Buyer’s remorse is already setting in for those Valley Trump supporters whose workers stayed home after Donald Trump took office. There will be more and deeper regrets when the tariffs and incompetent administrators are set fully in place, which won’t be long. But regrets and remorse aren’t the point. There’s no sense in “I told you so” messages, especially now.
At this point we need the solid ground of reality, and there’s still plenty to stand on, even though too much of our San Joaquin Valley is sinking beneath our feet in the form of subsidence caused by over pumping groundwater. That ongoing problem should bring us to the realization that Donald Trump isn’t going to do anything about it, nor will anyone else until we take charge of our own political destiny and start electing better government at local and state levels.
Citizenship is always best exercised from the ground up, in neighborhoods, precincts, districts, cities, counties and states. Given today’s profit-driven media, there’s always more drama and distraction at the national level, especially in the form of culture wars about race, gender and immigration. Meanwhile, Valley ground continues to sink, hordes of feral cats and dogs haunt our cities, and homelessness is growing worse. Local government is failing throughout the Valley.
The neighbor to my right may have voted for Trump, and the one to my left for Kamala Harris, while I may have written in Hunter Thompson. We might never concur on those choices even while agreeing we need better traffic and animal control here in the City of Modesto. We might disagree about causes, but still agree that current tactics for managing homelessness and poverty have failed. It is from those bases of agreement that coalitions form, political platforms evolve, and leaders emerge.
We can let the pundits and politicians rage on about woke indoctrination, critical race theory, diversity, equality and inclusion while we take on more fundamental problems like subsidence, red-light-running scofflaws, homelessness, and bad air.
Those of us who are discouraged by the abandonment of science, learning and law in favor of quackery, sanctimony and authoritarian rule will find consolation in the lessons of history. Today’s sword-rattling about Greenland and the Panama Canal is just the latest installment of the “Manifest Destiny” propaganda that was used to justify forced removal of Native Americans from their homelands. Paranoia about cat-eating immigrants is a case of recycled McCarthyism, substituting immigrants for communists and promoted by the man who made Joe McCarthy’s chief attorney his own political tactician. Failed movements of the past should remain in the past.
Looking backward is useful only when instructed by the lessons of history. When it’s in the form of nostalgia for an imagined past that included the realities of voter suppression, segregation and the subjugation of women, looking backward becomes a form of regressive repression, almost always promoted by people who feel threatened by progress toward government of, by, and for the people.
Today’s leaders of both our political parties are too old, too moored in the past and too committed to culture wars, identity politics and wealthy donors to answer the pressing needs of the working Americans who carried the country through the lies behind the invasion of Iraq, the financial fraud of the Great Recession, and the mismanagement of the Covid pandemic.
Fortunately, a new generation is forming a vanguard of political leadership throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Rhodesia Ransom, Eric Alvarez, Esmeralda Soria, Josh Harder, Channce Condit, Alex Carillo and Adam Gray will be working on behalf of Valley citizens long after the Trump zeppelin has crumpled and fallen to the ground. These vigorous young people are leading our Valley forward now and will still be working for us long after Trump.
Gasbags never were the way to the future.
Biden was not on the ballot
Thank you Mr. Grose. (An earlier version had Joe Biden in place of Kamala Harris here. We always appreciate corrections)
Great article Eric. As I digested I said I had to reply and while reading this referenced article, I said this will be a good reply. An excerpt:
“In Trump’s world, my life story wouldn’t exist, nor would Elizabeth’s. At the heart of the American Dream exists the possibility for kids of meager means to “Make It,” whether they are men OR WOMEN.
My life has been wonderful and if it ended tomorrow, I would have no regrets. But I owe a debt of gratitude to America and Wisconsin for their investment in me and the middle class—which used to be so uniquely AMERICAN but is no longer our shared reality.
When I ask who should be fighting Fascism in America in order to restore the American Dream, the answer is always the same—ME and others like me for whom the old system worked and whose success enables a store of resilience that those who have been held down for so long don’t always have.”
