After the Supreme Court correctly held that the question of abortion belongs to the states, rather than being a constitutional right, thirteen states made abortion illegal. In addition to the “total ban” states, there are states in which abortion becomes illegal at a set number of weeks or upon viability. Therefore, Walgreens announced that it would not ship the abortion drug to 20 states that ban or severely limit abortion. An outraged Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that California would never do business with Walgreens again. If only he’d spoken with his staff first because he now looks like a fool.

Walgreens, which was founded in Chicago in 1901, became very popular during Prohibition when it sold prescribed medicinal whisky, which was a legal thing to do at the time. By the 1930s, it had expanded to 30 of America’s 48 states. It is a fixture across the American landscape, even though it’s now a subsidiary of the Walgreens Boots Alliance, a British, American, and Swiss holding company.

Image: Early Walgreens sign in San Antonio, Texas, by Theopolisme. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Last week, Walgreens lost its street cred on the woke side of things when it was reported that Walgreens will not violate the law in those 20 states in which there are total bans or stringent limitations on abortion:

Walgreens on Friday said it will not distribute abortion medication in 20 states, bowing to pressure from anti-abortion lawmakers and lawsuits targeting the legality of medication abortion.

The company said it will not dispense mifepristone, the first of two drugs in the medication abortion process, in 20 states following a February 1 letter from GOP attorneys general in those states.

That makes perfect sense. Walgreens does not intend to violate the law as to a matter that the Supreme Court has declared belongs solely to the discretion of the individual states.

However, for California’s boy governor, Gavin Newsom, Walgreens’ decision to abide by the law was a body blow, and he struck back. No more Walgreens for California, he announced via a tweet:

California won't be doing business with @walgreens -- or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women's lives at risk.

We're done.https://t.co/OB10cYfm8H

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) March 6, 2023

What Newsom is announcing is coming perilously close to violating the Commerce Clause, because he's financially penalizing a private corporation for following the law. But there’s a more immediate problem for Newsom than that: he forgot to talk to his staff before making his bold, woke point on behalf of the unlimited abortion his party so loves.

It turns out that his staff has absolutely no idea how the boss’s “ban” is supposed to work:

When asked what tangible actions would result from Newsom's online proclamation, a spokesperson for the governor's office told SFGATE: "California is reviewing all relationships between Walgreens and the state. We will not pursue business with companies that cave to right wing bullies pushing their extremist agenda or companies that put politics above the health of women and girls." When pressed for more details about what relationships currently exist between California and Walgreens, Newsom's office did not reply.

The same is true for other media outlets that contacted Newsom's office about his tweet.

Newsom’s unforced error is amusing, of course, but it is a useful reflection of the homogeneity Democrats demand for America. The concept of the states as laboratories of democracy is anathema to the left, and it’s easy to see why.

Leftists cannot take the risk that people will do well in those states that reject leftism. It is unacceptable to them that Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and other states that (mostly) refuse to embrace leftist ideology are thriving, even as the hard-left states (California, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, etc.) are becoming basket cases of poverty, drugs, crime, and despair. People like Newsom are terrified that the truth might set free those Americans trapped in Democrats’ micromanaged hellholes…so Walgreens, which is complying with its obligations in a federal system, must go.