Now that it’s clear Republican dreams for holding the fort in California have been drowned in a Blue Wave that penetrated as far as Orange County, Stanislaus County Supervisor Kristen Olsen has already begun seeking higher ground.
Like other California Republicans, Olsen is facing the prospect of a permanently stained brand, at least within her home state. And like recently defeated Congressman Jeff Denham, Olsen is blaming the Republican Party for major losses statewide.
Denham said recently that there was nothing he could have done to avoid losing to challenger Josh Harder because Democrats had gained advantages in fund raising and with young voters. Nonetheless, as has been the case for years, Republican Denham will likely end up with the fund raising advantage once final totals come in.
But the problem for both Olsen and Denham isn’t the Republican Party, the problem is neither ever compiled a record independent of the party, and neither stood in opposition to Donald Trump when he hijacked the party. In fact, Denham voted with Trump and the Republican Party almost 98% of the time, a statistic Josh Harder cited repeatedly prior to the November 6 election date.
As for Olsen, her signature accomplishments during her short stay on the Modesto City Council ten years ago included criminalizing dumpster diving, a “crime” about which retired Alameda County Sheriff and fellow councilmember Will O’Bryant said, “Dumpster diving is not a crime. It’s a way for people to survive.”
More recently, as a member of the California State Assembly, Olsen opposed pay raises for UC employees, and local construction workers. Now a Stanislaus County Supervisor, Olsen and her fellow supervisors are at a labor impasse with county employees.
Ironically, county employees have argued that a major factor in the strike is the failure of county supervisors to, “prioritize staffing and funding for services that children, the elderly and disabled, veterans and the public in general need.” In other words, Stanislaus County Supervisors, including Kristen Olsen, are following the long-established Republican agenda of doing away with the social safety net established during the New Deal.
In a recent OP/ED, Olsen offered a misty-eyed version of the Republican Party of yore that included an amnesiac’s view that the party once, “welcomed people from all over the world who sought to live the American Dream and contribute to the economy and society.” Olsen must have forgotten Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s campaign of 1994, when he championed Proposition 187 and tainted the Republican Party with an anti-immigrant stain that Donald Trump has now made indelible.
Olsen’s and Denham’s jabs at their party would be far more convincing had either one spoken out before the Republican losses this election. As it is, both Kristen Olsen and Jeff Denham have to live with the knowledge that they supported the Republican Party both before and after Donald Trump, and the Republican Party has long been anti-immigrant, anti-labor, and anti-science.
The difference today is Donald Trump’s raw depravity has stripped away the camouflage of “family values” and “compassionate conservativism” that once provided cover for a concerted attack on minorities, immigrants, and the poor and laboring classes that began with the Reagan Revolution and has continued ever since. And if Kristen Olsen and Jeff Denham need any confirmation of that claim, all they have to do is look at their own records of support for the party platform.
Thanks Trump shot them both though Denham is a public servant and Kristin Olsen a stick figure of nominal importance
If the Republican brand is tarnished, Kristin Olsen has been a chief tarnisher..
Absolutely!
Kristen Olsen is the most disgusting politician the valley has had in some time. She tweets out bible verses and claims to put valley people 1st but has backed that up by recently being charged with a DUI and cheated on her husband last year with a fellow Republican Assembly Leader. No one is more two faced than her and people are starting to figure this out by her recent actions
Eric, this is primarily for your information.
During Olsen’s tenure on the Modesto council a proposition was brought to the Council by a large out-of-town petroleum products distributor that offered to bring all of their invoicing to a Modesto address, irrespective of the actual point of delivery of the products. By so doing, all the associated taxes would flow to Modesto, and the jurisdiction(s) which provided the public infrastructure and public safety would be deprived of the earned taxes. What’s in it for the distributing company? A kickback of a portion of the new, unearned taxes by the City of Modesto to the distributing company! As soon as Boyett and Breshears heard about it, they became parties to the proposition. It was passed by the Council, including a yea vote by Olsen. In addition to her yea, she also characterized the theft of taxes as being merely “Pennies in a Bucket”.
