Read Opinion: Gavin Newsom's French Laundry scandal is no reason to toss him out (CNN)

Lincoln Mitchell writes that though California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made mistakes during the Covid pandemic, he has not done anything that rises to the level of prematurely removing from office.

My friend Dave Harris asked me about this article.

In general, I’d say that the Republican party is trying to rile up something where nothing truly exists. They’re feebly trying to inflame Democrats to “cancel” Newsome so they have a shot of getting a Republican in office. Sadly, the unwritten subtext here is that if a Republican were actually governor during the pandemic, California would have just followed suit with the Trump administration and fared far worse as a result. Where is their position on that?!

It would be nice if, instead of being against something like they are in this case, the Republicans would state what they’re proactively for—and preferably something that would improve the lives of all Californians. We know that they’re against Newsome and a progressive agenda, but why not tack a bit toward the middle and actually accomplish something instead of continually trying to split us all apart?

Their push on this front is simply an attempt at creating a wedge issue at the lowest level when there are so many, many other things that are more important right now. If they couldn’t as a party and we couldn’t as a country agree on the far more egregious aggressions of Donald Trump, then nit picking at Gavin Newsome is going to be a losing proposition, especially in California.