian progressivism keeps you struggling.

With all this, Gavin Newsom should not lose this recall because of any privileges he may enjoy by being white and well-connected. He should lose because he champions the same dreadful policies that have priced the California Dream out of reach for so many of its hard-working residents.

For the same reason, Larry Elder ought not to be elected because he would become the first black governor of California. He ought to be elected because his market-oriented prescriptions are just the tonic for this ailing state.

Alas, California never had a good hard debate on policy because some of the blue elite in this bluest of states preferred to paint a black Republican as a white supremacist. Even worse, they did it secure in the knowledge that no progressive would ever call them on it.