Column

President Trump has long acknowledged that he doesn’t read books, so perhaps he’s never cracked the spine of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” But hasn’t he seen one of the several movies? Does he really not know that Gatsby is a tragedy about class, excess and hubris?

It seems not. On Halloween, there was Trump, dressed as himself, hosting a Gatsby-themed party at his Gatsby-era Mar-a-Lago estate. The president was fresh from a diplomatic tour of Asia during which he’d swept up an array of golden gifts (a crown!) from heads of state paying tribute in hopes of not paying tariffs.

Trump’s arriving guests, costumed as Roaring ’20s flappers, bootleggers and pre-crash tycoons, passed a scantily clad woman seductively writhing in a giant Champagne glass, then entered his gilded ballroom beneath a sign in Art Deco script pronouncing the night’s theme: “A little party never killed nobody.”

That’s the title of a song from the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 film take on Gatsby, the most recent. Perhaps Trump is unaware that in the wake of the fictional Gatsby’s own debauched party, three people died, including Gatsby.

The tone-deaf Trump faced a comeuppance far short of tragedy after his party, but painful nonetheless: a blue wave in Tuesday’s elections. Revulsion at his imperial presidency swamped Republican candidates and causes.

The apparent ignorance of Mr. Make America Great Again about one of the great American novels, now in its centennial year, wasn’t the worst of Trump’s weekend show of excess. This was: The president of the United States held court at Mar-a-Lago, amid free-flowing liquor and tables laden with food, hours before federal food aid would end for 42 million Americans. Meanwhile, more than 1 million federal employees were furloughed or worked without pay amid a five-week-old government shutdown, some of them joining previously fired public servants at food banks. The online People magazine juxtaposed a photo of Trump surveying his Palm Beach party with a shot of nearby Miamians in a food line.

The president, who for nearly 10 months has seized powers he doesn’t have under federal law and the Constitution, professed to be all but powerless to avert the nutrition assistance cutoff, despite two federal judges’ rulings that he do so. And, characteristically, he claimed to be blameless about the shutdown that provoked the nutrition crisis.

“It’s their fault,” Trump said of congressional Democrats as he flew to Mar-a-Lago for the fete. “Everything is their fault. It’s so easily solved.”

How? Why, Democrats have to bend the knee, of course. They must abandon their quest to get Trump and Republicans to reverse their Medicaid cuts and to extend Obamacare subsidies for the working poor. Even as Mr. Art of the Deal claims (falsely) to have settled eight wars, bargaining even with Hamas, he’s refused to negotiate with Democrats. The shutdown is now the longest ever, on Tuesday surpassing the 35-day record Trump set in his first term.

There’s more.

En route to Florida aboard Air Force One, the presidential plane that Trump is replacing with a truly royal jet, a gift from Qatar, and having left behind the ruins of the East Wing where his $300-million ballroom will rise, Trump took to social media to boast of his latest project in the Mar-a-Lago-fication of the White House: an all-marble and gold do-over of the bathroom adjoining the Lincoln Bedroom. “Highly polished, Statuary marble!” he crowed, sending two dozen photos in a series of posts. Trump wrote that the previous 1940s-era bathroom “was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era,” but his changes fixed that.

“Art Deco doesn’t go with, you know, 1850 and civil wars and all of the problems,” he’d told wealthy donors last month. “But what does is statuary marble. So I ripped it apart and we built the bathroom. It’s absolutely gorgeous and totally in keeping with that time.”

And with that, Trump again showed his ignorance of America’s history as well as its literature. That said, the new bathroom is more attractive than the one at Mar-a-Lago in which Trump stashed boxes of government documents, including top-secret papers, after his first term.

Trump’s lust for power and its trappings seems to have made him blind to bad optics and deaf to the dissonance of his utterances. The politician who’s gotten so much credit — and won two of three presidential elections — for speaking to working-class Americans’ grievances now seems completely out of touch. There’s also his family’s open accrual of wealth, especially in crypto, and Trump’s recent demand for $230 million from the ever-accommodating Justice Department, to compensate him for the past legal cases against him for keeping government documents and attempting to reverse his 2020 defeat.

All of this while Americans’ costs of living remain high, people are out of jobs thanks to his policies and longtime residents, including some citizens, are swept up in his immigrant detentions and deportations, sundering families.

This week’s election results aren’t the only thing that suggests Trump is finally paying a price. So did the release of several polls timed for the first anniversary of his reelection. Despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, his job approval ratings are the lowest since the ignominious end of his first term. Majorities oppose his handling of most issues, including the ones — the economy and immigration — that helped elect him.

