California Dems Fight Trump While State Burns

As President Trump took office, top California Democrats lined up by the Capitol building in Sacramento to form a healing circle.

Not healing for those killed in the fires burning up parts of Southern California, or those who had lost family members, homes and prized possessions, but to protest Trump taking office.

Surrounded by flickering candles arranged on the steps and piled on the podium, the lawmakers, despite their promise to form a ‘healing circle’, stood in more of the traditional press conference line, and vowed to protect illegal aliens from the Trump administration.

The candles were not there to mourn the dead, but to mourn the results of the 2024 election.

Meanwhile a new fire had broken out which quickly consumed 8,000 acres. That was followed by another fire which forced thousands more to flee their homes. But such concerns were entirely distant from the ‘healing circle’ where none of the wildfire victims could be heard.

“Now more than ever, we must come together to organize and show this president that we are not backing down,” Assemblyman Mike Gipson vowed.

“We do not let Trump harass, intimidate, and push our immigrant community,” Sen. Susan Rubio threatened.

There was no actual healing to be found at the healing circle while the state burned, just rage, threats, warnings and an obsession with protecting their illegal alien majority.

“The California Legislature will be there for our immigrant community,” Assemblyman Alex Lee assured.

The American citizens fleeing the latest fire caused by Democrat mismanagement, political corruption and woke policymaking had no such assurances.

No amount of fires could shift the attention of California Democrats away from illegal aliens.

Even as the worst of the fires blazed, Gov. Newsom and Democrat legislators convened an illegal special session to divert $25 million to fighting efforts to deport illegal alien criminals.

Republicans requested a special session on the wildfires instead of on fighting Trump.

Speaker Robert Rivas appeared to be caught in the headlights when he was challenged by KCRA 3 correspondent Ashley Zavala who asked, “is now the right time to have a special legislative session on allocating money to fight Trump?”

“People are trying to understand what’s going on and are worried about disaster relief, worried about the ability to get homeowners insurance, your chamber gaveled into a special legislative session to prepare for Donald Trump in a way that you are already able to do without a special legislative session. So again, is now the right time for that?” she asked.

Rivas replied by claiming that Democrats were acting with “great urgency” but the greatest urgency was reserved for partisan agendas and protecting illegal aliens in the name of that agenda. And even while the state claimed it didn’t have the money for wildfire relief, it freed up $50 million, double Gov. Newsom’s original request, to wage war on the new administration.

“This funding agreement cements California’s readiness to serve as a bulwark against Trump’s extremist agenda,” Senate Budget Committee Chair Scott Wiener bragged.

California Democrats might not have the readiness to fight fires, but they could fight Trump.

During his first term, California Democrats had sued the federal government 123 times at an annual cost of $10 million. Inflation under Biden has sent costs soaring so this time around, Gov. Newsom wanted $25 million just to ante up at the lawfare table.

Attorney General Rob Bonta, who still hopes to replace Newsom as the man to run the state into the ground for the next four years, was quickly out of the gate with a lawsuit defending citizenship for second generation illegal aliens. “The president chose to start his second term by knocking down one of our country’s foundational, long-standing rights and disregarding our nation’s governing document,” he complained, referring to the 14th Amendment.

Bonta, a Yale Law School graduate, appeared unaware that the 14th amendment came about 80 years after the Constitution and was not “foundational” in any possible sense of the word.

He also appeared unaware that most Californians wanted the attorney general, a Newsom appointee, to fix problems like massive crime, rather than file lawsuits for illegal aliens.

But what they may not have understood was that the special session had less to do with Trump or with illegal aliens than it did with the political fortunes of Newsom and Bonta. Gov. Newsom had secured $25 million in taxpayer money to promote his presidential prospects and secure Bonta’s role as his successor. While California burned, its top officials ignored everything to fight Trump, protect illegal aliens and exploit opposition to Trump to maintain their political power.

California Democrats might have claimed that they couldn’t manage wildfire relief on their own, but they had millions aplenty to advance the crooked political careers of Newsom and Bonta.

The corrupt nature of California’s resistance was not only rooted in protecting criminals, including the drug cartel and gang members who are the leading targets for Trump’s deportations, but in the integration between the party, activists and political careerists.

In Sacramento’, Biden’s old advocacy director flew out from D.C. to stage a rally at the Capitol.

“We are here to defeat, delay, and dilute Trump’s extreme agenda at every level, including the state and local level,” Schifeling, who had jumped ship from the Biden White House to head the ACLU’s advocacy operation, ranted.

California might be on fire, but the state and its major populated regions had always been on fire in one sense or another. Runaway crime and homelessness, the collapse of the retail sector and the educational system, were all crises that were ignored by the Democrat ruling class.

Democrats had spent the first term of the Trump administration on lawsuits instead of on fixing those problems and as Trump’s second term arrived, they made it clear once more that they would watch the state burn to the ground before they would change a thing.

Or give up power.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

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