It’s campaign season all across the country, and there are many entertaining races to watch. But one of the more telling ones is the mayoral race in Los Angeles, where the heart of the issue is the specter of the January 2025 Pacific Palisades fire that killed a dozen people, destroyed 6,500 structures, and caused billions of dollars in damage — the most destructive fire in California history.

Up-and-comer Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the fire, smacked down every excuse that Karen Bass, the socialist incumbent mayor, presented as justification for her executive decisions throughout the ordeal.

Bass blamed climate change and the dangerous Santa Ana winds, which occur every year. At the time, Bass was so unconcerned about the high potential for a severe wildfire that she flew to Ghana to celebrate the inauguration of a foreign president.

However, it has since been revealed that the Palisades fire was not purely the work of the climate bogeyman. Rather, it was likely the work of a leftist arsonist named Jonathan Rinderknecht. According to police files, Rinderknecht allegedly set the original blaze.

Bass’s understaffed fire department thought it had extinguished the original fire, but the embers remained hot and dangerous, and with the strong winds, those embers traveled and reignited a week later.

Leading up to the arson, Rinderknecht was in a bad state. The 29-year-old Uber driver had his romantic advances rebuffed by a young lady he worked with, and he was extremely angry. According to his customers on the night in question, he was “angry, intense, driving erratically and ranting about being ‘pissed off at the world’ and Luigi Mangione, capitalism and vigilantism.”

Moreover, The Guardian reports:

According to court filings, Rinderknecht ranted to passengers about Luigi Mangione, the accused murderer of UnitedHealthcare chief executive officer Brian Thompson; capitalism; and vigilantism. In an interview with investigators on 24 January, when asked why someone might commit arson in the Palisades, Rinderknecht “responded that it would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as ‘we’re basically being enslaved by them,’” and again referenced Mangione’s alleged crime, the documents said.

As his own testimony seems to elucidate, the arson was motivated by a failed relationship and hatred of capitalism. Rinderknecht idolized Luigi Mangione, whom he viewed as a hero in the fight against corporate greed. He fantasized about killing all the billionaires and was in general a hair trigger away from doing something violent.

The Leftmedia spin machine is already trying to play this information off as Rinderknecht being used as a scapegoat for climate change and the failures of the fire department. Unfortunately for Mayor Bass, neither excuse makes her look competent. Either she fed into the mania of anti-capitalist sentiment that allegedly motivated the arsonist, or she ran her city poorly and didn’t fund a capable fire department.

For her part, Bass accused Pratt of exploiting a tragedy — ironically, one he personally experienced. Pratt is not exploiting a tragedy; he is exposing a non compos mentis mayor, and the evidence keeps stacking up against her.

Blaming the Palisades fire on climate change when there is an alleged arsonist in custody is merely whistling past the graveyard, hoping that the news cycle distracts everyone from a poor job performance.