The narrator in “The Great Gatsby” famously says of two central characters, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

I’m looking forward to the day when the careless Trump is gone and his mess can be cleaned up — including all that gold defiling the People’s House.

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SACRAMENTO — While President Trump was pushing National Guard troops from city to city like some little kid playing with his toy soldiers, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was coaxing voters into fighting the man’s election-rigging scheme.

It turned out to be an easy sell for the governor. By the end, Californians appeared ready to send a loud message that they not only objected to the president’s election rigging but practically all his policies.

Trump is his own worst enemy, at least in this solidly blue state — and arguably the California GOP’s biggest current obstacle to regaining relevancy.

Here’s a guy bucking for the Nobel Peace Prize who suggests that the country resume nuclear weapons testing — a relic of the Cold War — and sends armed troops into Portland and Chicago for no good reason.

The commander in chief bizarrely authorized Marines to fire artillery shells from a howitzer across busy Interstate 5. Fortunately, the governor shut down the freeway. Or else exploding shrapnel could have splattered heads in some topless convertible. As it was, metal chunks landed only on a California Highway Patrol car and a CHP motorcycle. No injuries, but the president and his forces came across as blatantly reckless.

And while Trump focused on demolishing the First Lady’s historic East Wing of the White House and hitting up billionaire grovelers to pay for a monstrous, senseless $300-million ballroom — portraying the image of a spoiled, self-indulgent monarch — Newsom worked on a much different project. He concentrated on building a high-powered coalition and raising well over $100 million to thwart the president with Proposition 50.

The ballot measure was Newsom’s and California Democrats’ response to Trump browbeating Texas and other red states to gerrymander congressional districts to make them more Republican-friendly. The president is desperate to retain GOP control of the House of Representatives after next year’s midterm elections.

Newsom retaliated with Prop. 50, aimed at flipping five California House seats from Republican to Democrat, neutralizing Texas’ gerrymandering.

It’s all sleazy, but Trump started it. California’s Democratic voters, who greatly outnumber Republicans, indicated in preelection polling that they preferred sleazy redistricting to an unhinged president continuing to reign roughshod over a cowardly, subservient Congress.

A poll released last week by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that 93% of likely Democratic voters supported Prop. 50. So did 57% of independents. Conversely, symbolic of Trump’s hold on the GOP and our political polarization, 91% of Republicans opposed the measure.

Similar partisan voting was found in a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California. Pollster Mark Baldassare said that “96% of the people voting yes on 50 disapprove of Trump.”

Democrats — 94% of them — also emphatically disapproved of the Trump administration’s immigration raids, the PPIC poll showed. Likewise, 67% of independents. But 84% of Republicans backed how the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency was rounding up people living here illegally.

ICE agents shrouded in masks and not wearing identification badges while traveling in unmarked vehicles — raiding hospitals, harassing school kids and chasing farmworkers — are not embraced in diverse, immigrant-accepting California.

When the PPIC poll asked voters how undocumented immigrants should be handled, 69% — including 93% of Democrats — chose this response: “There should be a way for them to stay in the country legally.” But 67% of Republicans said they should be booted.

The ICE raids were among the Trump actions — and flubs — that helped generate strong support for Prop. 50. It was the voters’ device for sticking it to the president.

“Californians are concerned about the overreach of the federal government and that helped 50,” Democratic consultant Roger Salazar says. “It highlights how much the Trump administration has pushed the envelope. And a yes vote on Prop. 50 was a response to that.”

Jonathan Paik, director of a Million Votes Project coalition that contacted 2 million people promoting Prop. 50, says: “We heard very consistently from voters that they were concerned about the impact of Trump’s ICE raids and the rising cost of living. These raids don’t just target immigrants, they destabilize entire communities and deepen economic struggles.

“Voters saw Prop. 50 as a way to restore balance and protect their families’ ability to work, pay rent and live safely.”

The measure also provided a platform for Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California to explore possibly joining a crowded field of candidates running for governor. Newsom is termed-out after next year.

The Trump administration did Padilla a gigantic favor in June by roughing up the senator and handcuffing him on the floor when he tried to query Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a Los Angeles news conference about ICE raids. Such publicity for a politician is golden.

Padilla became a leading advocate for Prop. 50 while seriously considering a gubernatorial bid. The senator said he’d decide after Tuesday’s special election.

“I haven’t made any decision,” he told me last week. “Sometime in the next several weeks.”

But it’s tempting for this L.A. native, the son of Mexican immigrants who was inspired to enter politics by anti-immigrant bashing in the 1990s.

