Second-Hand Smoke and COVID

      "This publication will deal with the so-called public smoking issue. . .. If left unchecked anti-smoking 'zealots' and 'fanatics' could bring about an almost total ban on smoking."

                   Chairman, Reynolds Tobacco, 1976

The tobacco companies fought back against complaints about "second hand smoke."

In the late 1970s and 1980s tobacco companies recognized a threat to their business. Second-hand smoke was beginning to be described as a public health hazard, endangering bystanders. They fought back. They argued that smoking tobacco was a right, a matter of personal choice, and that people trying to ban smoking in customary places were tyrants. The tobacco companies had a motivated base of supporters. They smoke and they vote. Smokers had the power of intensity. People who preferred not to be around smokers cared less strongly than did smokers who wanted to continue smoking. The right not to experience second hand smoke was less developed in law and custom than the right to smoke nearly anywhere, anytime, and any place.

In the 1980s tobacco companies created free-distribution magazines to promote their point of view, and a content analysis of it will seem familiar and very current. A 1995 academic article in the Journal of Public Health published an analysis of 58 issues of several smokers' rights publications, 1987-1992.  Click: PDF

To address the overall perceived threat to smokers the publications presented "individual rights, choice and freedom as the ideal."

The publications' intent to undermine the opposition was done by citing questions regarding "scientific evidence related to the health hazards of environmental tobacco smoke." Maybe others weren't really affected. Who knows? The publications attacked the motivations of people promoting no-smoking areas.

Publications encouraged readers to oppose unfair discrimination about public smoking. They were victims. Instead, they urged "accommodation, tolerance, common sense, and courtesy as a rational alternative to government intrusion, rights infringement, and restrictive nonsmoking policies." People concerned about second-hand smoke should back off mandates. Let people choose not to smoke around you.

Over the past 40 years the smoke-anywhere movement lost ground. Now the default cultural and legal presumption is that bystanders are protected from second-hand smoke. Public complaints about smoking in restaurants, and lawsuits over workplace safety for employees experiencing second-hand smoke hastened the switch. Over the decades American culture shifted the balance of whose rights were primary--smoker or bystander. Some minds were changed. People formerly smoked in airplanes and in hospitals, now it is unthinkable. The population changed, too. Old people with old expectations died; young people have never experienced a world in which smokers smoked indoors in public places.

Tobacco kills, but it kills people slowly, in a hit-or-miss fashion, with ambiguity about other potential causes, and it tends to kill people who are old enough that their deaths are not unexpected. Everyone dies. Tobacco sometimes--not always--accelerates the timing of the death. COVID appears to act in a similar way, with some hits and misses among the young, but primarily accelerating the time of death for the vulnerable and elderly. The result is that people inclined to ignore the risks of both smoking and COVID have anecdotal evidence to support their point of view.

Trump and the GOP did not need to invent a strategy to dismiss COVID as an over-reaction by the nanny stated. A familiar template existed in the second-hand tobacco battle: Call it a matter of choice and rights and the proponents tyrants.

 A familiar template also exists on the other side, for increasing the vaccination rate. Increase the overall "cost" of being unvaccinated. Government and private businesses have an interest in the safety of customers and employees. If unvaccinated people are inconvenienced by higher insurance premiums, by frequent testing, by job loss, or are banned from airplanes or sporting events--the COVID equivalent of standing outside in the rain to smoke--then people may decide that vaccination avoidance just isn't worth the hassle. Heads up to Democrats, though. It took two decades.

Is Gavin Newsom TOO good looking?

Cliche: "Washington is Hollywood for ugly people."

   

But what if the person isn't ugly?

I ask the question in all seriousness: Is Gavin Newsom too Hollywood-handsome to be a candidate for president?

Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, moved from a regional figure to a national one. 

He soundly defeated the recall campaign against him and he received two priceless gifts. One was that Larry Elder, a right wing, Trump-supporting, talk radio provocateur was the alternative candidate. That meant that for a wide swath of Americans, the choice was between Newsom and disaster. Elder was attempting to be a famous social media influencer, so the more extreme and controversial he sounded, the better--a perfect foil for Newsom. The other gift was Trump, who said the election would be rigged. People remotely open to Newsom are sick and tired of hearing Trump on anything, especially that. Newsom was not a Democratic hero on the national stage until Trump attacked him--and Trump came through for him.

