Liberal California could experience political ‘awakening’ after wildfire disaster, historians predict
Californians can have a “reawakening” that could cause “political shock” among the nation’s top decision-makers after the state’s highly criticized response to the Los Angeles fires exposed the state’s vulnerability and leadership failures, historian Victor Davis Hanson predicts.
“So there’s a group of people in California that could incite a liberal or Democratic insurgency,” Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution’s public policy think tank, told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday.
That group of people could include the wealthy on the coast whose homes were destroyed or damaged in the wildfires that broke out on January 7. Several celebrities, including director Mel Gibson and actor Michael Rapaport, have openly blasted California leadership for crisis response when fire destroyed several Los Angeles neighborhoods.
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Historian Victor Davis Hanson analyzes how California could experience a cultural shift after the destruction of the wildfires in LA. (Penny Collins/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“So the shock of LA is that most of the people who were burned in Pacific Palisades or the areas around it were very, very left-wing and very wealthy,” Hanson said. “And that’s what’s politically shocking, because the consequences of their votes and their ideology have never personally affected them to such an extent.
“This is going to be an accelerator or a force multiplier. That’s because it affects two different groups of people,” Hanson explained. “It’s affecting the very rich. They’ve been firebombed for the first time. It looks like Dresden, and it’s going to be $300 or $400 billion when it’s all done. And they’re going to have to deal with the Coastal Commission, the Los Angeles Planning Commission and permits and they will be angry when they have to do it.
“The bottom line is I don’t think any California politician will have a national profile after this.”
The absence of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass during the first 24 hours of the inferno, along with empty hydrants, a malfunctioning reservoir, a lack of funding for the fire department and a lack of new water infrastructure — despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s support of billions for new reservoirs — highlighted what lawmakers and experts saw as serious flaws in to the state’s response.
The state’s response to the crisis prompted further criticism, particularly of its bureaucracy. In response, Newsom signed executive order on Sunday suspending certain state commission requirements, with the goal of speeding up the rebuilding process for homeowners.
“Goodbye red tape,” Newsom wrote in a post on X. “Through the executive order, we’re making it easier for victims of the SoCal wildfires to quickly rebuild their homes and lives.”
The auditorium at Elliott Junior High is barely recognizable on January 11, 2025, after a wildfire ravaged it in Altadena, California. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
“If he could do it now, why didn’t he do it before the fire?” Hanson said of the order.
Another issue that has been a perennial problem is the loss of Californians to red states. Dubbed the “California exodus” by experts, California has lost hundreds of thousands of residents over the past few years, many citing high taxes, unaffordable housing, crime i difficult business rules.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom defends his response to the Los Angeles wildfires as the backlash continues. (Jae C. Hong/AP; Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
Many former California residents have moved to states with lower taxes and business environments, such as Texas, Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina. Leading companies – Tesla, Oracle, Charles Schwab and Chevron – have also moved to other states.
Nearly 240,000 people moved out of California between 2023 and 2024, according to Census Bureau. This was the largest net domestic migration loss in the country during that period. Between April 2020 and July 2022, the state recorded a net loss of more than 700,000 residents.
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“They’re getting very, very angry that it’s hard to do business … and they’re angry about gas prices,” Hanson said. “And so I think there’s potential, if there was a smart, skilled, enlightened Republican candidate or political figure who could take advantage. So far, Republican Party he doesn’t know what to do. They don’t know whether to move to the left and try to adapt to that leftist population or to go further to the right and galvanize it.
“There are no dissenting voices … and I think that will change after what we’ve seen.”