“I’d have an opportunity and responsibility to be a leading voice against that,” he said. “California can be a leader for the rest of the country on immigration, environmental protection, reproduction quality, healthcare…”

In many ways it already is. But Trump hates that. And California Republicans step in it by meekly following the hugely unpopular president. Prop. 50 is the latest result.

California Republicans can do better than behave like Trump’s wannabe reserve toy soldiers.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: A youth movement is roiling Democrats. Does age equal obsolescence?
The what happened: Most Americans have avoided shutdown woes. That might change.
The L.A. Times Special: Voters in poll side with Newsom, Democrats on Prop. 50 — a potential blow to Trump and GOP

Until next week,
George Skelton

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Shohei Ohtani wore the same mask of calm that he always wears.

He spoke with detachment, as he often does.

By the time Ohtani walked into the interview room at Dodger Stadium after his team’s 6-2 defeat in Game 4 of the World Series, however, he was already devising his redemption.

“Of course, I’d like to prepare to be available for every game in case I’m needed,” Ohtani said in Japanese.

Ohtani wants to pitch again in this World Series.

He wants to pitch again, even after he was saddled with the loss on Tuesday night by the Toronto Blue Jays.

He wants to pitch again, even after the physical demands of reaching base nine times in an 18-inning victory the previous night clearly diminished him on the mound.

If Ohtani pitches, he would almost certainly pitch in relief.

Pitching in middle relief doesn’t make sense for Ohtani, considering that when he departs the game as a pitcher, rules would require the Dodgers to play him in the outfield or lose him as a hitter for the remainder of the game.

They might as well use him as a closer, and they might as well use him in a World Series clincher, either in Game 6 or 7.

This is who Ohtani is. This is what he does.

He won’t let the disappointment of his World Series pitching debut scare him away from pursuing another dream. He isn’t afraid of failure.

Game 4 was a failure.

The six-hour 39-minute game the Dodgers played the night before offered Ohtani cover. He reached base a record nine times. He homered twice and doubled twice. His leg cramped at some point. He went to sleep at 2 a.m.

But Ohtani didn’t take any of the excuses that were offered to him.

“I have no plans of saying the game yesterday was this or that,” he said.

The truth was revealed in his play.

Ohtani looked exhausted. He sweated profusely and looked as if he might be dehydrated. He looked, well, human.

His fastball uncharacteristically never touched 100 mph, but he pitched well for the most part. His only notable mistake was an elevated sweeper he threw in the third inning to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that was deposited over the left-field wall for a two-run home run.

Ohtani struck out the side in the fourth inning, as well as the first batter he faced in the fifth. Manager Dave Roberts said that pitching coach Mark Prior approached Ohtani in the sixth innings and asked him how much he had left.

“He said he had three more innings,” Roberts said.

Ohtani couldn’t make it out of the seventh inning. In fact, he couldn’t even record an out in the seventh, starting the inning by giving up a single to Daulton Varsho and a double to Ernie Clement. With Ohtani clearly gassed, Roberts called in Anthony Banda, who allowed the two inherited runners to score.

Ohtani’s final line: Six innings, four runs, six hits, a walk and six strikeouts.

He said his goal was to pitch seven innings.

Ohtani didn’t have the game he wanted in the batter’s box, either. It didn’t help that he didn’t have any form of lineup protection. No. 9 hitter Andy Pages, who batted in front of him, was 0 for two and is now batting .080 this postseason. Mookie Betts, who batted behind him, was hitless until the eighth inning when the game was already out of reach. Betts is batting .158 in this World Series.

Ohtani walked in the first inning but was hitless in the three at-bats that followed. Not one of the 14 pitches he saw from Blue Jays starter Shane Bieber was near the middle quadrant of the plate.

Being a starting pitcher and leadoff hitter in the same game was hard enough. Being a starting pitcher and a leadoff hitter in the same game after an 18-inning battle was revealed to be downright impossible. Because if Ohtani couldn’t do it, nobody could.

Instead of moping over the setback, Ohtani has started eyeing his next boundary-pushing maneuver: To be a leadoff hitter and high-leverage reliever in the same game.

The World Series is now tied, two games apiece. The fixation Ohtani has with finding new methods to win games could be why the Dodgers finish as champions again.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s anti-Trump, anti-Texas congressional redistricting gamble seems about to pay off.

Newsom’s bet on Proposition 50 is looking like a winner, although we won’t really know until the vote count is released starting election night Nov. 4.

Insiders closely watching the high-stakes campaign would be shocked if Republicans pulled an upset and defeated the Democrats’ retaliatory response to red state gerrymandering.

