Hollywood may finally have gotten fed up with the Democrat political establishment, both in Los Angeles and in Sacramento. The lack of leadership and the infrastructure collapse in the explosion of wildfires throughout LA has some of them furiously demanding accountability. They want heads to roll, and they already have cast the first two villains for their ire:

Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jillian Michaels and Sara Foster have joined Donald Trump in slamming local and state officials amid the devastating Southern California wildfires.

RadarOnline.com can reveal the fitness personality, 90210, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer stars took to social media to express their frustrations while slamming Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom. ...

Foster, 43, made her feelings clear on X, writing: "We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared.

"Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank god drug addicts are getting their drug kits."

Like Trump, 82, Foster also called on Newsom and Bass to resign as she claimed their "far left policies have ruined our state. And also our party."

Don’t expect these to be the last three celebs to demand scalps over this catastrophe, either. While the conditions this past week would have likely created disastrous wildfires, those conditions occur on a fairly regular basis in the Los Angeles area, too. That is why taxpayers expected the city and state to prepare for these seasonal events by building reservoirs and conducting proper brush and wilderness management — so that fire fuel would be minimized, and sufficient water would be available to fight the inevitable wildfires that would erupt.

Instead, the state and local governments that collected those taxes and fees have squandered those funds. Rather than build reservoirs, they have allowed rainfall to flow out to the Pacific, a complaint that the state’s agricultural sector has made for years. Now those failures have truly come home to roost for celebrities that are more used to promoting the state and local political establishment than demanding accountability from it.

Mel Gibson is an obvious exception to that, of course, but he’s just as angry. Yesterday he told Joe Rogan that California and LA may face a “civilizational collapse,” and he also wants Newsom and Bass held accountable:

Gibson did not hold back in his scathing assessment of Governor Gavin Newsom. Citing Newsom’s prior promises on forest maintenance and wildfire prevention — “I think Newsom said ‘I’m gonna take care of the forest and maintain the forest and do all that kinda stuff’…he didn’t do anything” — Gibson’s comments reflect an increasingly popular line of criticism pointing to lacking preventive measures against wildfires. ...

According to Gibson, funds that could have gone towards fire prevention may have been diverted elsewhere. The conversation took on a serious tone, however, as both men questioned whether the state’s budget priorities were aligned with citizens’ growing safety concerns, but not before this scathing little roast was snuck in:

“I think all our tax dollars probably went to Gavin’s hair gel…”

Newsom and Bass likely already assume that Gibson’s no ally. However, these fires are displacing the wealthy that normally do support the Democrat political establishment, and they are going to want to know what went wrong. The absence of answers, and in Bass’ case the absence of the actual leadership, has generated a momentum that won’t reverse any time soon, even if the fires go out by the weekend. Just consider who’s already lost their houses:

Jeff Bridges has tragically lost his family home in Malibu due to the raging wildfires continuing to sweep across Los Angeles. ...

Bridges’ rep also tells THR that their Malibu home was located near Candy Spelling’s house, which was also destroyed in the fires. Spelling, mother to Tori Spelling and her brother, Randy, owned the house with her last husband, TV producer Aaron Spelling, for 50 years.

“I’m in shock and processing this massive loss for our family,” Spelling told TMZ. “I am beyond grateful for the memories. It was truly a wonderful gift to have.”

Other Hollywood stars who have also confirmed that they tragically lost their homes in the wildfires include Mandy Moore, Billy Crystal, Anna Faris, Cary Elwes, Paris Hilton, Bozoma Saint John, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, James Woods, Diane Warren, Cameron Mathison and Ricki Lake.

Those are just the names we recognize. Many other movers and shakers lived in the Palisades, not to mention the other areas that are now going up in flames. Many more are just hard-working families whose parents or grandparents bought these homes and had been fortunate enough to remain in these neighborhoods long after the prices would have kept them from buying those homes. Those families will have it worst, as they won’t be able to afford to rebuild and they won’t have the capital to buy elsewhere in their communities. 

They will get angry at the political establishment that virtue-signal fiddled while allowing Los Angeles to burn. And as Nellie Bowles writes today at the Free Press, they will have plenty of reasons for their fury:

Infrastructure that could have provided more water for those fires has been on hold, tied up in red tape. Ten years ago, California voters approved spending $7.5 billion to build water storage and improve state water facilities—but by 2023 not one dam had been finished, per the Los Angeles Times. Not a single one. But a decade into various environmental regulations and reviews, they are moving. ...

And what about controlled burns? Didn’t they at least do that? No. “Forest Service Halts Prescribed Burns in California. Is It Worth the Risk?” reported KQED in October. See: If a controlled burn got messy, it would look bad, like, politically, and also, fire can be scary! So the U.S. Forest Service didn’t do them.

Here’s Michael Wara, energy and climate expert at Stanford University, explaining: “I think the Forest Service is worried about the risk of something bad happening [with a prescribed burn]. And they’re willing to trade that risk—which they will be blamed for—for increased risks on wildfires.” Which, he says, can then just be blamed on “Mother Nature.”

It is, in sum, an almost perfect catalog of the failures of progressive policies. Policies that emphasize everything but competence, everything but results. A worldview that sees a decade of stalled-out infrastructure as good climate justice. Beavers should be the only ones building dams in California! As the fires raged, there have been calls for all firefighters to come join the battle. I hope there are academics with little clipboards counting to ensure diversity. It’s so important that older women on crutches are proportionally represented in all industries, including firefighting. You can do it, Cheryl!

Don't think for a moment that voters in the state will miss that lesson about progressive policies -- and the huge personal costs that come with them.

That level of personal devastation, at least partly on the basis of incompetence and misplaced priorities, will create a huge groundswell of outrage and demands for accountability. And some of those victims have the standing to force that reckoning. Hollywood may not be the only industry in LA, but it is the most politically important and lucrative constituency in the area, and really in the entire state and to a large extent nationally, too. Democrats around the country flock to Hollywood for endorsements, fundraisers, and exposure. This catastrophe will make that a double-edged sword. 

It’s too early to fully assess the political impact, but hardly too early to know that it will emerge, and already has. Gibson overstated the potential for civilizational collapse, but there is a very real potential for dramatic change in the political environment for Hollywood, Los Angeles, and the state of California after the massive failures that cascaded these wildfires from disasters into catastrophes for so many families. Accountability will come, sooner or later, and I’d bet on sooner.