Saturday, October 11, 2025
<![CDATA[California]]><![CDATA[Crime]]><![CDATA[Gavin Newsom]]><![CDATA[Illinois]]><![CDATA[JB Pritzker]]>Featured

Is Illinois, Not California, the Worst-Governed State in the Union? – HotAir

admin
October 10, 2025
0Points
0
0
Chicago Police Told to Abandon ICE Officers Who Were Attacked in a Gunfight – HotAir
0
Shares

California is big, sexy, glamorous, filled with weirdos, cults, communists, and degenerates. It has Hollywood, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, glorious beaches and natural beauty, wealth beyond measure, and it captures our attention for all these reasons. 





Its virtues and its sins are outsized. Gavin Newsom is the perfect governor for California, insofar as he is exactly what Hollywood would cast as a sleazy, slimy, greasy, well-dressed, and perfectly coiffed phony grifting politician. 

So it’s no surprise that many others and I focus on California as ground zero for leftist politics and as the example of how not to govern. It is the shiny object. The graft is Hollywood-creation-sized–how do you top the California High Speed Rail scam as Oscar-worthy in the category of “Most Impressive Looting of the Taxpayers?” Billions of dollars went out the door, producing nothing. 

Even the government failures are so epic that only Hollywood could come up with something bigger: the Palisades Fire, for instance, wiped out some of the most expensive real estate in the world, and it was only possible because the state government didn’t bother to ensure water was available, and the Mayor of L.A. was so monumentally incompetent that she decided to fly to Africa after being warned of the danger. 

Yet…I am pondering whether we focus too much on California’s glitzy failures and not enough on the sheer ugliness of Illinois. 

You can see why we don’t. Gavin Newsom is fascinating–he is so obviously fake but still compellingly attractive to many people, in a con man sort of way. San Francisco provides endless fascination because it is so obviously ill-governed, but still vibrant in its own way, and maintains devoted loyalty from so many. 





Illinois? It has fat, ugly, and uncharming J.B. Pritzker, and its signature city is Chicago, which makes a dumpster fire look like a fine place to warm up, since at least you are unlikely to get shot. 

If Newsom and California grab your attention because their virtues and flaws are fascinating, Illinois’ Pritzker and Chicago make you want to look away; they are so ugly and unglamorous.

I bring this up because, despite our focus on Newsom, Pritzker is a very viable candidate for President and, unlike Newsom, has nearly unlimited resources to slog it out through the entire process. Pritzker is a billionaire, a proven candidate, and few people understand how deeply, deeply evil he is. 

His ugliness and lack of glitz are, if anything, an asset. Newsom is a shiny object and will undoubtedly attract money and attention to remain near the top of the heap, but his candidacy will likely be more fragile because his appeal is a kilometer wide and an inch deep. He is a chameleon, and in the age of Trump, rough edges and resilience are more important than facile charm and glitz. 





Pritzker is, if anything, a more shameless liar than Newsom, but he doesn’t give off the aura of being a televangelist. He is deeply committed to promoting the worst, most evil policies of the Democrats–he is the most committed alphabet ideologist in a governor’s office, although he is so deadpan and unflashy that nobody associates him with the issue (his cousin is trans, and his family is one of the major funders of the alphabet movement). 

Most people don’t know how deeply embedded the Pritzker family is in the trans movement. 

And it is Illinois, not California or Oregon, where the state and local governments are most seriously but least performatively fighting for illegal immigrants. California and Oregon are bad and performatively flashy, but in Illinois, sharper elbows are thrown. 





California’s finances are famously volatile, and the government is famously wasteful, but Illinois is actually much closer to financial collapse. A state like California has the ability to loot taxpayers for billions, but its resources are so deep–all that Hollywood and Silicon Valley money–that nobody really doubts that the state is in imminent trouble. 

The 2024 State of the States report found Illinois had $51.5 billion to cover $224.3 billion worth of bills. The outcome was a $172.8 billion budget shortfall, which would cost each taxpayer $38,800 to pay down.

The accountants found of the $224.3 billion in bills Illinois needed to pay down, over $148.6 billion of the cost stemmed from unfunded pension benefits for government employees. The next largest line item was bonds.

Illinois? Its finances resemble those of a developing country. Nothing sexy about their problems at all, but they go much deeper and present a much worse outlook for the state. 

San Francisco has a homeless and poop problem; Chicago has a gang violence and murder problem, the scale of which is staggering. Its mayor is a communist, and Pritzker works hand in hand with him to fight any effort to clean up the city. He defends actual attacks on federal officials in the manner of George Wallace.





But he is such a lump. So boring. He doesn’t look like a radical. He looks repulsive in a normal way, not in an Antifa way. He is the anti-Newsom. 

I am not predicting, by any means, that Pritzker will take the presidential nomination from Newsom, but I think he has a better chance than Rahm Emmanuel, whom Democratic strategists are trying to make a thing because he is not insane. Emmanuel is an extremely smart, fairly normal grafting politician who is in the mob boss mold–he isn’t interested in destroying the goose that lays the golden eggs, just skimming off the top while keeping the system going. 

Pritzker, not so much. He is a genuine radical, if not a Brandon Johnson revolutionary. Rahm Emmanuel would be unacceptable to the ascendant left; Pritzker–he might not be their favorite, but he is a funder and an ally of the radicals. Gavin Newsom is whatever he needs to be, says whatever he needs to say; Pritzker is a true believer, while looking too lumpen to appear dangerous. 





Pritzker is, to me, much scarier than Gavin Newsom. He is radical in a much less flashy way, and far more likely to stay the course when the politics get rough for Democrats. 

Keep an eye on him. 



Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Help us continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.





Source link

admin

Related Posts

Load More Posts Loading...No More Posts.
© 2025 americanhertiageco -