They talk mostly about the expected size of victory, not whether it will win. The hedged consensus is that it’ll be by a modest margin, not a blowout.

Any size victory would help Newsom promote himself nationally as the Democrat whom party activists anxiously seek to aggressively fight Trumpism. It could energize grassroots progressives to back the Californian in early 2028 presidential primaries.

Propositions 50’s defeat, however, could be a devastating blow to Newsom’s presidential aspirations. If Californians wouldn’t follow him, why should other people?

Private and independent polls have shown Proposition 50 being supported by a small majority of registered voters. Not enough for an early victory dance. But the opposition is nowhere close to a majority. A lot of people have been undecided. They may not even bother to vote in a special election with only one state measure on the ballot.

As of last week, the return of mail-in ballots was running about the same as in last year’s presidential election at the same point — very unusual.

A slightly higher percentage of Democrats were casting ballots than GOP registrants. This is particularly significant in a state where 45% of voters are Democrats and only 25% are Republicans. The GOP needs a humungous turnout to beat Democrats on almost anything.

You can credit President Trump’s antics for riling up Democrats to vote early.

One practical importance of early Democratic voting is that the “yes” side doesn’t need to spend more money appealing to people who have already mailed in their ballots.

“It’s a bird in the hand kind of thing,” says Paul Mitchell, the Democrats’ chief data processor and principal drawer of the gerrymandered congressional maps up for approval in Proposition 50.

Mitchell believes the large recent weekend turnouts in California of “No Kings” protesters are indicative of the anti-Trump outrage that is generating Democratic enthusiasm for Proposition 50.

Republican consultant Rob Stutzman thinks that Proposition 50 could have been beaten with enough money. But not nearly enough showed up. Potential donors probably concluded it was a lost cause, he says. Don’t waste the cash.

It takes ridiculous amounts of money to win a competitive statewide race in California, with 23 million diverse voters scattered over hundreds of miles and several costly media markets.

Democrats, with their unmatched California power, have raised well over $100 million from unions, billionaire Democratic donors and other political investors.

Billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer put up $12 million. There are rumors he’s tempted to run for governor.

Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso is thinking very seriously about entering the 2026 gubernatorial race. He just paid for 100,000 pro-50 mail pieces in L.A. County, aimed at those least likely to vote.

One problem for the opposition is that it never unified behind a main anti-50 message. It ranged from “reject Newsom’s power grab” to “win one for Trump” and a purist lecture about retaining California’s current congressional districts drawn by a voter-created good government citizens’ commission.

The basic pro-50 message is simply, as Steyer says in his TV ad: “Stick it to Trump.”

This contest at its core is about which party controls Congress after next year’s midterm elections — or whether Republicans and Democrats at least share power. It’s about whether there’ll be a Congress with some gumption to confront a power-mad, egotistical president.

The fight started when Trump banged on Texas to redraw — gerrymander — its congressional districts to potentially gain five more Republican seats in the House of Representatives. Democrats need only a slight pickup to capture House control — and in an off-year election, the non-presidential party tends to acquire many.

Texas obediently obliged the nervous Trump, and other red states also have.

Newsom responded by urging the California Legislature to redraw this state’s maps to potentially gain five Democratic seats, neutralizing Texas’ underhanded move. The lawmakers quickly did. But in California, voter approval is needed to temporarily shelve the independent commission’s work. That’s what Proposition 50 does.

It also would boost Newsom’s standing among party activists across America.

“He’s been trying to claim the national leadership on anti-Trump. This is a chance for him to show he can deliver,” says UC Berkeley political scientist Eric Schickler. “There’s a sense the party doesn’t know how to fight back.

“On the flip side, if he were unable to persuade California voters to go along with him, it would be a hard sell to show Democrats nationally he’s the best person to take on Republicans.”

“It’s a gamble,” says UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser. “If 50 wins, he’s a person who can effectively fight back against Donald Trump. If it loses, he has no hope of winning on the national level.”

But veteran political consultant Mike Murphy — a former Republican who switched to independent — thinks Newsom could survive voters’ rejection of Proposition 50.

“It would take some of the shine off him. But he’d still be a contender. It wouldn’t knock him out. The worst you could say was that he lost 50 but was fighting the good fight.

“If 50 wins, Gavin might have a good future as a riverboat gambler if he puts all the chips in.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Pelosi faces challenges as age becomes unavoidable tension point for Democrats
The TK: Justice Department says it will monitor California poll sites amid Prop. 50 voting
The L.A. Times Special: She was highly qualified to be California governor. Why did her campaign fizzle?

