Commentary LOS ANGELES—Forget what you hear most pundits saying about last week’s recall election that failed to unseat California Governor Gavin Newsom. Some Democrats think because Newsom ran on an anti-Trump platform that will bring the party success—or cause them less damage—in the next two elections. They are wrong. The real story is the slow…

Commentary California once was run by conservatives and mostly centrist Democrats. True paleo-liberal governors like Pat Brown greatly expanded the welfare state. But they also believed in pushing integration and building freeways, dams, aqueducts, and power plants, while preventing forest fires, directing the mentally ill into state hospitals, and ensuring that the state enhanced the…