{"id":352,"date":"2026-06-10T07:09:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T07:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=352"},"modified":"2026-06-10T07:09:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T07:09:05","slug":"how-the-machine-buried-spencer-pratt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=352","title":{"rendered":"How the Machine Buried Spencer Pratt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Bill de Blasio appeared on NewsNation on June 2 and was asked to comment on Spencer Pratt\u2019s campaign. De Blasio smugly described Pratt\u2019s ads as \u201cinappropriate\u201d and wondered, \u201cWho is behind them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Karmelo Anthony Found Guilty of Murdering Austin Metcalf<\/a><\/p>\n

If de Blasio hadn\u2019t actively participated in the decline of New York City during his disastrous eight years as its mayor, his arrogance might just be dismissed as unwarranted and clueless. But de Blasio is part of a machine that profits from urban decline. Behind his arrogance is a grasping, cynical hypocrite delighted that the machine on the West Coast is as potent as the one that elevated his own mayoral tenure and now supports Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n

And so way out west, the machine has struck again. In the run-up to California\u2019s June 2 primary, Spencer Pratt, running for mayor of Los Angeles, gave us a moment of hope. But as it turns out, he will not appear on the November ballot. Angelenos will choose between a democratic socialist extremist in the form of Nithya Raman and the \u201cmoderate\u201d option, the ex-communist, incompetent incumbent, Karen Bass.<\/p>\n

Calling Spencer Pratt\u2019s ads \u201cinappropriate\u201d is a grotesque inversion of truth. Policy failures in Los Angeles have been so intellectualized and contextualized that only crude descriptions of reality on the streets of that beleaguered city had any chance to wake voters up from their brainwashed acquiescence.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Pratt\u2019s ads have heralded a new era in campaign messaging. His campaign was pitch-perfect and inspired. It wasn\u2019t merely the use of AI to produce videos at negligible cost, videos that altogether would have cost millions only a few years ago. It was the extraordinary creativity of these videos and their uncanny ability to cut to the heart of issues that by now should have every resident of Los Angeles marching on City Hall with torches and pitchforks.<\/p>\n

A few examples should suffice. Have a look at these:<\/p>\n

\u201cEntering the illusion,\u201d where two parents confront a child, telling him that \u201cPratt is MAGA,\u201d wherein the child asks why getting homeless drug addicts help and rebuilding homes is MAGA.<\/p>\n

\u201cCatching the Pratt,\u201d where a mother wheels her young adult daughter into the emergency room because she is \u201cthinking for herself,\u201d wanting to \u201cstop addicts from injecting drugs around kids,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not alone,\u201d where a group of women in a yoga studio realize, to their astonishment, that all of them secretly support Pratt\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Spencer Pratt Has in Mind for LA,\u201d a satirical anti-Pratt ad where, for example, a father and daughter chastise Pratt for wanting change \u201cwhen everything is fine,\u201d while speaking against a backdrop of homes in flames.<\/p>\n

And the classic \u201cLA is worth saving,\u201d depicting, among other things, Karen Bass and assorted prominent Democrats dressed in Louis XIV\u2019s Baroque attire, swigging champagne and eating cake, while laughing derisively at a mother trying to protect her children from LA\u2019s dangerous streets.<\/p>\n

This was a brilliant campaign. It gave Pratt, who lost his own home in the January 2025 wildfires, instant momentum. So much so, in fact, that his opponents were worried enough to see to it that a\u00a0second mayoral debate was canceled. And on the day after the election, Pratt had reason for optimism. Early returns reported, \u201cWith 63 percent of the votes counted by early Wednesday morning, Bass had 35 percent, Pratt 30 percent, and Raman 22 percent.\u201d Pratt had an 8 percent advantage over Raman. So far, so good.<\/p>\n

