As a public service to readers of this site, today I’m doing another installment of “Political Terms Everyone Should Know, with Martin.”
This idea arose partly because of my well-known, public-spirited, all-around-great-guyness, and partly because I am still learning new things that I would like to share.
For example, I recently discovered that there have been at least 11 World Wars so far. Yeah. Ilhan Omar taught me that. She also taught me that Somalis played many crucial roles in building this country.
Such as when Ahmed Washington crossed the Delaware to set up some Learing Centers and then immediately start billing the Continental Congress for tutoring services to non-existent little jihadi patriots. Or when Abdi Revere made his famous midnight ride, to warn the Learing Center fraudsters that ICE and Nick Shirley were headed their way for a surprise raid.
Okay, it’s Monday morning, so I had to start with a little levity. But I really have been learning actual, interesting political concepts lately. On Friday I introduced the concept of “clock setting,” which refers to the idea that the time you choose as the start of a series of political events makes a huge difference.
For example, the Dems who attempted the corrupt gerrymandering of purple-state Virginia’s map to produce a 10-1 deep blue majority would appear to be unethical partisan hacks. But they set their clock to start when Texas Republicans had gerrymandered their state earlier, which made it seem like the VA Dems were just fairly responding to Texas’ original offense.
But then I pointed out that in the years leading up to 2026, Democrats all over the country had already gerrymandered blue states very heavily. Which set the clock back earlier, giving an apparent rhetorical advantage to the GOP.
In the last several days, I learned another new political term, and it’s one that has answered a very vexing and long-term question I’ve had over the last several decades. It looks like the Dems have intentionally been destroying the big blue cities they govern, and I couldn’t understand why they’d do that.
They must know that if they don’t prosecute crime, give untouchable teachers’ unions free reign, and raise taxes on the most productive citizens, crime will skyrocket, educational quality will plummet, and the most intelligent and productive citizens will flee the city. What are they thinking?
I considered that it might be stupidity, or it might be total disdain for the normies who make a city work, both of which are pretty common in single-party Democrat cities. But the fact that those strategies are clearly degrading public services and quality of life would seem to be suicidal for a bunch of pols who are famously concerned with their own welfare above all else.
But now I have an answer: The Curley Effect!
Named after Boston’s horrible Mayor James Michael Curley (1874-1958), who served four terms as mayor between 1914-1950, the term describes a kind of “politics of exclusion.” Curley combined class warfare and corrupt patronage schemes to demonize and squeeze money out of the richer and more productive Bostonians so that they would leave the city, while simultaneously redistributing the spoils – in the form of patronage jobs, fake jobs and various welfare benefits – to his poor Irish constituency.
While this caused stagnation, decay and population flight from the city, it made Curley more popular with his supporters. Each productive citizen who left was one less vote against Curley, and thus a net vote for him. So the worse things got in Boston, the better things got for Curley.
Curley’s Boston experienced the kind of “urban doom loop” now being seen in Seattle, Portland, Chicago, and New York City.
And LA. Good lord, LA!
Statistically speaking, it looks like California voters will probably re-elect Karen Bass as LA Mayor and elect either Xavier Becerra or Tom Steyer as Governor of CA. This while there are two very reasonable and competent GOP candidates in those races – Spencer Pratt and Steve Hilton, respectively. And being “reasonable and competent” puts any candidate about three standard deviations above any of the hapless Democrats in those races.
But the Curley Effect has been doing its corrosive work in California for decades now, and the state has been bleeding successful, sane and productive citizens – presumptively GOP voters all – while drawing in the opposite.
The debates have been a humiliating bloodbath for the Dems, so much so that if they were fights, they’d have stopped them, and in a sane world, the Dems would have quit mid-debate and slunk away in shame, never to be heard from again.
But this isn’t a sane world. It’s California. So even though every reasonable observer agrees that Hilton and Pratt have been wiping the floor with their opponents, the Curley-adjacent Dems are still at least slight favorites to win.
I’m so jaded and tech-defective that some of the campaign outings have seemed like AI deep fakes, or Babylon Bee parodies. I’ll give you two examples.
