When mainstream politicians won't admit obvious problems, outsider candidates will.

Democrats want to dismiss Spencer Pratt as a joke.

Of course they do.

It is much easier to talk about The Hills than it is to talk about Los Angeles. It is easier to sneer at a reality television personality than it is to explain why one of the richest, most famous cities in the world has become a byword for homelessness, addiction, unaffordability, disorder, and political decay.

But here is the thing: The Hills was a television show.

A television show. Not real life.

Even when they call it “reality TV,” anyone with a functioning brain understands that it is produced, edited, manipulated, packaged, and sold. What Spencer Pratt did or did not do on MTV decades ago is not remotely comparable to what California’s governing class has done in real life, with real tax dollars, real cities, real families, real businesses, and real neighborhoods on the line.

Spencer Pratt did not make Los Angeles unaffordable. He did not create the homelessness crisis. He did not build the bureaucratic maze that makes it almost impossible to build enough housing. He did not preside over billions in homelessness spending that failed to produce results. 

He did not design California’s high-speed rail boondoggle. He did not drive families and businesses out of the state. He did not make it normal for working people to look at the average California home price and conclude ownership is a fantasy reserved for elites.

California’s leaders did that.

So when those same leaders and their media allies laugh at Spencer Pratt for saying Los Angeles is broken, they are not exposing him. They are exposing themselves.

This is the same mistake Democrats made with Donald Trump. They thought contempt was an argument. They mistook mockery for strategy. They believed that if they could make the outsider look vulgar enough, unserious enough, embarrassing enough, the voters would forget what they already knew from their own lives.

It did not work then. It is not working now.

Spencer Pratt’s campaign is not happening because voters suddenly decided reality television is a credential for municipal leadership. His campaign is happening because the credentialed class has failed on the basics.

Los Angeles is not suffering from a lack of blue-ribbon panels. It is not suffering from a lack of nonprofit language. It is not suffering from a lack of compassion slogans, equity frameworks, outreach teams, task forces, pilot programs, or glossy campaign mailers promising more of the same with slightly different font choices.

It is suffering from results.

People can see tents. They can see open drug use. They can see neighborhoods that no longer feel safe. They can see businesses struggling. They can see potholes, trash, graffiti, public disorder, empty promises, and elected officials who seem more offended by criticism than by failure.

They can also see the housing disaster. This is not some right-wing fever dream. Plenty of liberals have admitted it. The whole “abundance” conversation exists because even people on the left finally noticed that California made it too hard to build almost everything. Too hard to build homes. Too hard to build infrastructure. Too hard to build quickly, affordably, or at all.

Then the same governing class turns around and lectures voters about compassion while ordinary families are priced out of the state.

That is not compassion. That is decadence with a press secretary.

Pratt’s critics say he is theatrical. Fine. He is theatrical. But politics is not only about who has the thickest policy binder. It is also about who is willing to say the obvious out loud.

And the obvious thing in Los Angeles is that business as usual has failed.

The obvious thing in California is that Democratic one-party dominance has produced a government very good at announcing programs and very bad at delivering outcomes.

The obvious thing is that voters are tired of being told the problem is their perception.

No, the perception is the result.

When a city spends enormous sums on homelessness and residents still see encampments everywhere, voters do not owe politicians gratitude for effort. When a state promises high-speed rail and produces years of delays, cost overruns, and excuses, voters do not owe politicians patience forever. When home prices become obscene, when insurance becomes a nightmare, when fire recovery becomes another bureaucratic ordeal, when the middle class starts to feel like an endangered species, voters are allowed to say the system is broken.

And if mainstream politicians refuse to say it, disruptive outsiders will.

That is why Spencer Pratt is inevitable.

Maybe Pratt wins. Maybe he does not. But the real story is not whether Los Angeles elects Spencer Pratt mayor. The real story is that Los Angeles created political conditions in which Spencer Pratt could run credibly at all.

That should terrify California Democrats.

Not because Pratt is uniquely dangerous. Because Pratt is not unique.

He is the latest version of a pattern. When institutional politicians become too insulated, too scripted, too defensive, and too contemptuous of ordinary frustration, someone else walks into the vacuum. Sometimes that person is polished. Sometimes he is crude. Sometimes he is funny. Sometimes he is wrong. Sometimes he has better instincts than the experts. Sometimes he does not.

But he has one advantage the establishment can never fake.

He sounds like he sees what everyone else sees.

California Democrats can keep laughing at Spencer Pratt if they want. They can call him a clown, a Trump imitator, a content creature, a chaos candidate, whatever makes them feel better.

Or they can look honestly at the state they govern.

Because the fertile ground for Spencer Pratt was not created by MTV. It was created by California’s failures. Until those failures are rectified, candidates like Pratt will keep appearing.

And eventually, one of them will win.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)