Newsom is positioned as a very plausible alternative to Kamala Harris for a 2024 run for the presidency.  As a California governor he is fully "qualified" for the office, and as an outsider to Washington, his story is not complicated by the inside-baseball business of D.C. For better or worse, his is the "California" story, a place with a robust economy built on future-oriented industries. Some will love it, some will fear it. Fate handed Newsom an opportunity. He could be the "press reset" Democrat, who would start a new chapter for Democrats. 

There is also the personal brand, the way he looks and talks. Politicians rise or fall on that first-glance impression they give off. Too many people thought Elizabeth Warren seemed like a lecturing schoolteacher for her to succeed. Biden gives off enough signals of age and frailty that he is continually hounded by accusations of senility. Politicians have a vibe.

I look at Gavin Newsom and have an immediate flash of distaste. He looks like an actor, not a politician. He is too tall, too good looking, too well groomed, too photogenic. He comes across to me as looking like the smug, over-confident rich guy in the Columbo series, the character who thinks he can get away with murder but who under-estimates Detective Columbo. Or, in the formulaic romantic comedy dramas on the Hallmark channel, he looks like the guy who does not get the girl because he is so self-absorbed. He is the one who gets dumped in favor of the wholesome nice guy from her home town.

I recognize all this is unfair. It is a mean-spirited and facile gut reaction. There is something about the way he combs back the hair on the side of his head, or the perfect hair on top, which strikes me as an irritating mark of wealth and privilege. His unwise dinner at the fancy Napa restaurant had incredible traction with the public. People saw it as arrogant hypocrisy. In politics gut reactions matter; if I am inclined to an instant bad vibe, maybe others are, too.

Or maybe I am a false alarm. JFK was photogenic and it was an asset for him. We like to see nice-looking people on TV.  It is unquestionably an asset for female politicians. Tulsi Gabbard and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both look great. Gabbard wears form fitting primary colors. AOC has a sassy, but now very professional look combined with star quality. Fox News made mistake when they showed images of her dancing when she was a Boston University student and said, Oh, what a silly girl.  Americas looked at her dancing and thought they wanted to see more.

I have been urging Democrats to have a leader with star power, and with Newsom I am looking at someone with it. Even Fox News' choice of photos, often designed to make Democrats look homely or addled or dangerous and here depicting news that Newsom's children have COVID, gives Newsom a handsome, movie-star look.

Fox's photo: Newsom's children have COVID

A college classmate, Tony Farrell, is a brand and marketing expert who has shared Guest Post opinions with readers of this blog. (Readers have seen his work. He managed the Trump Steaks brand. Don't blame Tony for that failure. Trump Steaks failed because the steaks were awesomely overpriced and were no different from ones people could buy anywhere.) Farrell wrote me saying, "I actually believe such out-of-this-world appearance is more positive than negative; almost everyone sees him on screen, and, on screen, people are used to seeing such unusual appearances."

Farrell went on, "Newsom's appearance is awesome. In real life, up close, you can't stop looking up (he is so tall) at his hair."

The problem for Newsom, Farrell said, isn't glamour. It "comes down to how Gavin talks. He is totally crazy ridiculous and everyone will perceive it as being talked down to. They will be put off by his politics, too. They are super progressive. He is as risky as Hillary ever was in terms of likely Presidential election success."

We are likely to see more of Newsom speaking out on national topics. He has a future. He makes an impression.

If you were casting him in a movie, is he the good guy? Maybe so. Maybe he will grow on me.

Covid breakthrough. An UpClose Report

Breakthrough cases can happen. 

Vaccination probably saved his life.

Christopher Drayton

A Guest Post report from the front lines of the COVID war. 

Christopher Drayton, age 67, a resident of Minnesota, reads this blog. He was a former client from back when I was a Financial Advisor. He fits the demographic of the people least likely to get the disease because he is vaccinated, COVID conscious, highly informed about infection control, and he was able to arrange his life in a way to minimize contact with people likely to be infected.

He got it anyway. 

Chris Drayton is an exception. Few vaccinated people get a serious breakthrough case. But as this blog noted a week ago, much of public opinion on COVID comes from learning the personal experiences of people who have the disease and who then tell people about it. The people who do the talking are the survivors. For a great many people, COVID symptoms are mild. Sometimes they aren't. Christopher Drayton had the disease and this is his story.

Guest Post by Chris Drayton

A little about me.

