AMAC Exclusive – By Daniel Berman
There are few sadder spectacles currently than the drama surrounding California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s final years in the Senate, and the ongoing internal Democrat squabbling to replace her.
Having announced that she will retire at the end of her term in 2024, the 89-year-old California Senator has come under immense pressure from liberal outlets and many Democrat activist groups to resign before the end of her term, paving the way for a successor.
Some of this is driven by genuine concern over her age, worsened by recent health issues which have left her wheelchair bound and until lately unable to attend the Senate. Many Democrats have also expressed concern about the policy consequences of her absences, especially when it comes to the confirmation of Biden’s judicial nominees by a Judiciary Committee which is tied without her vote.
But more than a few of the “concerns” come from less selfless motives. Liberals who have never liked the more moderate Feinstein, a legacy of another era in California politics, have joined forces with potential successors who think they may have a leg-up with a Newsom appointment.
All of this is unseemly, ugly, and diminishes everyone involved.
Feinstein herself has come under escalating pressure due to her age. As she is set to turn 90 this month, there is understandable concern among some Democrats about her effectiveness.
These concerns ignore the partisan symmetry of the situation. Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican, who as president pro tempore was fourth in-line for the presidency from 2015-2021, is only a few months younger than Feinstein. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is no spring chicken himself at 81, and like Feinstein he was absent from the Senate for over a month earlier this year when he fell at a dinner, denying Republicans his vote in the interim. A younger Democrat Senator from California might have been able to exploit McConnell’s illness, but when it comes to “fairness” the two cancelled out on the floor of the full Senate.
Many of the “concerns” about Feinstein have been reinforced by the appearance of embarrassing photos in the media showing the Senator being transported by staff in a wheelchair, along with a steady stream of leaks. Some appear particularly dubious, such as a report that Feinstein was “confused” to see Kamala Harris presiding over the Senate, something which reportedly occurred last year yet is only now coming to light.
It is worth questioning the agenda behind the publication and distribution of many of these images, especially as they have appeared alongside attacks on her junior staffers by name, suggesting they are engaging in “elder abuse” by continuing to work with her rather than pressing the Senator to resign. These attacks included posting the names, addresses, and salaries of twenty-something staffers on Twitter, with the clear implication they should be harassed.
Feinstein, as mentioned, has never been a favorite of the left in California or nationally. Some of this is ideological. Feinstein, by California standards, was a moderate. Until 2018 she supported the death penalty and was a steadfast supporter of Israel, both views which were mainstream in California until the end of the 1990s but are now seen as beyond the pale, with even Kamala Harris facing attacks from the left on these positions when she ran for president.
Worst of all for the left, however, is Feinstein’s original sin, the means by which she entered political prominence. Shortly after lunch on November 27th, 1978, former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White entered the City Hall and shot Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. The dispute was personal and political. White, in the middle of a heated argument, had resigned his seat, and now sought to withdraw the resignation. Moscone, urged by Milk, a personal and political foe of White, refused, taking the opportunity to rid himself of a troublemaker.
The event, a tragedy and a crime, would have remained a local legend except for Harvey Milk’s later elevation to political sainthood as one of the first openly gay politicians in the country, and the forerunner of the Castro Street political machine that came to dominate San Francisco politics and wield inordinate influence statewide. Immortalized in the Oscar-winning 2008 film Milk, the release of which was brilliantly timed to coincide with the passage of Proposition 8 in California, the events became part of the founding narrative of modern, liberal, California.
That liberal California would take nearly three and a half decades to reach its apogee. In the meantime, there was a shift to the right. Not just nationally with the victory of Californian Ronald Reagan, but in California itself. In 1982 California voters recalled several State Supreme Court Justices who had struck down the death penalty as unconstitutional. Voters also elected Republican George Deukmejian governor over the African-American Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley in a result liberals have ever since blamed on race through the term “Bradley effect.” This ushered in 16 years of Republican governors.
The move to the right extended to San Francisco, where Moscone and Milk’s deaths ushered in not a golden age of LGBTQ+ political power, but Dianne Feinstein, absent during the shooting, who discovered Milk’s body when she returned. She felt his pulse and pronounced him dead, and she was the one who assembled the media, announcing the assassination. As president of the Board of Supervisors, she succeeded Moscone as Mayor, serving until 1988 when she retired to run for Governor. Defeated by Senator Pete Wilson, she subsequently ran and was elected to his Senate seat in the special election two years later.
For liberals, Dianne Feinstein was the beneficiary of the assassination. It gave her the platform that made her mayor, then Senator, and they never forgave her for this “appropriation” of Harvey Milk’s death, even though she did nothing wrong, and arguably barely escaped assassination herself. Her departure from the Senate, and ideally her replacement by a “progressive Democrat,” is a method of righting a historical wrong, and removing a memory of what for California liberals are the dark ages of the 1980s and 1990s.
