Being Real, She Says
As illustrations go, this one is worthy of note:
There are many things to dislike about progressivism, even just from a purely aesthetic point of view, and so we spend a lot of time on here ridiculing it on that basis, but it’s important always to remember that the main problem with progressivism is that it’s not true.
It’s… https://t.co/Wqs5FaS6JZ
— wanye (@xwanyex) April 7, 2026
Readers will note Mrs Newsom’s assumptions of accidental criminality – among occupants of San Quentin, a maximum-security prison – and her obliviousness regarding how much effort is required – how many accidents – to actually end up in a prison of any kind.
Such wildly inaccurate conceptions of the criminal demographic and of the psychology and motives in play, as expressed by the criminals themselves, have been noted here before, with corrective – one might say eye-widening – statistics and illustrations.
Update, via the comments:
Among the scrupulously progressive, there’s also a failure to grasp that criminal and antisocial behaviour is rarely confined to one sphere.
We might, for instance, revisit the outpourings of Nora Loreto, who insisted, quite emphatically, that habitual car theft is a “victimless” crime. Ms Loreto was far too busy applauding herself for mouthing the approved attitudes to consider what it is that stolen cars are very often used for, and by whom, and the rather significant overlap of car theft with getaways and other untoward activities, including human smuggling.
In the case mentioned here, a trio of burglars – with over 200 convictions between them – also amused themselves by stealing cars, endangering other motorists in truly alarming ways, and assaulting and mugging the elderly and bedridden cancer patients.
But hey, accidents happen.
And among progressives, contrivance and obvious falsehoods function as luxury goods, as markers of in-group status. Like rhetorical jewellery.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
*irony meter explodes*
It does rather widen the eyes. There’s a boggling wrongness to much of what she says.
Because some things bear repeating:
And Mrs Newsom and her peers imagine themselves our betters.
“The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
Ronald Reagan
Somehow, I doubt the First Partner has ever even served on any jury. She was raised in tony Marin County for criminey’s sake and never had worry one about being a victim of crime “accidental” or otherwise.
It must be quite strange, to waft through the world in that way.
“Stonehenge was built by black people.“
The word ‘probably’ is doing a hell of a lot of lifting.
Black lies matter.
Oh to be able to strap her into a Vogon poetry appreciation chair and force her to listen to a recitation of the criminal record of every inmate at San Quentin. Every inmate. Every crime.
A normal human being, if they had accidentally killed anyone, let alone a sibling, would be hardly able to live with themselves, at least not without a heck of a lot of support (from family, friends, perhaps therapists, etc.). They certainly wouldn’t go around tossing it off as something unimportant.
A psychopath, on the other hand…
She found Gavin Newsom attractive. Loveable.
Not, you know, creepy or disturbing.
We should probably bear that in mind.
I knew a man who accidentally killed his daughter by backing over her with his truck. He never got over it.
Unlike our host, apparently.
She and Gavin belong together. She accidentally killed her sister and he accidentally killed California…
By the way, the “let them out of jail” nuts attribute no agency to black criminals. Criminals are just empty vessels into which victimhood is poured. And of course they cannot explain how there can be any white criminals using their own logic. Also they cannot explain how in the 1950s (earlier?) (according to Sowell), blacks were in fact oppressed, but had the same or higher rates of marriage and very similar imprisonment rates. But never let facts get in the way of a useful narrative.
Such wildly inaccurate conceptions of the criminal demographic and of the psychology and motives in play,
I think I’ve mentioned before that for a while I worked as a prosecutor in a busy metropolitan criminal court in the north of England and where, faute de mieux, I was tasked with overseeing the proceedings in what was then still known as the Juvenile Court. Amongst my regulars were a small cabal of prolific burglars, in their early teens. They were from “broken homes”, and nominally in “local authority care”, an oxymoron to rival “Microsoft Works”, or “elegant combover”.
The sheer insouciance of the social workers tasked with their care, Guardian readers to a man and woman, was breathtaking.
“They’re just naughty boys” was a phrase I heard regularly, when what these odious little bastards were up to consisted of terrorising working class neighbourhoods on a nightly basis, breaking into other people’s houses and stealing VCR recorders, hi-fis and other stuff, which they sold to “fences” in a couple of second-hand shops, transported to and from the scenes of their crimes by Pakistani or Bangladeshi taxi drivers (presumably these latter were also enthusiastic participants in the mass rapes of the female equivalents of the burglar boys- this phenomenon did not break surface until a decade or so later).
“Just naughty boys”- as if the little buggers were acting out benign fantasies of rascally behaviour as portrayed by Richmal Crompton.