I am retired but for many years I managed biopharmaceutical and immunodiagnostics engineering. I understand contamination controls on a deeply practical level, masks, airflow, turbulence, HVAC systems, exposure length, and particle concentration. I have tried to identify and minimize risk where I could in my daily activities.

My career included 35 years of manufacturing, engineering, R&D, supply chain management in biopharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostics industries. I’ve been responsible for design, validation, and operations for aseptic filling of IV injectable biologics. I completed the schematic design of a veterinary vaccine production facility as a consultant. I was a member of a Phase 3 clinical trial design team for an anti-rejection biologic for organ transplant patients. 

In March I was vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. 

I think I’m in pretty good shape for my age. I play basketball outside in the summers and have no general physical limitations. I am 67 and have asthma and a history of respiratory infections, though it was under good control and have had no infections for the past seven years. Because of that history I kept up most of the pre-vaccination precautions I had been practicing. Still, after vaccination, I partially came out of isolation. I was excited to be able to have dinner with old (vaccinated) friends.

Then three weeks ago, on a Tuesday, I started feeling the familiar symptoms of a sinus infection, facial pain and a developing cough. I thought I understood what was happening. After all, I was vaccinated and have felt this way before. By that Friday my temperature was up to 103.4. I was coughing. It was continuous and severe. Every cough hurt my head like being smacked with a hammer. This was unusually bad, but I had had respiratory infections in the past and got over them. I was not surprised when on Sunday morning--four days after the first symptom--I felt good and went out to buy milk. 

Two hours later all the symptoms came crashing back.

Monday to Wednesday, days six through eight, were more of the same. I felt weak. I had a headache. I was coughing. Those three days were a blur and I can barely remember that time except I was not eating or sleeping. By then I had self-diagnosed and assured myself that whatever it was, it couldn't be COVID. After all, I was vaccinated. 

One thing might have tipped me off that this infection was different. When I have had bacterial pneumonia the progression is to less and less lung volume capacity.  Eventually it is as if you can only get a teaspoon of air with each breath.  With this infection I could expand and contract my lungs normally, I just couldn't get the oxygen I needed. 

By Thursday--day nine--at 3 a.m. things were getting worse. I was coughing and short of breath and I decided to drive to the ER. They took a swab sample for COVID PCR testing and it came back positive. I was shocked, I still can’t figure out what I did wrong. They found me a room, admitted me, and started me on oxygen. My oxygen was down to 83%, but the oxygen tubes started to bring me back. I was bedridden but no longer felt I was gasping for breath. They gave me 4 IV infusions of Remdesivir, steroids, and anticoagulants. I was not in the ICU but in a controlled-access room at the end of a hall. There was a lot gowning/ungowning, masks and shields, blood draws and vital signs, and checks at all hours. 

In Recovery

The hospital was stressed but not overwhelmed at the time. I began feeling better. Sunday I was released. That was day 13.

It isn't over. Now, in the third week, I have low fevers, sweating, headaches, chest pain, and can walk about half a block. I’m told to expect weeks of slow progress. 

I had a very rare breakthrough infection with severe symptoms. I was lucky to get a room at that hospital and lucky not to progress to intubation. Several doctors said to me that being vaccinated may have saved my life. 

I am also lucky to have good insurance backed by Medicare. At this point I have no idea what all this is going to cost.

 

COVID: "Too tough to care"

Democrats have been talking about protecting your health. 

Republicans have been talking about protecting your personal choices and autonomy.

Two different frames. This seems familiar. I remember a corny movie from high school.

In 1964 the Surgeon General announced that the scientific data were clear, and cigarette smoking caused cancer and heart disease. Many people smoked and didn't want to believe the Surgeon General, and even if they did, they didn't want to do anything about it. Quitting is hard. Getting started is easy, and many people started smoking in high school. 

In 1966 I sat in a Medford High School auditorium and saw a 19-minute movie designed to convince young people not to start smoking. The movie was titled "Too Tough to Care."

The imaginary cigarette brand

Readers my age may remember being bored or embarrassed during movies like this one, "educational" films assigned to high school students on subjects like safe driving and sex education. This one was unusual. It was funny. It didn't focus on x-ray images of diseased lungs. It was a goofy look at a fictional advertising campaign.

I have been writing about political framing for five years. The movie was the first exposure I remember that depicted conscious and manipulative frame switching as an instrument of persuasion. The movie wasn't preachy and it wasn't even mostly about tobacco. It was about messaging. The movie will seem dated and juvenile, but that is part of its charm. It is an unintended commentary on today's COVID debate. Here is a link: Click 

Clever Ad Man

After watching the movie during home room I remember talking with my friends about how clever the movie was in shifting the argument. It was the kind of thing I was just learning to do in debate class.