In this writer’s view, Ms. Olsen has a bit of an ethical shortfall
Interesting update Mr. Reimer, and thank you. We very much appreciate citizen involvement here.
Well stated. Yes. The Republican Party is in shambles. As they found themselves getting pulled so far to the fringe “right” the centrists found themselves without a party at all. What we will see is the wild swings from one extreme to another – liberal Bernie followers and Trump and his loyal but ignorant base. Ignorant, yes, as they refute the truth on many fronts and believe their beloved leader even though he has demonstrated a knack for just espousing lies when attacked with logic.. We will see if the two party system survives when so many of us are thoughtful and pragmatic in our decisions.
The problem with California is that socialism has taken over!!! We the people have no voice throughout the greater area of our state. We (small businesses and middle class) are the real forgotten ones!! The extreme Democrat/environmentalist movement is and will be the death of California!! They, Democrats in California, say they are protecting us, but the fact is just the opposite. We need migrant workers for farming in this state, but the continued theft of water rights will bring that need to a swift end. So much for the want to let them in, unless it is to give them socialism for which they are fleeing their own countries!!! If you want to see the future of California, just look at what Democratic policies have done to Detroit! That is what the largest portion of our state will look like within the next ten to twenty years! You might not like PRESIDENT TRUMP, but the positive things he has done for this nation cannot be denied. That is unless you are living in some alternate reality! We are all fiscally conservative socially liberal to some degree, BUT the path to social liberalism is through fiscal conservativism. Without the money you can’t pay for it!!! That is the big difference between Republicans/conservatives and Democrats/socialists, understanding how to get to the end goal. Bringing our population up to a higher standard of being, lifts us all to a better place! Is that not what our founders wanted and what GOD truly demands of us as human beings? I make this plea to Californian’s, demand that our politicians be responsible to us, by changing laws and overreaching regulations that are making it impossible to start, grow or expand businesses. Return California to the state that it once was with affordability, prosperity, growth, and beauty! This can only happen if we look at the world form a viewpoint other than our own and demand that our politicians do the same.
Since the Bush/Greenspan great recession California has moved from 8th to now 5th among NATIONS in GDP. This decade of performance is enhanced by our powerful environmental movement.
You repeat the same refrain that is sung by darn near every Trump supporter: “You might not like PRESIDENT TRUMP, but the positive things he has done for this nation cannot be denied.” Please tell me exactly what POSITIVE things he has done for working people, small businesses, children, the disabled, those of us on fixed income, etc. Exclude the positive things he has done for the wealthy, his friends, his cabinet members, the large non-tax paying corporations, his family and so on. Also, please do not include the pardons he issued for Arpaio and, soon, Manafort, though it is a positive thing for them. As you make your list of positives, consider the millions of votes against the Trump agenda cast by your fellow citizens, have they all overlooked those “positive things” or do those votes show have they have experienced in their life the consequences of what he has done?
Sean,
You claim that what “…our founders wanted and what GOD truly demands of us as human beings,” is the act of “Bringing our population up to a higher standard of being,”
Your path to this goal is to “…start, grow or expand businesses.”
First, the founders had nothing to do with business, really. Or God. Adam Smith was more the founder when it comes to economics. He warned that government should never interfere with the natural competition between businesses. Smith would puke if he saw that President Trump was threatening to take away the millions in federal subsidies GM currently gets, or if he saw the billion in tax incentives Amazon is getting to build warehouses back east. To his mind, these taxpayer giveaways would betray the very nature of a free market. If you prefer, he would say that by even making these gifts available we were creating a system that is rigged.
Second, I don’t think God gives a shit about the health and welfare of American businesses. He’s too busy ignoring what we’ve done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam or Korea. Or how we treat each other. If you told God all this was all the fault of the Democrats, I bet you’d get a giggle. If you blamed Republicans…same.
Sean=another Trump cultist!
Since the Bush/Greenspan great recession California has moved from 8th to now 5th among NATIONS in GDP. This decade of performance is enhanced by our powerful environmental movement.
Thanks Eric. Well said.
Eric Caine great article.