It's almost as if he likes it like this.

California's Gov. Gavin Newsom vows to make the coronavirus emergency measures in California its "new normal" unless — and it's a big if — a vaccine for the virus is ready.

According to Breitbart:

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday warned that, while California will move into the next phase of reopening its economy this week, it is "not going back to normal" until there is a vaccine.

Newsom this week announced that the state will move into the next phase of its recovery plan by Friday, May 8, allowing certain businesses — like bookstores, flower shops, clothing stores, and sporting goods stores — to reopen with certain modifications, which will be provided this week. According to the governor, offices and dine-in restaurants "will be part of a later Stage 2 opening."

This is a speculative stretch.  President Trump has stated that a vaccine may be in place by the end of the year, and the press has screamed that the president's projection is overly optimistic.  If it happens, it will indeed be in a short period of time for a vaccine.  But it will be a lethal eternity for an economy.

That means that Newsom isn't going to allow any normal life to go on until the economy is all but dead.  And take a guess as to whether he thinks Trump is overly optimistic, as his media buddies say.

Never mind that the curve is flattening.  Never mind that many parts of the state are pretty bereft of cases and one sparsely populated county, Modoc, located in California's woodsy gold-rushy mountainous north, is ignoring the whole thing.  For Newsom, the whole state is just one big San Francisco, therefore it's got lockdown in store for it whether the state's citizens can make a living or not.

As the greenies say, it's "unsustainable," except that this time, it's literally so.

It calls to mind two things:

That Newsom's measures aren't really about pandemic control.  They're about political control.

Newsom, remember, is the guy who first stated that the coronavirus was an opportunity to fundamentally transform the state.  I could find only an indirect reference to that early statement here but will post the link when I find it.

Newsom's transform statement, made early in the crisis, suggested that he believed that the coronavirus could do what the global warming agenda couldn't, which was end consumerism and put the deplorables in their place (leaving luxuries such as air travel and beach vacations and ski trips to the political and monied elites).  For him, it was the crisis he wasn't going to let go to waste, because let's face it: global warming wasn't scaring anyone.  The coronavirus was, which was why the public initially went along with his orders.

It didn't take long for this mindset to deteriorate into straight politics and an enjoyment of wielding power over his political opponents.

As a leftist Democrat, Newsom has been no stranger to applying the boot to the supposed quarantine-violators on political grounds.  As I reported here, Newsom put the boot onto the neck of Orange County over the beach crowding issue by closing its beaches.  But he didn't do the same for bordering San Diego County, where the same thing was going on.  For him, it wasn't about getting the beaches uncrowded; it was about politics, because the beach closures in the O.C. would have brought the crowds to San Diego, making those crowded beaches even more crowded.  But one county was bluer than the other.  Guess which one got the "new normal" from Newsom.

Newsom's thinking is the same as those of the Hollywood elites, who make no bones about the importance of stopping the deplorables.  Take a look at what these famous sybarites of the austere lifestyle are prescribing for the rest of us:

A host of celebrities and scientists including Madonna, Robert de Niro and a clutch of Nobel Prize winners have called for radical change in the world rather than "a return to normal" after the coronavirus lockdowns.

Hollywood stars Cate Blanchett, Jane Fonda, Marion Cotillard and Monica Bellucci also added their names to the open letter published in the French daily Le Monde pleading for an end to unbridled consumerism and a "radical transformation" of economies to help save the planet.

"We believe it is unthinkable to 'go back to normal'," said the letter which was also signed by Nobel laureates for medicine, chemistry and physics as well as peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

They said the pandemic was a tragedy but it was a chance for humanity to "examine what is essential".

"Adjustments are not enough. The problem is systemic," the letter added.

"The ongoing ecological catastrophe is a meta-crisis. Unlike a pandemic... a global ecological collapse will have immeasurable consequences," it said.

That's the "new normal" Newsom wants, which is why he's so reluctant to end this crisis and give up his political knout.  No wonder he wants to have a vaccine first before the economy can open.  So long as the coronavirus is going on, he'll have every tool he needs in the name of "safety" to oppress the heck out of the deplorables and keep them in their place.  He doesn't need a good economy.  His model of the state is bureaucrats and supplicants, plus the odd federal bailout when other people's money runs out.  What global warming couldn't accomplish in terms of state control, the coronavirus can. A nd by his latest statements, he suggests he wants to extend this power as long as he can.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.