In the movie an imaginary cigarette company executive urged his advertising creator to figure out how to make cigarettes appealing to young people. They tried showing six-year-olds smoking at birthday parties. That didn't work. Nor did showing teenagers smiling while smoking. Neither disposed of the problem that cigarettes were dangerous.

The advertising creator came up with a solution: Make cigarettes a matter of courage and independence. Show cowboys. Show athletes. Show chin-up tough people. Don't fight the fact that smoking is dangerous. Embrace it. Associate smoking with fearless independence notwithstanding the danger. He created a slogan for Finster cigarettes: Too tough to care. Do cigarettes cause cancer? So what!  Are you going to let scientists scare you out of doing something you enjoy? No!  

Tough enough to smoke anywhere

Today Democrats and Republicans are talking past each other. Democrats treat COVID as a serious health problem requiring serious solutions. Trump, early on, said COVID is just a flu. It will disappear when the weather warms. Don't let COVID dominate you. Trump defined it as a test of American toughness.

Fox News, Republican officeholders, and Trump's supporters generally went along, and they settled in on an approach: Don't let Democrats and Dr. Fauci and the science do-gooders tell you what to do. A statewide poll taken last week reports that 20% of Oregonians do not ever plan to get vaccinated. They don't need it, don't want it, don't trust it.  

Neighbor's sign

A neighbor at my farm tells me he will lose his job because he refuses to get vaccinated. Local hospitals are overflowing with COVID patients and local news media report daily on the health risks for the unvaccinated, but no matter. My neighbor put up this sign. Politically conservative,  religious, rural residents like my neighbor do not see this as a personal or public health concern. Vaccinations are about not getting pushed around by supposed scientific experts.

Is COVID dangerous? Maybe, maybe not, but either way, he's too tough to care.

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Elections don't matter.

There is a new normal: Republicans need not accept elections.

Norms are what matter.

     ". . . That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .."

                   Declaration of Independence

The words of the Declaration reflect Enlightenment ideals. They also, in the long run, reflect practical reality of political power. The will of the people is like gravity or the tides. Eventually it determines everything. 

Americans don't eat rats, and are most of us are disgusted at the prospect, although rats are commonly eaten by people in Southeast Asia. Culture and norms matter.

The norms of the American republic changed. What was unthinkable two decades ago--that a president can ignore an election, throw out ballots, and stay in office--now has the enthusiastic support, or silent consent, of leaders and members of one of the two great political parties in America. 

Trump's ability to persuade and lead public opinion has been vastly underestimated by people who perceive themselves to be thought leaders and caretakers of American culture. Trump is a towering figure in American politics. He did what FDR did 90 years ago by establishing the New Deal; Trump changed Americans' understanding of government. A significant body of Americans don't accept election losses as legitimate. 

Trump led this, but leadership has trickled down to state and local GOP leaders. They agree or are silent. They understand their base. 

Trump issued a statement: 

Today's news describes Peril, a book written by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. Trump was screaming mad that Pence would not unilaterally discard electoral votes. Peril describes Pence as desperately wanting to comply and sought an excuse. Pence called former Vice President Dan Quayle looking for some crack or seam in the wall of law. Quayle said there was none.

The sources for this story could only be Pence and Quayle themselves. At least one of them was willing to talk to Woodward and Costa; the other did not deny it, so it is in the book. 

The lost opportunity for Pence is the "tell" that reveals the changed state of public norms. Pence could position himself here as heroic, as a man courageously resisting tyranny and a coup d'état. He has a great story. He was an eyewitness and victim. He stood tall and proud.

No.

Pence is obviously attempting to position himself as the 2024 Republican nominee. That requires that he be the reluctant disappointment, one who changes the subject of Trump to the things Trump got right. The people whose support he needs don't want a hero. They wanted Trump to remain president by hook or by crook.

Trump begged, flattered, and threatened officials to claim fraud. The system of checks, balances, and federalism anticipated the possibility of a dangerously persuasive actor operating in bad faith. In 2020 Trump was stopped. That was then. Trump's persistence in claiming fraud has metastasized. Public opinion within the GOP primary electorate now accepts Trump's premise and goals. Larry Elder's pre-election claims of upcoming massive fraud in the California recall election hurt him among Democrats, but not Republicans. Additional Republican state legislators are demanding forensic audits of 2020. Election denial is becoming commonplace.