That was over three decades ago, and nothing I’ve seen, heard or read about since has persuaded me to change my mind after I came rather rapidly to the conclusion that the vast majority of lefties were and are moral cretins.
/rant
There’s also a failure to grasp that criminal and anti-social behaviour is rarely confined to one sphere.
In the case mentioned here, the trio of burglars – with over 200 convictions between them – also amused themselves by stealing cars, endangering other motorists in truly alarming ways, and assaulting and mugging the elderly and bedridden cancer patients.
But hey, accidents happen.
Again, our typical CWBChicago headline: Man robbed Old Town bank on the same day he got out of federal prison for bank robbery
I was the Chief Clerk at a DA office in SoCal. In my 18 years I probably handled tens of thousands of files — and everyone one had to be submitted with a rap sheet. I also ran thousands of CLETS reports (aka rap sheets). What I noticed early on was that, even in misdemeanor cases, it was rare if the report was 1-2 pages. Vast majority was 3 or more and a significant percentage ran over 5.
And when dealing with perps in their 30s or 40s, the charges went back to their teens.
There are just some people who are career criminals who see no reason why NOT to keep on doing what they’ve been doing.
“Naughty boys” play ding-dong-ditch or TP the house. They don’t have a rap sheet with burglary, auto theft, sexual assault, or arson on it.
According to wiki, before 2008 (when she married Newsom) she was a Republican. She graduated with honors from Stanford University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American studies in 1996 and Master of Business Administration in 2001.
Stanford University. With honors, 1996. 30 years ago. MBA, 2001. 25 years ago.
“…Cops caught him within 20 minutes, but he had already lost $150 of the $250 he got in the heist to a crooked crack dealer.”
Another CWBChicago headline:
Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be anyone less intelligent than Gavin here comes his wife and says “hold my beer”.
Practicing what she preaches.
(Via Stephen Green)
Wave for the camera!
Sounds about right for the vapid progressive mindset. That Alderman out of Chicago claimed the Layolla student killed in Chicago started the man who killed her. Like putting the blame on the young lady and not the illegal who should have been deported years ago.
As I responded:
In fact, it’s so not true that you wonder what else isn’t true…
Partly, I would guess, it’s a function of a social and political environment in which contrivance and obvious falsehoods function as luxury goods, as markers of in-group status. Like rhetorical jewellery.
Examples of the above aren’t exactly hard to find.
Also, high in neuroticism, low in conscientiousness.
To take victimhood as an example, it seems that the more contrived the claim is, the less plausible it is, the more status points accrue. With people being lauded and applauded – by the New York Times – for the colossal feat of going for a walk and remembering to take a coat.
It’s more than a little odd.
[ Post updated. ]
Because my toil never ends.
It’s just lots and lots of accidents!
Well, quite. As noted in the linked post, arriving in prison with 30 or more prior arrests was more common than being a first-timer. A pattern repeated in several countries. In the UK, 70% of custodial sentences are imposed on the incorrigible – people with at least seven previous convictions or cautions. 50% being imposed on those with at least 15 previous convictions or cautions.
And progressives tend to have very inaccurate assumptions about the types of crimes committed by those incarcerated. Drug possession, for instance, accounts for barely 3% of inmates. A figure dwarfed by that for murderers and perpetrators of horrifically violent crime.
Among the scrupulously progressive, there’s also a failure to grasp that criminal and anti-social behaviour is rarely confined to one sphere.
UNTIL IT HAPPENS TO THEM.
And for the sake of the Newsoms and others like them, I hope it does.
Not entirely unrelated:
Testify, brother. Testify.
Not unrelated to rumblings upthread.
[ Begins writing a field holler for bloggers. ]
And not even then, usually.
For instance.
See also.
And also:
From that thread:
But being a liberal is a real problem.
Let’s check in on the Green Party.
Okay, then.
From the link:
Acceptable only if “short term” means “until date of execution”.
Because they themselves are anti-social.
Hostis Humani Generis.
Seems they do, in fact, sell everything.
Now, now, let’s not be hasty. Scaphism done right takes a bit of time.
Good point.
See also, fare-dodging. Regarding which, progressives expressed their “exhausted rage” with a weird uniformity – not at the thieves, of course, but at anyone who dared to notice them with anything but affirmation.
As if habitual fare-dodging were some harmless activity, with no costs attached, no insult to the law-abiding, and no social degradation. As if the people who do such things, habitually and seemingly with impunity, won’t also be likely to violate other boundaries and take other shortcuts. As if their antisocial habits, unpunished and emboldened, won’t spill into other areas of life.
So yes, leftism does strike me as both morally perverse and deeply antisocial.
Somewhat related: Was women’s suffrage a bad idea?