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
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The NCAA picked a hell of a week to get into the gambling business, didn’t it?

Within 24 hours of approving a rule change that will allow student athletes and athletic department staff to bet only on professional sports, the FBI arrested more than 30 people in connection with a major sports gambling and betting scheme. The level of sophistication alleged in one 22-page indictment reads like an “Ocean’s Eleven” script with four New York Mafia families, a current NBA player and a head coach all allegedly involved.

For Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, the news and arrests are a public relations nightmare.

But for the NCAA, it’s a warning.

Since a 2018 Supreme Court ruling paved the way for sports betting, more than 35 states have legalized it, so I understand why the industry no longer feels dirty. But the governing body for more than half a million young athletes must remember nothing will ever sanitize that industry.

A century ago, the Black Sox scandal nearly destroyed baseball in America. Fast forward a hundred years and we find out 16 professional tennis players — including a U.S. Open champion — were fixing matches for gambling syndicates in Russia and Italy. In between, Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose received a lifetime ban for betting on baseball games as a manager and Tim Donaghy, an NBA referee, is busted for betting on games. Last year, former NBA player Jontay Porter was found to have placed several bets on games using another person’s account. We call him “former” because the league banned him for life.

So, if NCAA officials believe it is too cumbersome to enforce its current gambling ban (it is investigating multiple violations across several schools), imagine what life inside the organization would be like without some sort of deterrent.

In fact, no imagination is required. Just read the indictment filed by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The FBI alleges the gambling scheme began in 2019, operated across 11 states and involved crime families with origins that date back more than a century.

According to documents, hidden cameras, programmable card shuffling machines and X-ray tables were among the pieces of technology used to steal tens of millions from victims during rigged poker games. Those allegedly involved in the scheme included Chauncey Billups — a Hall of Fame player and head coach of the Portland Trailblazers. Authorities said Billups, who led the Detroit Pistons to the 2004 championship, used his celebrity to lure in victims. In addition, the FBI said Damon Jones, a former player and assistant coach for the Lakers, shared inside information about the health of LeBron James with betters back in 2023. Terry Rozier, an active NBA player on a $100-million contract, was also arrested.

Now consider this: There are roughly 40,000 young men and women who play NCAA basketball and about 8,000 head and assistant coaches leading teams. How confident are you that March Madness won’t take on a different meaning if coaches and players are allowed to bet on games and find themselves underwater? A recent UC San Diego study found internet searches seeking help with gambling addiction increased 23% between 2018 and June 2024.

And while it’s true, the new rule maintains a ban against student athletes and coaches betting on college sports — so there are some guardrails against fixing games — but tilting outcomes is only one possible harm from gambling. The International Tennis Federation found that angry gamblers accounted for 40% of social media attacks aimed at players, with several threats credible enough to be submitted to the FBI. And there is already evidence that college students who aren’t athletes are using student loan money to place bets, and a 2023 NCAA survey found that 14% of U.S. 18- to 22-year-olds bet at least a few times a week.

Another 16% use a bookie.

I repeat: a bookie.

This just feels like a tragedy we can all see coming.

And we’re to believe the NCAA will be equipped to protect student athletes from predators when the Mafia is said to be using professional athletes and X-ray machines to steal from card players who are supposed to know better? The decision-making process for the human brain isn’t fully developed until a person is 25, and the NCAA just voted to let 18-year-olds with “name, image, likeness” money go in the deep water with sharks.

Given what just unfolded in the NBA this week the responsible move for the NCAA would be to pause the rule change — which is to take effect Nov. 1 — and reassess the risks. It’s one thing for sports gambling to cost a pro athlete to lose his career. It would be worse to see addiction or debt obligations steal a young person’s future before it begins.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

To say that President Trump is unfazed by Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” rally, which vies for bragging rights as perhaps the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, is the sort of understatement too typical when describing his monarchical outrages.

Leave aside Trump’s grotesque mockery of the protests — his post that night of an AI-generated video depicting himself as a becrowned pilot in a fighter jet, dropping poop bombs on citizens protesting peacefully below. Consider instead two other post-rally actions: On Sunday and Wednesday, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced first that on Trump’s orders the military had struck a seventh boat off Venezuela and then an eighth vessel in the Pacific, bringing the number of people killed over two months to 34. The administration has provided no evidence to Congress or the American public for Trump’s claims that the unidentified dead were “narco-terrorists,” nor any credible legal rationale for the strikes. Then, on Monday, Trump began demolishing the White House’s East Wing to create the gilded ballroom of his dreams, which, at 90,000 square feet, would be nearly twice the size of the White House residence itself.