Article is here: https://mailchi.mp/f72cdca0f8cb/americas-literacy-crisis-and-the-gullibility-gap-8273577?e=eb42f44dba
Yes, our concerns are local, but are also subject to political winds in Washington. The U.S. Congress needs to reclaim their primary role in steering our country, a role Congress began to cede over 100 years ago. Patrick Henry turned down the invitation from James Madison to attend the Constitutional Convention writing, “I smell a rat in Philadelphia, tending toward the monarchy.” Trump proves Henry’s warning came true, and we must advocate through our representatives to change course. 1. Congress should amend the Reciprocal Trade Agreement of 1934, so congress can override presidential tariffs AND a subsequent veto with a simple majority. 2. Scuttle the War Powers Act of 1973 and reclaim Congress’ traditional mandate to declare war. The president is within his or her right to respond to immediate attacks but not to commit troops into armed conflict like Reagan did in Grenada and Panama and Trump may do with Greenland and Panama.
https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/blog/2014/June/Eighty-years-of-the-Reciprocal-Trade-Agreements-Act
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/war-powers-resolution-1973
Kevin, Frank and you are not really as political as Mr. Grose seems to imply. That is sheer blindness and leads to all sorts of bad things. Yeah the local people in power are important because they usually have money and backing and that leads to bigger positions of power. Good if for humanity and the real world that most of us live in, but bad if the have ideals, beliefs, as I assume, Mr. Grose has. That’s why the so called common people need to have a better way to know those they are voting for instead of a speech, ad or? Easy to say. Communication certainly is hard to do. If your detail isn’t good enough you might seem to praise instead of complaining about something. The situation is so bad now, that I am constantly wondering what I can do to stop the obvious try to take over the Federal Gov. over supposedly the price of eggs. It’s also all those who have been left ignorant, not important enough, too poor for the Party of the People to really include them. When you hear from any of the parties they ask for money. Nothing except pay us and we will fix everything so they say. If the people are already feeling left out, they are really feeling left out because they are. Right now , if rich enough , I would be in DC hammering on doors, laying out money to defeat a disgusting person that even now has allowed a unelected person, no security clearance and has obvious ties to the Nazi side of thinkers, to get into the Federal Gov. files of all of us. A gigantic security breach for millions and puts the Country in more harms way. So if you are sitting on the sidelines, get off whatever and stand for people and all species on this Planet. Germany did it except it took a World war and an almost genocide of a Religion and everyone else not deemed pure enough.
While I agree with many parts of this, there is a major issue with the hand waving going on, saying that we should leave serious discrimination issues to pundits and politicians.
I’m disabled, my pancreas literally does not produce the enzymes I need to digest food. My spouse’s healthcare ensures that I get the care I need at a price I can afford—but I’m in a gay marriage. People I love are terrified of losing their rights. They’re terrified of ICE. We need to be fighting for these issues at a grassroots level, also. These are fundamental issues that require addressing.
I agree that we need to address homelessness. But there is a hefty privilege present in this piece that assumes race and gender are not also fundamental issues for the Valley.
Dear Eric, I am grateful for your ability to express so well the situation at hand. However the zeppelin floating above us now is more likely to explode in a fireball than to crumple and fall to the ground. In the meantime, the deconstruction of our hard-earned democracy is suffering damage that will take much longer to rebuild than it took to create. The most helpless and vulnerable here and abroad are being irreparably harmed along with our national security and our seasoned and essential federal civilian workforce with the institutional memory of how to keep things working. Thank God for the stalwart leaders and agents in the FBI. I find little comfort in the idea that there are Josh Harders among us as they also supported GOP legislation like the Laken Riley Act, a bit of performative politics like Nero fiddling while Rome burned. What are they doing do to stop the jackbooted thugs that are trampling across our laws & rules with ‘So What’? from their dear leader in the White House and Nazi salutes from his co-president. Color me FURIOUS!