The San Francisco Chronicle published a report today on the last ditch efforts of supporters of Gov. Newsom. They have decided their best chance to defeat the recall effort is to instill fear in Democratic voters who, so far, have appeared pretty apathetic about the outcome:

On a recent Saturday morning, as Jennifer Shanoski canvassed the blocks of an Oakland neighborhood near Brookdale Park, knocking on the doors of union households, her goal was to remind them — no, it was much more urgent than that — scare them into voting against the recall.

“The Republican Party is trying to take over our governor position and we’re really concerned about what that will do to the minimum wage, to workers’ rights, to the right to unionize,” Shanoski, a community college chemistry professor and president of the Peralta Federation of Teachers, told a janitor at one home…

She’s concerned about the compressed timeline leading up to the vote; the labor canvassing operation is still ramping up as ballots are dropping. And a recent email query she sent to members of her union yielded only a handful of volunteers.

“That tells me people aren’t feeling very fearful,” she said. “We need to talk to them, though, and tell them why they need to be fearful.”

The compressed timeline leading up to the vote was literally a decision made by Democrats to help Newsom. If it backfired on them, that’s nobody’s fault but their own. This fear-based strategy is clearly coming down from the top. Newsom has been warning for weeks that his fate could determine the direction of the 2022 elections.

One left-wing columnist who has been doing her best to spread the fear is Jean Guerrero. She posted some tweets yesterday suggesting that Democratic outreach to “Latinx” voters wasn’t working:

*almost none of the ones I've spoken to have any idea what's going on.

— Jean Guerrero (@jeanguerre) August 22, 2021

She got some blowback for that:

The correct term is Hispanics or Latinos, we dislike terms created by neocolonialists academics

— Rodrigo Villareal (@hillglazier) August 23, 2021

What is Latinx? Not a soul in my Hispanic family uses that term!

No wonder outreach isn’t workong.

— J.R.S (@Johnathan_RS_) August 23, 2021

First, don’t call us Latinx. Second, don’t call us Latinx, period.

And you wonder why you’re turning us off.

— Beatrice Cardenas (@RealBetyCardens) August 23, 2021

None of us like the term latinx, only wypipo and chicanos that speak no spanish use it. Literal linguistic imperialism.

— Carlos That Notices Things (@BasQuetzal) August 23, 2021

Rather than presuming you know what they should be thinking why don't you try actually listening to what they have to say? Also it would help to drop the latinx thingy. That's cringeworthy….and creates the impression that you are focused on unserious things.

— Bill Dillard (@lockforward) August 23, 2021

Same energy:

1. Refer to Black people as “blxck.”
2. Berate the overwhelming majority of Black people who object to being called blxck.
3. Wonder why your patronizing outreach to the blxck community isn’t working.

— Michael Kimel (@MikeKimel) August 23, 2021

I’m not even scratching the surface there are hundreds of responses like this. Guerrero later called it a “tidal wave of right-wing hysteria.”

I've never faced such a tidal wave of right-wing hysteria as for using the word "Latinx" this afternoon. 😸

— Jean Guerrero (@jeanguerre) August 23, 2021

Polls show support for keeping Newsom is still very slightly ahead of the remove vote but it’s within the margin of error. So at this point, almost anything could help determine the outcome. Supporters of Gov. Newsom, including those in the media, are ratcheting up the fear to try to motivate their voters, but it’s not going well with at least some segments of the target population. They only have a few weeks left to ratchet up the fear. It may not be enough.