If past is prologue, eventually we’ll exhaust ourselves and politics will return to some semblance of normal. My crystal ball has been recalled as a choking hazard, so I can’t tell you when today’s tsuris will end. Still, this much is clear: it’s not possible to continue living at the speed of President Trump and the Trump detractors.
Trump is unlike any other American president. This is a virtue for his many supporters, a vice for his multitude of detractors. While the news-chewers swallow every crumb of the drama du jour, so many important issues at the state and local level are drowned out.
Here’s a few recent highlights:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an extension of Medi-Cal coverage to illegal immigrants, an enormous incentive for more people to cross the border illegally. A senior advisor to Newsom said, “This governor regards (illegal immigrants) as Californians.” That is a profound shift in the value of citizenship. Last month, 144,000 undocumented immigrants were caught in the southern sector of our border. May was the third consecutive month with more than 100,000 caught. What about the housing crisis? Where are all these new “Californians” supposed to live?
In other news, the city of Los Angeles reported a 16 percent spike, shocking everyone except those who have looked out a window. An audit of HHH money by City Controller Ron Galperin showed $360 million in the bank while less than 10 percent has actually been spent on housing the homeless. This after two and half years of promises. A spokesman for L.A.’s M.I.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti says the mayor has an “innovative pilot program that will put 10 percent of the HHH budget ($1.2 billion) toward finding ways to get housing built even faster.” Glaciers are melting faster than L.A. is building low-cost housing.
We also discovered last week taxpayers are forking over $339,000 for each portable toilet for L.A.’s homeless. This whopping price only covers staffing for 12 hours each day. Unfortunately, the human digestive tract is open 24/7. Out of curiosity, I searched real estate sites to see what $339K can buy. I chose Dayton, Ohio at random, interested in seeing what the non-California reality looks like. Among the many properties available is a four-bedroom, three-bath, 3,100-square-foot custom home on a big 21,000-square-foot lot. It’s not my taste, but nice. Asking price? One L.A. toilet.
Following the defeat of LAUSD’s Measure EE, the largest-circulation newspaper in California blamed the defeat of the property tax hike on “older, white voters who would feel less connection with public schools serving mostly low-income students of color.” Apparently, the Times editorial board wrongly believes a vast portion of the city’s residents don’t care about low-income students of color.
Meanwhile, Rusty Hicks, chairman of the California Democratic Party, declared, “I believe in the collective. I don’t believe in the individual.”
Each of these stories represent a paradigm shift, a change in values. Even the crazy spending on homeless toilets is forgivable for some because “at least something’s getting done.” It may be forgiven by the majority if recent elections are any barometer.
The media obsession with Donald Trump that ricochets across the social media echo chamber has numbed us to local government incompetence, crookedness or radicalization. While the network news shows were quick to cover restrictive new abortion laws in a host of conservative states, nothing has been said about California’s gift to illegal border crossers or the giant step to the left the largest party in the largest state has taken. It’s always easy to recognize when the other side goes too far.
Values do change and often need to change. Humans are forever evolving. Sometimes we take two steps back. Currently, California appears at odds with vast swaths of the rest of the country. In an earlier time, the South was out of sync with the North and West. So far, the sniping has been rhetorical and in the courts. How far do we want to take it?
American values do change from era to era but they rest upon one fundamental, unshakeable value — America as an independent, united, self-governing nation. If we lose that, we’ve lost everything.
Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: Doug@DougMcIntyre.com.
