COLUMN: To Challenge Your Nation, Find Local Unity First

Photo credit: by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, via Wikimedia, AZCC BY-SA 2.0. This column was edited and produced with Zócalo Public Square.

Since so many California leaders are behaving like children, I’m going to address them here in the same way I talk to my three sons on long car trips:

Knock off the stupid fighting, kids. This is going to be a very hard journey, so we must stick together.

Don’t you get that Donald Trump is a lawless fascist who has vowed vengeance on California and its people? Haven’t you heard him threaten to throw politicians who oppose him—which could mean your mayors, police chiefs, top legislators and certainly your governor—in prison?

So why, in the name of God and your mothers, at a time when Californians should be coming together to battle the new president, are so many of you, and your institutions, divided?

As long as our top officials are fighting with each other, Trump is not Californians’ biggest enemy.

You are.

The problem starts right at the top, at the Capitol. And you know what? When I’m in Sacramento in December, I may have to take away the screens of you top Democrats—Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, and Governor Gavin Newsom.

This election year, with California in the spotlight as one of our own struggled to surmount our state’s reputation for dysfunction as she ran for president, you three wasted time battling with your caucuses and each other. Things go so bad in September that the Sacramento Bee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Tom Philp, who has long experience in government, called the three of you “independent autocrats as opposed to a functioning team of Democrats.” He added: “This could be the worst threesome to run California in a very long time.”

You couldn’t get on the same page on crises, from home insurance denials to soaring electricity costs. You failed to compromise meaningfully with cities and law enforcement on retail crime, allowing a retrograde ballot initiative, Prop 36, to sail to victory and roll back criminal justice reforms. And you played stupid political games that delayed the governor’s special session on gas price spikes.

Boys, I know that one reason you fight is because you’re politically weak. But this weakness is precisely why you need to work together constantly, and build a strong, three-headed, personal and political partnership.

Mike, I understand that you are new to your role and that you can score points with your diverse senate caucus by taking shots at the governor. But, as the state seeks to defend itself against Washington, your new rule should be that you won’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 across that divide. Your brother Rick may be your closest political advisor, but he’s also a bully who hurts your relationships. You must send him packing.

As for you, Gavin, I really appreciate the work you’ve done since the election—calling a special session to boost the anti-Trump fight, traveling to D.C., reaching out to other states to build a coalition to protect vulnerable policies. But it’s not enough.

I know firsthand that talking to legislators can be frustrating. But you have no real choice but to spend more time with them, to build deeper relationships, to make more friends. Invite them over to dinner, or a Niners game. Or at least text them some funny memes.

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. You’re like the owner of the football team, sitting in a luxury box and calling down to the coaches. We Californians need you down on the field, in the mud, coaching the team and calling plays.

If the three of you were getting along—in very public ways—it’d set an example for Democratic interest groups, who are engaged in their own circular firing squad. The increasingly fractious labor movement must stop running self-destructive errands of retribution—like spending money to elect a Trump Republican in place of a moderate Orange County Democrat—and focus the fight on the president.

And since California will need tight collaboration between state and local governments to protect vulnerable people, especially migrants, from mass deportation, state officials need to dial down their attacks on locals over homelessness and housing. Governor, you might start with a statewide local peace summit in San Jose, where you got into needless tussles with former mayor Sam Liccardo, newly elected to Congress, and the 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 and talking 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 Republicans and 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, and build new structures.

Why? Because, as Trump’s cabinet of conspiracists and Fox News personalities suggests, the new federal administration isn’t going to govern anything. Instead, it’s going to oversee the dismantling of agencies and bureaucracies that do vital governance.

California, as the biggest and richest state, is going to have to replace that governance in order to save lives. And that may require extraordinary actions. Like using local police to stop rights-violating federal law enforcement. Or hiring the thousands of scientists and doctors Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chases out of NIH or FDA. Or building a “United States Within the United States” with friendly state governments, from Oregon to New Jersey, to stand up shadow federal agencies.

Who knows? If things get super-ugly, you may find yourselves having to form an independent nation.

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.