Pence has a chance to be a hero of the republic. I stood up to Trump and tyranny!  He isn't doing that.

Why not? He wants to win a Republican primary.

Civilizing the male mammal

Do we need a primatologist to understand Texas?

One volunteered to help, with a Guest Post.

There is something unintuitive and contradictory about two political happenings in Texas. Texas' governor bans abortion while simultaneously asserting individual body autonomy regarding the COVID vaccine. Doesn't he notice the contradiction? Texas is more understandable when we consider the unconscious impulses wired into the instincts of men. Texas leaders are thinking like the primates that they are.

Hogan Sherrow offered a Guest Post last week noting that most primate males attempt to monopolize their access to females, and much of their status-seeking and domination activity is done to try to control female reproduction. Today's Guest Post returns with an observation that social animals sometimes work as a group to put checks on domination behaviors. 

Hogan Sherrow is a Fulbright Scholar and has a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Anthropology from Yale University. He has studied the behavior and ecology of humans and other animals on three different continents, specializing in the evolution of political behavior, tribalism, leadership, and aggression. Hogan now consults for individuals, organizations, and campaigns, here in the Rogue Valley as Owner of You Evolving, LLC, www.you-evolving.com.

Guest Post by Hogan Sherrow

Texans and the Taliban II: Reining in Bad Male Behavior

In my previous post I explained how, from an evolutionary perspective, the attempts by the Taliban and the Texas government to control women’s bodies and reproduction are not only not surprising, but predictable. Akhund’s Taliban and Texas Governor Abbott’s administration are doing what males have been doing to females for millions of years and what men have been doing to women for millennia. 

I normally don’t embrace the phrase “stone age” when referring to mind-sets of modern humans, but both the Taliban and Abbott’s administration are stuck in the stone age. They seem to have ignored thousands of years of culture and the understanding that women are every bit the equals of men. They treat women like females, instead of women. The distinction between male/female and men/women is an important one. The former refers to a biological distinction that applies to both humans and non-human animals, while the latter only refers to humans and is a cultural distinction that is gendered. The distinction is important when comparing human and non-human animal behavior.

Since we understand that these males in power are acting out primal, mammalian, male behaviors, we must call out the “bad actors” in public, condemn their behaviors, the laws they write, and the policies they institute. The key to achieving that is a system of checks and balances. Checks and balances are actually as natural and primal in social mammals as the drive to achieve status, and the propensity of males to try to control female behavior and reproduction. In the African apes, attempts to rein in bad actors take many forms. In chimpanzees and bonobos, coalitions work together to keep bellicose individuals in check. Among gorillas, males who are too aggressive or violent are abandoned by the females of their groups, as a physical “vote of no confidence.” In our closest relatives, and in our own species, checks and balances have evolved to keep powerful individuals from abusing their status. In the cases of the Taliban and Texas, they have never been more important.

In the case of the Taliban, changing their behavior might be nothing more than a pipe-dream. The men who run the Taliban have operated as a lawless gang for over a generation, using their religious beliefs to justify their primal behaviors, ruling with an iron fist, trampling the rights of women and brutalizing their opponents. However, if the Taliban is going to become the recognized government of Afghanistan and move out of the stone age, the international community has an obligation. We must require they institute a parliamentary system, where alternative voices can be represented. I acknowledge it won't be easy, but it is necessary. The international community needs to hold them accountable as a grown-up government.

In Texas checks and balances exist on paper but aren't working in practice. For decades Republicans in Texas have been gerrymandering voting districts, limiting voter access, and stacking the courts with partisan, activist judges. The result is that Governor Abbott and his allies are unchecked, and have instituted extreme, stone-age laws and policies that reflect instinctive impulses, unmediated by cultural restraints. Our country's founders set up a system of checks and balances because they understood that primal behaviors needed to be restrained so the powerful would not become tyrants. They established a structure that would cause ambition to check ambition, so powers would balance.

Checks and balances require those formal foundational structures, but they are strongest when they include diverse experiences and perspectives. By including more voices, from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and genders in decision making, we help check the status-seeking behaviors inherited from our primate ancestors. Diverse perspectives also help keep extreme, stone-age views from taking root and dominating laws or policies. It is through the diversity of perspectives that we truly flourish as a representative democracy. Social relations get beyond a struggle of physical strength or inherited status. The powerless have socially sanctioned rights, guaranteed by the strength of the whole polity. We emerge from the stone age and join the modern world.

