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On Monday, Jerry Brown’s former Press Secretary said Gavin Newsom has “crumbled” during the COVID response: “When history called, he flopped.” Then came Friday.

In a surreal press conference, the Governor scrapped the “roadmap” he’s used to play God in the lives of 40 million Californians.

Just kidding, he told counties that worked tirelessly to meet the state’s previous requirements.

Tough luck, he told businesses that did everything right to earn half a chance of survival.

Jump through more hoops, he told schools already facing a nearly impossible gauntlet.

But hair salons can now open. This after they’ve been forced closed for months, often permanently. Oops?

The previously decisive metrics of ICU capacity and hospitalizations? No longer relevant.

The whole point of setting criteria is to have a stable yardstick for evaluating variable data. When the criteria themselves are in constant flux, it yields chaos, distrust, and needless suffering. There is no surer mark of weak leadership.

As Gov. Newsom imposed his now-discarded roadmap in May, James Gallagher and I asked him to work with us on a durable framework. Instead, he falsely accused us of “attempting to prematurely declare an end to this ongoing crisis.” We are all paying the price of that intransigence.

Meanwhile, the Governor is ducking any responsibility. Per the LA Times, “Newsom has blamed the outbreak on county officials.” Yet it was his so-called “data glitch” that “left some counties in the lurch for nearly two weeks” and “set back various reopening decisions.”

Worst of all, one color is missing from the new tiered system: “We don’t believe there’s a green light that says go back to the way things were,” Newsom said.

Wrong. Coronavirus is a temporary problem whose permanent solution is within sight. It is not the end of history. It does not mean the death of republican government or the irrevocable surrender of liberty.

The Governor’s fatalism is the height of hubris. Our collective future is never up to a single person – and certainly not a person who’s proven so woefully out of his depth, who’s been so wrong at such a high cost to so many.

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