Newsom and the CA Dems Say They’re Protecting Us from Trump—But Who Protects Us From Them?

ALPERN AT LARGE - Let’s be honest and blunt: if illegal immigrants, career criminals, and the homeless were mainly going to be Republicans, Governor Newsom and the Sacramento Legislature (one-party, anti-GOP all the time) would be doing whatever they could to kick them out of the Golden State.

Heck, I didn’t make all this up. We’ve got successful Democrats, minorities, and Independents alike all bailing out of the cities, if not the state, of California to find a better lifestyle, keep their hard-earned money, and to find less congested environments that usually are associated with better health and quality of life.

And maybe (or maybe not) the comparison of the current leaders of the Democratic Party (not the JFK Democrats who adhere to centrist values) to the leaders of European nations (or even Hamas) is FAIR and TRUE, but doubling and tripling down on the “Everything Is Great, Right?” mind-tricks worthy of Jedi Knights isn’t working:

1. Yes, our state’s economy is bigger than most nations on this world, but as the middle-class businesses shutter down and/or leave the state and leave the very wealthy to hold the bag more and more, it’s anyone’s guess when there will be a taxpayer/business rebellion.
2. No, our environmental policies are NOT scientifically valid, with even Governor Newsom recognizing that the need for fossil fuels has NOT gone away, and that solar is cost-inefficient and wind is downright awful…while 21st Century nuclear power is criminally ignored.
3. Yes, someone will need to have the guts and spine and decency to acknowledge what even many of the California High Speed Rail initiative’s supporters (yours truly included) sucked away tens of billions of dollars away from better rail and road infrastructure.
4. No, our K-12 schools and colleges are as lousy as the right-wing schools and colleges our left-wing teachers’ unions decry, just for different reasons—and our education dollars are NOT helping our children and their parents.
5. Finally, our diversity is NOT helping us but instead tearing us apart, and when we feel that the American flag is a pejorative “dog-whistle” for Nazis then it is our political leadership (and their media/cultural allies) who are the ones trying to make California a new Confederate state trying to break away from the U.S. 

But back to the Sacramento Democratic elites (I’m sure there are GOP elites, too, but let’s keep it real and acknowledge that California has now devolved into a Democratic counterpart to Republican Alabama) decrying Trump and his Texas redistricting power grab.

For the record, a recent CityWatch article written by yours truly puts me firmly in the “Texas redistricting sucks” camp, yet I am also in the “two wrongs don’t make a right” camp, so I think that the whole redistricting (or gerrymandering, as many call it) in Illinois, Massachusetts, and a whole lot of other state also SUCKS.

But I can’t control any morally reprehensible actions on the part of any other state of the union, be it Blue or Red, and neither can any other Californian reading this.

However, I very much CAN point out that Californians, to their credit, overwhelmingly maintain deep support for their twice-voted independent review commission to allow nonpartisan redistricting and a yearning for true representative democracy.

But if Governor Newsom and the Rasputin-like, wild-eyed, disconnected-in-their-own-universe Sacramento Democratic Party-dominated California Legislature want to throw us all in a spotlight, we can’t stop them from trying…

…because it will invite the major icon of moderate Republicans, former Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar, who established an independent redistricting in our state, into that same spotlight.

Ditto for President Trump, Vice-President Vance, and a whole lotta Californians (current and former) who will flood the state and remind us that California is still part of the United States, and that the plight of the average, middle-class Californian was much, much better when the state was Purple. 

So Trump is an idiot. Yet how stupid is Governor Newsom and the California Legislature (to say nothing of virtually all of the California Democratic Leadership at this immediate time) to alienate not only California Republicans, but also Independents and even many Democratic voters with childish, partisan nonsense?

(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)