Once thieving vultures have picked the carcass of Los Angeles clean and the debris left by the Great Fire of Los Angeles has been cleared, the question arises: “Who will govern and rebuild the city?”
One thing is certain: Los Angeles as it was before the fire will not be the L.A. after the fire. The city will rise from the ashes, but what that rebirth will look like remains to be seen.
The rebirth cannot and will not be led by Gavin Newsom and the mayor of L.A. and their attendant apparatchiks of woke. Their tiresome ideological narrative, now characterized by blame-shifting and finger-pointing, is gutted. It was their ideology that enforced useless and even harmful COVID directives onto the proletariat. It was their devotion to DIE policies, to environmental stupidity, and to anarchical dogmas promoting defunding of police and firefighters, both of whom are necessary for the public’s safety and protection, that proved incendiary.
The fires have ensured that woke ideology is about to go up in smoke. The political house of cards is in flames.
That is the way it is when an apocalyptic event happens. A great fire provokes great societal changes.
Such a reassessment, culturally and materially, happened after the 1666 Great Fire of London, which consumed most of the city. The novelist Victor Hugo described the cause of the conflagration in his novel The Laughing Man:
At that period London had but one bridge — London Bridge, with houses built upon it. This bridge united London to Southware, a suburb which … was divided into small streets and alleys, very compact in parts, and like the city consisting of a great number of buildings, houses, dwellings, and wooden huts jammed together, a pell-mell mixture of combustible matter, amid which fire might take its pleasure, as 1666 had proved.
As Donald Trump and others noted concerning California’s mismanagement of fires, a great deal of combustible matter, along with disastrous water policies, has resulted in many fires in California’s forests and now one of its premiere cities. He rebuked the state’s mismanagement as well as its tendency to demand that the federal government bear the expenses attendant to the fires.
Though the historical parallels are not exact, England’s Charles II had similar problems. Since four fifths of London was consumed by the fire, he had to divert funds from the nation’s coffers to rebuild its capital city.
Further, as Kurt List noted in “The Social and Political Consequences of the Great Fire of London,” more than practical matters were affected.
Because of the fire, issues like unresolved political and religious tensions, insufficient government revenue, and an ongoing war with the Dutch became intractable. This was because the fire diverted resources and weakened the government’s resolve at a critical moment. As a result, the fire’s damage was far more extensive than the list of properties burned, because many of these issues would continue to plague Charles II for the remainder of his reign.
In other words, the foundational beliefs of England’s government were shaken by the Great Fire of 1666.
The governments of California and Los Angeles have continually endangered their citizens by their promotion and effectuation of irrational policies that have ruined the state and its cities. The city’s and state’s leaders’ mindset created the conditions for the current apocalypse. Policies based on their ideology would continue to consume the city even after the physical fires die out. The ideology itself is a wildfire.
The state machinery is too embedded, too corrupt, and too self-serving to reform. Leaders have not taken the lessons of the fires to heart. They show no sign of changing their ways.
Rebuilding the ruined city requires people who are not embedded in the current system. The city and state need adventurous outsiders with innovative solutions for both the material and ideological reconstruction of the city and state. They should have absolutely no interest in maintaining the status and influence of the current elite.
After every great city fire, be it in London in 1666 or Chicago in 1871, new construction was built in ways that resisted fire. In London, for instance, brick and stone replaced wood. Crowded streets were widened, and dangerously rickety medieval dwellings — or what was left of them — were pulled down. A new vision for the city was effectuated by architects such as Christopher Wren, whose cathedral of St. Paul still stands today.
But more than new construction materials and new architecture happened. Shifts in leadership and ideology also happened. Societal disorder as well as unhealthy ideas were revealed. Fire is a teacher. In the case of Los Angeles and California, the ideology that warred against divine and natural law, a belief system that (for example) inverted the societal hierarchy by putting a small fish above the welfare of human beings, deserves utter repudiation.
The state and the city need outsiders who know what real reconstruction and true reform entail. California and Los Angeles require visionaries like those arriving in Washington tomorrow.
The incoming Trump administration can and should be a valuable source of ideas for reconstruction and reform. As someone who transformed the skyline of New York City, whose life has been occupied with building, renovation, and now reform, Trump has commonsense ideas and expertise in building cities. He has mentioned the construction of new cities on federal lands. His likeminded associate Elon Musk is already building new cities in Texas. Both men are visionaries who have the expertise and the mindset required for the rebuilding of Los Angeles and California. Both men — as well as many others who share their worldview — have innovative, people-centered viewpoints based on reality, ideas and applications that could begin a renaissance of America’s destroyed cities and states.
Private individuals cooperating with government have in times past put similar ideas into effect. London was revitalized. Chicago was restored.
In my former home city of Wilmington, Delaware, a private “captain of industry” named William Bancroft established a complex devoted to the welfare of those who worked in his factory on the Brandywine River. A devout Quaker who was concerned for the welfare of his fellow human beings, Bancroft wanted affordable housing for workers. “The Flats,” designed in 1903 by architect William Draper Brinckle, were built with state-of-the-art materials.
Bancroft was a visionary whose plans were inspired by his biblical belief that one should express love of God by loving one’s neighbor. He had a vision for the city based on prioritizing human welfare.
In so doing, he followed the example set by the prophet and leader Nehemiah, who rebuilt Jerusalem after Babylon destroyed it by fire in 586 B.C. Nehemiah saw the spiritual welfare of his people as being as foundational for enduring restoration.
The incoming Trump team includes visionaries determined to prioritize the welfare of Americans. They reject the essentially dystopian and anti-human ideology that has ruined many of our cities and states.
Let us hope and pray that the incoming administration’s vision will begin to restore the country, including Los Angeles and California.
Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. Her thoughts have appeared in many online magazines. She may be reached at [email protected].
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Image via Pxhere.
