If you're ever inside the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale and hear laughter, it's probably me visiting the tomb of Culbert Olson. Olson is California's most anomalous political figure. During our long era of Republican dominance (1896-1958), he was the only Democrat to serve as governor.
Newsom started his speech by invoking Olson's Jan. 2, 1939, inaugural address and its opening call for California to stand up in the face of the destruction of democracy. As we witness destruction of democracy elsewhere in the world, accompanied by denial of civil liberties and inhuman persecutions, under the rule of despots and dictators, so extreme as to shock the moral sense of mankind, it seems appropriate that we Californians...
Though he only directly quoted one Olson line, Newsom argued that in 2024 we face the same choice. Then Newsom pivoted to a partisan speech blasting Republicans and listing progressive policies.
Culbert Olson is almost never quoted by powerful Californians today, which is what made Gov. Gavin Newsom's June 25 state-of-the-state speech shocking.
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