As sickening as the sight was — heavy equipment ripping away at the historic property as high-powered hoses doused the dusty debris — Trump’s $250-million vanity project is small stuff compared to a policy of killing noncombatant civilian citizens of nations with which we are not at war (Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador). Yet together the actions reflect the spectrum of consequences of Trump’s utter sense of impunity as president, from the relatively symbolic to the murderous.

“In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776. Not in Trump’s America.

Among the commentariat, the president’s desecration of the East Wing is getting at least as much criticism as his extralegal killings at sea. Many critics see in the bulldozing of the People’s House a metaphor for Trump’s destructive governance generally — his other teardowns of federal agencies, life-saving foreign aid, healthcare benefits and more. The metaphor is indeed apt.

But what’s more striking is the sheer sense of impunity that Trump telegraphs, constantly, with the “je suis l’état” flare of a Louis XIV — complete (soon) with Trump’s Versailles. (Separately, Trump’s mimicry of French emperors now includes plans for a sort of Arc de Triomphe near Arlington Cemetery. A reporter asked who it would be for. “Me,” Trump said. Arc de Trump.)

No law, domestic or international, constrains him, as far as the convicted felon is concerned. Neither does Congress, where Republicans bend the knee. Nor the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 right-wing majority, including three justices Trump chose in his first term.

The court’s ruling last year in Trump vs. United States gives Trump virtual immunity from criminal prosecution, but U.S. servicemembers don’t have that protection when it comes to the deadly Caribbean Sea attacks or any other orders from the commander in chief that might one day be judged to have been illegal.

The operation’s commander, Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, reportedly expressed concerns about the strikes within the administration. Last week he announced his retirement after less than a year as head of the U.S. Southern Command. It could be a coincidence. But I’m hardly alone in counting Holsey as the latest casualty in Trump and Hegseth’s purge of perceived nonloyalists at the Pentagon.

“When the president decides someone has to die, the military becomes his personal hit squad,” military analyst and former Republican Tom Nichols said Monday on MSNBC. Just like with kings and other autocrats: Off with their heads.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a rare maverick Republican, noted on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that in years past, the Coast Guard would board foreign boats suspected of ferrying drugs and, if contraband were found, take it and suspected traffickers into custody, often gleaning information about higher-ups to make a real dent in the drug trade. But, Paul added, about one in four boats typically had no drugs. No matter nowadays — everyone’s a target for deadly force. “So,” Paul said, “all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime.” (Paul was the only Republican senator not invited to lunch with Trump on Monday in the paved-over Rose Garden.)

On Monday, Ecuador said no evidence connects a citizen who survived a recent U.S. strike to any crime. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States of murdering a fisherman in a September strike, provoking Trump to call Petro a “drug leader” and unilaterally yank U.S. foreign aid. A Venezuelan told the Washington Post that the 11 people killed in the first known U.S. strike were fishermen; national security officials told Congress the individuals were headed back to shore when hit. Meanwhile, the three countries and U.S. news reports contradict Trump’s claims that he’s destroying and seizing fentanyl — a drug that typically comes from Mexico and then is smuggled by land, usually by U.S. citizens.

Again, no matter to America’s king, who said last week that he’s eyeing land incursions in Venezuela now “because we’ve got the sea very well under control.” Trump’s courtiers say he doesn’t need Congress’ authorization for any use of force. The Constitution suggests otherwise.

Alas, neither it nor the law limits Trump’s White House makeover. He doesn’t have to submit to Congress because he’s tapping rich individuals and corporations for the cost. Past presidents, mindful that the house is a public treasure, not their palace, voluntarily sought input from various federal and nonprofit groups. After reports about the demolition, which put the lie to Trump’s promise in July that the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,” the American Institute of Architects urged its members to ask Congress to “investigate destruction of the White House.”

Disparate as they are, Trump’s ballroom project and his Caribbean killings were joined last week. At a White House dinner for ballroom donors, Trump joked about the sea strikes: “Nobody wants to go fishing anymore.” The pay-to-play titans laughed. Shame on them.

Trump acts with impunity because he can; he’s a lame duck. But other Republicans must face the voters. Keep the “No Kings” protests coming — right through the elections this November and next.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
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SACRAMENTO — Sen. Alex Padilla apparently dreams of becoming California’s next governor. He’s thinking hard about entering the race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom. And Katie Porter may have just opened the starting gate for him.

Porter has been regarded as the early front-runner. But she tripped and stumbled badly during a contentious, unprofessional and rude performance in a recent routine TV interview that went viral.