Texas is a perfect example of what happens when checks and balances fail, and the results have been unfortunate and predictable. The male-dominated government returned to stone-age behaviors, using religion as justification for passing new, draconian laws designed to dominate and control women. 

Despite the clear threat to their individual freedoms and their health, there are some women who continue to support these stone-age laws and policies. That paradox will be the focus of my third Guest Post in this series.

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California Recall. Newsom got lucky.

California Governor Gavin Newsom needed a bad guy to run against. 

Donald Trump and Larry Elder volunteered to serve. 

Recalls are dangerous for the incumbent.

Recall elections remove in midterm an incumbent who was elected or appointed into office. Oregon and California both provide for them. Recall petitions were filed against me back when I held office, though neither got enough signatures to cause an election. The incumbent can defeat a recall election, but the odds are against him.

"Recall" is a Progressive Era reform, along with initiatives, referendums, and the direct election of judges. They were put into place a century ago to give direct power to the electorate. It was a check on a corruptible legislature, one beholden to lobbyists and big money donors. 

In Oregon and California, recalls are rare because they require a significant number of signatures on petitions, a tedious chore. That hurdle was intended to require the incumbent have done something that roused the ire of a significant body of people. 

In recent decades the hurdle changed. Laws allow paid petitioners. Forbes Magazine calculates there are about 800 billionaires in the U.S, which means that billionaires are more common than senators and members of Congress combined. Any one of them by themselves could effortlessly fund a signature drive, even in populous California. It is easier yet in Oregon, in reach of mere millionaires. Recall elections now have the effect of reversing the original Progressive Era purpose of reducing the power of wealthy special interests. They now give them a fearsome weapon that says "don't anger me, or else!"

Recall campaigns are a credible threat. The incumbent stands exposed on a yes-or-no vote. In effect, the voters are asked: "Is there something you don't like about this official?" The voter can wonder if maybe there isn't someone better. The candidate facing recall competes against an imagined ideal. Some voters may wish he had done more of something while others wish he had done less of that same thing; both sides are discontented. Recalls are perfect for Monday morning quarterbacking.

Even Democratic partisans can imagine something they wish Gavin Newsom had done differently. For example, he should never have been married to the loathsome Kimberly Guilfoyle, now the girlfriend of Donald Trump, Junior. He should never have gone to that fancy restaurant. He should have pushed vaccinations harder. Or he pushed them too hard. There is no way to satisfy everybody.

There is a defense for the incumbent, if circumstances permit. Make the election a choice. Find an opponent--create one if necessary--and make them front and center. In the California instance, make clear to voters that if Newsom gets recalled someone else wins. Hope that someone unpopular can be put into the spotlight. 

Luckily for Newsom, Trump and Larry Elder volunteered.

Now people who wish Newsom had done more and faster on vaccinations realize that Newsom being recalled means that people who oppose vaccinations will be thrilled. People who recoil from Guilfoyle and Trump Jr. realize that she and Trump Jr. will tweet with delight if Newsom is recalled. People irritated by Newsom's fancy dinner in Napa now pit that irritation with the image of Trump living large at Mar-a-Lago. 

Former President Trump is doing exactly what Newsom could have hoped, weighing in with his signature assertion that elections he loses are rigged. Trump went onto conservative media to describe the California recall vote:

“It’s probably rigged. The ballots... are mail-in ballots... I guess you even have a case where you can make your own ballot. When that happens, nobody’s gonna win except these Democrats. The one thing they are good at is rigging elections, so I predict it’s a rigged election.”

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article254079148.html#storylink=cpy

Democrats can tear their hair but do nothing about it but vote. Perfect, for Newsom.

Moreover, the leading candidate to replace Newsom is someone ideally suited to offend Democrats, a Trump-style conservative provocateur talk radio host, Larry Elder. Elder's website repeats the Trump-rigged-election assertion:

We implore you. . . to join us in this fight as you are able, primarily by signing our petition demanding a special session of the California legislature to investigate and ameliorate the twisted results of this 2021 Recall Election of Governor Gavin Newsom.

Elections are unpredictable. Newsom could still lose, but in the uphill battle of recall campaigns, Newsom got what he needed: Someone unpopular to stand as his opponent. In fact, he got two.