Read more Karmello Anthony Found Guilty of Murdering Austin Metcalf<\/a><\/p>\n

That was before what members of the machine dismiss as the \u201cred mirage\u201d began to dissipate. It didn\u2019t take long. By Thursday afternoon, Pratt\u2019s lead over third-place Raman had shrunk to 33,076, i.e., from an 8.0 percent advantage to 6.0 percent.<\/p>\n

By Friday, the\u00a0trend was unmistakable. Pratt\u2019s lead was down to 20,672, only a 3.3 percent edge. After the Saturday update, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>, whose veteran reporters knew better, published an article, \u201cPratt holds off Raman for now,\u201d as if his lead over Raman, by then down to 7,494 votes or 1.1 percent, left any possibility he would stay in front.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s update made it official. Pratt was behind Raman by 4,381 votes. With weeks of counting still ahead, the chances that Pratt will recover his lead are zero. Why? What is the nature of this machine that delivers a red mirage on election night, invariably blown away by a blue wind? How is this possible?<\/p>\n

And here it is that accusations of fraud are almost irrelevant. Yes, California\u2019s election laws make voter fraud possible, even easy. With poorly maintained voter rolls, 29 days of \u201cearly voting,\u201d provisional ballots, same-day voter registration, automatic motor-voter registration, universal mail-in ballots, a seven-day post-election grace period for mailed ballots to still be counted, ballot harvesting, and county elections offices under oversight by Democrat politicians and staffed by Democrat-leaning bureaucrats, there are means, motives, and opportunities for fraud.<\/p>\n

But these laws governing elections in California are tools\u2014all of them completely legal\u2014that turbocharge California\u2019s ruling political machine. To rig an election in California, fraud isn\u2019t necessary. To focus on fraud, without also critiquing the system itself, is a fruitless distraction.<\/p>\n

There is a reason that ballot counts in the days after the election skewed two-to-one in favor of Raman, when Pratt led Raman by 8 percent in the early returns, and it doesn\u2019t require fraud. What happens in\u00a0elections in California today, as noted political observer Chris Rufo stated in a recent interview, is \u201cno less nefarious but much more sophisticated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rufo goes on to describe how California\u2019s system works. \u201cInstitutions that have large ground games: unions, DSA, activist groups, homeless shelters\u2014all of these people within the liberal NGO Borg\u2014to go chase ballots, harvest ballots, solicit, and grab all of these ballots, which are technically legal in a way that the opposition cannot do.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what happened to Pratt. This is what dissolved his red mirage. A political machine of extraordinary reach dispatched its operatives to every precinct in the City of Los Angeles wherever voters could be found who were low-information, dependent on government assistance, innately conditioned to oppose a Republican, inclined to have a Pavlovian aversion to any candidate tagged with a \u201cMAGA\u201d affiliation, or unlikely to vote without active assistance, or some combination of all of the above. These votes for Raman were the result of selective vote harvesting from precisely targeted groups.<\/p>\n

This is why GOP candidates lose in California. If a race is close, it isn\u2019t enough to wage a brilliant campaign. The endgame is rigged in favor of the party that can\u00a0field a permanent army\u00a0to exploit California\u2019s current election laws. That army is populated by operatives from public sector unions that are overwhelmingly partisan Democrats, along with thousands of workers at partisan NGOs. This perennial political machine is fed by taxpayers and tax deductions; the election work they do is often technically \u201cnonpartisan,\u201d and the public programs they provide when they are not harvesting votes are \u201csocial welfare\u201d programs that get more funding from failure than from success.<\/p>\n

This is California\u2019s self-reinforcing cycle of political dysfunction. Spencer Pratt tried to disrupt the system, and his surge in the polls surprised a lot of people. But the machine won. Again.<\/p>\n

Read more US Attorney Bill Essayli: \u2018There Is Evidence of Voter Fraud\u2019 in California; Charges Coming in 1 or 2 Months<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill de Blasio appeared on NewsNation on June 2 and was asked to comment on Spencer Pratt\u2019s campaign. 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