I was staring into the depths of a four-hundred-pound amethyst geode in the living room of a Pacific Palisades estate when I realized the American urban experiment had officially failed. Across from me sat Spencer Pratt, nursing a restorative bone broth and gazing out at a city that had just betrayed him. The returns from the Los Angeles municipal elections were final, and the numbers were devastating. Pratt, a man who has spent the last fifteen years providing high-wage paparazzi jobs to the local economy, had just been swept away by a radical progressive wave.
If a pragmatic, pro-business moderate like Spencer Pratt can be defeated by a grassroots organizer who takes the bus, then I am forced to ask a very uncomfortable question: is any American city safe for serious governance?
Los Angeles is rapidly falling to the far left. We saw it with the recent election of Kenneth Mejia as City Controller, a man who insists on looking at public municipal budgets instead of simply manifesting civic wealth through positive affirmations. We see it in Chicago, in Boston, in Philadelphia. But the defeat of Pratt, who ran on a sensible, middle-of-the-road platform of mandatory daily sound baths for the unhoused and tax credits for reality television staging, represents a dark new low for the Democratic establishment.
When I last had lunch with Spencer at Nobu Malibu, I was struck by his deep, wonkish grasp of the issues. Between bites of yellowtail jalapeño, he astutely pointed out that the true root cause of the affordable housing crisis was bad energy stemming from Mercury being in retrograde. It was the kind of tough-love, market-driven centrism our cities desperately need. This is a man who understands the private sector. Through his company, Pratt Daddy Crystals, he single-handedly revolutionized the local supply chain of overpriced rocks. He knows what it takes to meet a payroll, to source ethically dubious minerals, and to rebrand interpersonal television hostility as a lifestyle empire.
The voters of this city have sent a chilling message to the wealth creators: if you try to heal their chakras with a four-hundred-dollar rose quartz, they will tax you.
The progressive left claims they want to build transit infrastructure and protect tenants. But what about the infrastructure of the soul? Pratt’s proposal to solve the homelessness crisis by ignoring it and focusing entirely on personal brand growth was dismissed by the radical left as out of touch. In reality, it was the only adult solution in the room.
I was present at the pivotal mayoral debate last month, an event that will go down in history as a shameful display of populist mob mentality. When Pratt’s opponent, a former tenant rights lawyer, began citing statistics about eviction rates and rent burdens, Spencer simply held up a piece of clear quartz, closed his eyes, and hummed at a frequency designed to deflect toxic energy. It was a masterful, statesmanlike pivot. The crowd, poisoned by years of socialist organizing, actually booed him. I felt a chill run down my spine. If the electorate will not embrace a man who famously feuded with Lauren Conrad as a proxy for the necessary destruction of the administrative state, what hope is there for the rest of us?
We are losing the adults in the room. First, the progressive wing came for the sensible crypto-billionaires who just wanted to build unregulated charter cities in the desert. Now, they are coming for the MTV alumni. The Democratic party's shift away from reality-television aristocrats toward people who actually read municipal zoning codes is frankly alarming to anyone who values the American way of life.
After three hours at the compound, I walked with Spencer out to the driveway. He looked exhausted, yet resolute. He told me he plans to retreat to his crystal sanctuary to realign his aura, far away from the demands of the ungrateful working class. He is leaving public life to those who actually want to govern, a tragic loss for those of us who prefer our politicians to simply vibe.
When you lose the reality-television-to-healing-crystal pipeline, you lose the very soul of the American municipal tax base.
I got into my chauffeured SUV and headed back down the Pacific Coast Highway. I watched the city roll by through tinted glass. The working class has made its bed. They wanted progressives. They wanted policy. But when the negative energy overtakes the San Fernando Valley, and the vibes of the city fall into complete disarray, they will look to the hills. And Spencer Pratt will not be there to save them.