We don’t know the extent of her injury. But it was certainly enough to make Padilla’s decision a lot easier. If he really deep down covets the job of governor, the time seems ripe to apply for it.

Padilla wouldn’t need to vacate the Senate merely to run. He’d have what’s called a “free ride”: He doesn’t face reelection next year because his Senate term runs through 2028.

But a Senate seat is gold plated. No term limits — a job often for life. It offers prestige and power, with sway over a global array of issues.

Why would Padilla trade that to become the governor whose state is plagued by homelessness, wildfires and unaffordable living for millions?

For starters, it’s not much fun these days to be in the toothless Senate minority as a Democrat.

The California governor has immense power over spending and taxes, the appointment of positions ranging from local fair board members to state Supreme Court justices and the fate of hundreds of bills passed each year by the Legislature.

You lead the most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.

The office provides an automatic launching pad for anyone with presidential aspirations, such as the termed-out present occupant.

Anyway, Padilla, 52, is a proud native Californian, raised in the San Fernando Valley with strong ties to the state.

And he’s immensely qualified to be governor, having served well in local, state and federal branches of government: Los Angeles City Council, state Senate, California secretary of State and the U.S. Senate.

There has been speculation for weeks about his entering the gubernatorial race. And in a recent New York Times interview, he acknowledged: “I am weighing it.”

“Look, California is home,” he said. “I love California. I miss California when I’m in Washington. And there’s a lot of important work to do there. … I’m just trying to think through: Where can I be most impactful.”

How long will he think? “The race is not until next year,” he said. “So that decision will come.”

It should come much sooner than next year in order to be elected governor in this far-flung state with its vast socio-economic and geographic diversity.

Former Democratic Rep. Porter from Orange County has been beating him and every announced candidate in the polls — although not by enough to loudly boast about.

In a September poll by Emerson College, 36% of surveyed voters said they were undecided about whom to support. Of the rest, 16% favored Porter and just 7% Padilla.

In an August survey by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, 38% were undecided. Porter led with 17%. The nearest Democrat at 9% was Xavier Becerra, former secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services, state attorney general and 12-term congressman. Padilla wasn’t listed.

Why Porter? She gained renown during congressional hearings while grilling corporate executives and using a white board. But mainly, I suspect, voters got to know her when she ran statewide for the U.S. Senate last year. She didn’t survive the primary, but her name familiarity did.

By contrast, Padilla has never had a tough top-of-the-ticket statewide race. He was appointed by Newsom to the Senate in 2021 to fill the vacancy created by Kamala Harris’ election as vice president.

Democratic strategist Garry South says it would be “risky” for Padilla to announce his candidacy unless he immediately became the front-runner. That’s because he’d need that status to attract the hefty campaign donations required to introduce himself to voters.

“Unlike the governor, a California senator is not really that well known,” the strategist says. “And he hasn’t been a senator that long. I don’t think voters have a sense of him. In order to improve his [poll] numbers, he’s going to have to spend a lot of money. If he were an instant frontrunner, the money would flow. But if he jumps in with only half the votes [of

the frontrunner], there’s no reason for money to flow.

“And the longer he waits, the less time he has to raise the money.”

Porter may have eased the way for Padilla.

The UC Irvine law professor came unglued when CBS Sacramento reporter Julie Watts asked what she’d tell California’s 6 million Donald Trump voters in order to win their needed support for governor. Porter reacted like a normal irritated person rather than a seasoned politician.

She tersely dismissed the question’s premise and replied that the GOP votes wouldn’t be needed.

When the interviewer persisted, Porter lost her cool. “I don’t want to keep doing this. I’m going to call it,” she said, threatening to walk out. But she didn’t.

It was raw meat for her campaign opponents and they immediately pounced.

Former state Controller Betty Yee called on Porter to “leave this race” because she’s “a weak, self-destructive candidate unfit to lead California.”

Veteran Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman, who’s not involved in the contest, says the TV flub “hurts her a lot because it goes to likability.”

If Padilla really longs for the job, he can stop dreaming and take advantage of a golden opportunity.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: California tightens leash on puppy sales with new laws signed by Newsom
Wut?: Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist
The L.A. Times Special: At Trump’s Justice Department, partisan pugnacity where honor, integrity should be

Until next week,
George Skelton

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The hostility towards Vinicius is real – and it has names, dates, and court sentences.

He has been insulted in stadiums across Spain. He has testified in trials after a black mannequin wearing his shirt was hung from a bridge.

He has seen fans being sanctioned with suspended sentences for racist abuse in Valencia and Mallorca, largely thanks to LaLiga’s efforts to ensure those actions do not remain unpunished within a judicial culture that long treated football’s “industrial” language and “banter” with indulgence.