These liberals have been joined in their quest to oust Feinstein by unexpected allies: the remnants of Feinstein’s own San Francisco machine, clustered around the Governor’s office. If Feinstein were to retire, Governor Gavin Newsom would appoint her successor. Newsom is himself a former Mayor of San Francisco and would be expected to give a hearing to a candidate from the region.
But Newsom has his own ambitions to consider. San Francisco’s dominance is deeply resented by Southern California Democrats who have felt excluded from power. Not only are Newsom and Feinstein former mayors of San Francisco, but Kamala Harris, former Senator and now vice president, was San Francisco’s district attorney before her election as California Attorney General.
Harris was elected, however, defeating Los Angeles Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, and that was the choice of the voters. But when it comes to appointments, the governor is expected to maintain a balance. When Harris became vice president, Newsom subsequently appointed Alex Padilla, a Los Angeles native and the Secretary of State, to fill her seat.
This tradition raises interesting questions for Newsom and implications for the 2024 Senate election. Currently, five candidates are declared: Congressmembers Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee, and Katie Porter, and two minor candidates. All three members of Congress represent Los Angeles area seats, meaning there is not currently a San Francisco candidate. The other two candidates are minor figures who have never held public office. Appointing any of them would both violate the tradition and be seen as interference in the campaign.
Ro Khanna, a Congressman representing the 17th district outside of Los Angeles, declined a campaign after extensive speculation. Khanna is an unusual figure. A self-described “progressive capitalist,” he lectured on economics at Stanford, is a graduate of Yale Law School, and has extensive experience in Silicon Valley.
The Twitter Files also revealed he was one of the only prominent Democrats to express concern about the company’s approach to so-called “disinformation” in the 2020 elections, objecting to the decision to accept requests to ban discussion of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Khanna seems to be less in thrall to California liberal orthodoxy than to Silicon Valley’s more libertarian progressivism, which makes him left-wing by national standards, but unacceptably heretical for California Democrats.
This, in all likelihood, is why he did not run. He has nominally endorsed Barbara Lee, but Lee’s own campaign seems to put little stock in his loyalty.
If Newsom were to appoint him, Khanna would find it relatively easy to both hit the ground running in D.C. and to raise almost unlimited funds. He would be preferred as a Senator by virtually the entirety of both the Democrat and Republican Senate caucuses over someone like Adam Schiff, who is resented for his obsession with impeaching Donald Trump. If Newsom has ambitions to either run for president or to enter the private sector, appointing Khanna would ensure him good will, while there is little the supporters of the various Los Angeles candidates could do to a governor who has little intention of running for office again.
This creates a somewhat bizarre circle. Those most determined to push for Feinstein to resign are the remnants of her own machine in the Bay Area, who see doing so as both a means of winning good will with partisan left-wingers and creating the best chance of placing one of their own candidates into that Senate seat.
In this campaign, progressives are what they have been for decades in the machine politics of the Bay Area: useful idiots. Their efforts to dox Feinstein’s staff, release embarrassing videos of her incapacity, and stage protests, are both condemned but also seen as useful to those who actually stand to benefit from Feinstein’s early retirement.
This dynamic was obvious when Ro Khanna openly called for Feinstein to resign. This prompted a backlash from the Senator and a statement which declared that Khanna had “zero influence” on the Senator’s thinking and may even have strengthened her resolve to stay. But the Los Angeles candidates were quick to indicate they opposed the calls for her resignation as well. It was clear who stood to win or lose.
The irony is that Feinstein, despite her age and clearly declining mental faculties, seems to retain the ability to detect betrayal and lash out. Often cited as an example of her decline, her lucidity in a hilarious exchange with some young climate protestors whom she rightfully called out as liars when they claimed they voted for her despite being under-age indicates the opposite. She was able to ask their age, then perform mathematical calculations to deduce they were lying.
Feinstein may forget where she is or what she is saying, but that has not stopped Democrats from rallying around John Fetterman. It is her lucidity during the moments when she remembers that is motivating the campaign to remove her.
The result is multiple levels of farce. San Francisco establishment Democrats allied with Silicon Valley are pretending to be progressive partisans calling for the ouster of a former San Francisco mayor for not being left-wing enough so they can secure an establishment replacement. Meanwhile, left-wingers such as Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff, MSNBC favorites who have declared Republicans a threat to democracy, are urging patience.
The whole affair is a sad end to a long career, and a disturbing commentary on the political culture of California which, under Democrat rule, seems to be resembling more the crude internal maneuverings of factions of the ruling elite in Iran or Russia than the open contestation of ideas in a democracy. The priority of every figure and faction is not to persuade the voters of the appeal of their views but rather to gain the seat without the need to involve the voters at all. Feinstein is correct to consider it a disgrace.
Daniel Berman is a frequent commentator and lecturer on foreign policy and political affairs, both nationally and internationally. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He also writes as Daniel Roman.
