Mathews: To fight Trump, California must stop fighting itself
Since California leaders are behaving like children, I’ll now talk to them as if they were my three sons on long car trips.
Knock off the stupid fighting, kids. This will be a very hard journey, so let’s stick together.
Don’t you get that Donald Trump is a lawless fascist who vowed vengeance on California? Haven’t you heard him threaten to imprison politicians who oppose him — which could be you?
So why, when Californians should be uniting against the new president, are so many of you divided?
When leaders fight each other, Trump is not Californians’ biggest enemy. You are.
The problem starts at the Capitol, with Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, and Governor Gavin Newsom.
This election year, with California in the spotlight as Kamala Harris ran for president, you three wasted time battling with your caucuses and each other. You couldn’t get on the same page on crises, from home insurance denials to soaring electricity costs. You played stupid political games that delayed the governor’s special session on gas price spikes.
Things go so bad that Pulitzer-winning Sacramento Bee columnist Tom Philp called the three of you “independent autocrats as opposed to a functioning team of Democrats.”
This can’t go on.
Mike, I understand that you are new to your role and that you can score points with your diverse caucus by taking shots at the governor. But, as California defends itself from Washington, you shouldn’t speak ill of anyone who does not work for Donald Trump.
Robert, everyone knows that your caucus is still divided from your long campaign to become speaker. You need to befriend more of your critics and maybe send your brother-advisor Rick, who hurts your relationships, on a four-year vacation.
As for you, Gavin, while I appreciate the work you’ve done since the election — calling a special session to boost anti-Trump litigation, traveling to D.C., reaching out to other states to build a coalition — it’s not enough.
Because right now, lawmakers (and even some of your own staff) see you as this guy who runs around talking to VIPs, before swooping in with some grand plan at the last second. Instead you need to work constantly with legislators, building the real relationships necessary to turn the Capitol into one cohesive team. If Capitol Democrats can get along fabulously, it’d set an example for Democratic interest groups, who are engaged in their own circular firing squad.
And since California will need tight collaboration between state and local governments to protect vulnerable people, especially migrants, state officials should dial down attacks on locals over homelessness and housing. Governor, you might start with a statewide local peace summit in San Jose, and end your feuds with former mayor Sam Liccardo and new mayor Matt Mahan.
Let me clear: Peacemaking doesn’t mean staying silent when you disagree or see wrongdoing. Quite the opposite. California’s state and local leaders should be meeting constantly — I’d suggest a daily “war Zoom” and weekly in-person barbecues at one of the governor’s big houses — to discuss every concern and grievance in this terrible moment. But please keep those disagreements private, and leave the conflict-stoking to media provocateurs like this columnist.
One last suggestion. As you come together, please remember that you’re going to have to do more than parry federal attacks, or fight a common enemy in Trump. You’re almost certainly going to have to remake our state.
Why? Because, as Trump’s cabinet of conspiracists and Fox News personalities suggests, the new federal administration is going to dismantle agencies that do vital governance.
And California is going to have to replace that governance, and build new structures and agencies.
Such tasks will be nearly impossible even if you unify. If you keep fighting in the backseat, you are taking the side of those who would inflict catastrophe on you and your fellow Californians.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Mathews: To fight Trump, California must stop fighting itself