A week ago, a truly insane ad ran against Spencer Pratt. When I first saw it I thought it must be a joke. But no! It was a real ad, from the AFL-CIO. It features a parodic, ominous voice-over style we all recognize from sleazy, third-rate attack ads. (“Congressman Jackson wants to allow Satanists to use your tax dollars to pay for sexual assaults on your house pets. Vote for Congressman Williams, and tell Congressman Jackson to keep his Satanist buddies’ hands off your schnauzer!” Paid for by Williams Committee for Stopping Satanist Dog Assaulters.)
This is a real transcript of the ad, which I swear I am not making up. But I’ve added my own bracketed suggestions of what a typical CA citizen might think, in reaction to each line.
“Spencer Pratt opposes using taxpayer money to build brand new houses for our unhoused neighbors…”
[What?! You mean “smelly schizophrenic drug users?” I can’t even afford the sh*tbox I’m renting for $4K per month, and now I’ve gotta buy new houses for smelly schizophrenic dopers?]
“…saying ‘it’s time for the homeless to get help or get out!”
[YES! I don’t even need the “get help” – just “get out!” Preach it, Pratt-man!]
“Pratt thinks LA needs thousands more police officers rather than more social workers.”
[You mean actual cops, who might be able to shoot a tatted-up MS-13 member before he cuts my head off with a machete? Instead of a blue-haired, nose-ringed liberal arts grad who can lecture me on the cultural significance of a Spanish murder-ballad set to jarringly upbeat ranchero music while a tatted-up MS-13 member methodically saws my head off with a machete?!]
“…and he thinks public employee unions should have less power, not more.”
[So maybe Rowdy Randy Weingarten can keep my kid’s schools closed for 7 years instead of 2 years, the next time the sniffles come around?]
“LA is on the right track, and needs to stay the course.”
[On the right track?! The RIGHT TRACK?!! If this is the right track, I’d hate to see the wrong track! Oh, I get it. The wrong track is Gavin’s $10 trillion super train that should be finished in time for my great grandson’s high school graduation in 2085. GTFO, Democrats!]
Good lord. That’s an actual ad! Pratt might have a chance after all.
But Karen Bass isn’t content to let the AFL-CIO speak for her. She’s got her own voice, and her own thoughts. And boy are they insane!
Here’s Bass on a matter of crucial public interest: the dental appearance of meth users. Once again, I swear I’m not making this up.
In an interview on May 12th, the actual Karen Bass said these actual words into a microphone, which she knew was on:
“How many people who are unhoused that you meet have no teeth at all? Why? Because meth rots your teeth. You can’t succeed without teeth! So there needs to be comprehensive health care provided to them.”
Holy cats. Where does one begin?
How about here: So you don’t think someone can succeed without teeth, Karen? Well have you ever heard of a little guy I like to call…George freakin’ WASHINGTON?! That guy had dentures made of ivory, animal teeth and various cabinet-grade hardwoods, and all he did was lead the best damn country in the world!
Also, when considering all of the hardships that typically accompany long-term meth fandom, do you really think that unsightly teeth ranks anywhere in the top 10? Where would you position that, Karen? Right above “gangrenous open wounds go septic,” two up from “the voices in my head say to punch the MS-13 member with the bloody machete right in the face,” and right below “fruit-fly lifespan?”
Until now, I’ve always thought that the stupidest possible idea involving giving perks to criminals was stocking prisons with complete weight sets, so that when the predatory recidivists get out, they’ll all be prison ripped.
But that was before I witnessed the wisdom of the Bass-master, and her Mensa-level brainstorm to equip our meth-fueled delusionaries with a full set of choppers. Because until now, the worst they could do to us was defecate on us, jab us with a dirty syringe loaded with a bouillabaisse of toxic infectiousness, or sic their tragically abused pit bull mixes at us when we’ve let our guard down.
But now they can bite our faces off too, with teeth that we pay for.
Well done, Los Angelenos!
All I can say is that if California voters elect any of these Dems as Governor or LA Mayor, they’ll be doubling down on Curley.
And if God doesn’t then send a cleansing cavalcade of fires, floods, earthquakes and locusts, He is going to owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah. And possibly Pompei, Hiroshima and Mogadishu, too.
Que Mala/ Crockett, ’28!
If you enjoyed this column, please share it, and click Subscribe (on the bottom of your phone screen, or the right side of your computer screen) to receive a notice when new columns post.
Martin Simpson 