And yet, each time he reacts – pointing to the stands, asking referees to act, refusing to pretend it didn’t happen – the same voices reappear: “Yes, they insult him, but he should behave better.”

It’s as if his protest and his provocation didn’t come from the same place. His gestures, his anger, his resistance all emerge from living in a context that demands he smile while being insulted.

To be a black footballer is to play under constant scrutiny in Spain. Every movement becomes evidence in a cultural trial. Every expression is judged through a gaze that demands docility.

Spanish football insists it isn’t racist, and maybe that’s part of the problem. The bias isn’t shouted; it’s whispered through commentary, coded in tone.

That’s Vinicius’ existence: being himself while constantly measured by someone else’s comfort.

This fight happens every weekend, in stadiums and studios alike. His dance is joy, but also defiance. His anger is not petulance – it’s protection.

Spain’s moral code still confuses composure with virtue. It rewards the player who remains calm, who never challenges the crowd, who fits the image of the polite star. But that code was built in a football world that no longer exists.

Today’s players are not silent idols. They are global citizens, performers, brands, and sometimes activists. Visibility is a tool. Vinicius understands that his presence and his defiance carry meaning.

Yet, instead of recognising that courage, much of the public reads it as provocation. He isn’t misunderstood because he behaves badly; he’s misunderstood because his existence unsettles old certainties about who gets to define respect.

He also represents something else – the transformation of the footballer into a public narrative. The modern player doesn’t just play; he builds identity through social media, sponsorships, personal branding.

Lamine Yamal’s birthday celebration – luxury, lights, spectacle – is a sign of that new world. His display can be read as authenticity, an embrace of modern fame.

Vinicius, however, is treated differently. He is loud, but his noise has purpose.

He stands at the crossroads of football, race, and modern celebrity – a figure both sociological and sporting.

He’s not just a winger; he’s a symbol of a new generation of athletes who refuse to shrink themselves to fit into someone else’s comfort.

Vinicius Junior doesn’t need to change for Spain to understand him. Spain needs to change to understand itself.

A trio of assists by star forward Lionel Messi helped Inter Miami crush New England Revolution in Major League Soccer.

Jordi Alba and Tadeo Allende each scored two goals to lead host Inter Miami to a 4-1 victory over the New England Revolution in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Saturday night’s victory snapped a two-match winless streak for Inter Miami (17-7-8, 59 points), which moved into third place in the Eastern Conference’s Major League Soccer (MLS) standings. With two matches to play, Miami trails FC Cincinnati by three points for second place. Cincinnati has one match left.

Dor Turgeman scored the lone goal for New England (9-16-8, 35 points) as the Revolution came up short for the fifth time in their past six matches.

Argentinian star forward Lionel Messi did not score for the second consecutive match, but he contributed by assisting on three of Inter Miami’s goals.

On the first goal contribution under a torrential downspout late in the first half, Messi delivered a precise through ball on the run to Allende, who fired the ball past New England goalkeeper Matt Turner in the 32nd minute.

Just before half-time, Messi intercepted a clearing attempt by New England near its own goal. He then dropped it back for Alba, who proceeded to bury it in the back of the net in the third minute of first-half stoppage time.

The Revolution put themselves back in contention for a victory in the 59th minute on a brilliant shot by Turgeman after he took the ball just past midfield from Carles Gil. As Turgeman worked the ball near Miami’s box, he fired a line drive past Inter Miami goalkeeper Rocco Rios Novo to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Rios Novo got the start in favour of Inter Miami’s regular starting keeper Oscar Ustari, who allowed a season-high five goals last Tuesday in a 5-3 loss to the Chicago Fire.

Inter Miami answered almost immediately. Within less than a minute, a rush up the field ended with Allende streaking towards the goal and finishing off another assist from Messi.

Three minutes later, Alba tacked on another score off a great pass from Telasco Segovia.

Is there a better inkblot test for America right now than reaction to Bad Bunny being the halftime act for Super Bowl LX?

Soon after his name was announced, social media exploded into meritocracy debates as if the National Football League’s decisions are culturally motivated and not commercially. Taylor Swift is the most streamed artist in Spotify history. Bad Bunny is No. 2. For a domestic sports league trying to grow its popularity globally, the rationale seems clear.

And yet because he is a Puerto Rican who sings in Spanish, conservative talking heads must project outrage and offer listeners nonsensical objections.

“It’s so shameful they’ve decided to pick somebody who seems to hate America so much to represent them at the halftime show,” Corey Lewandowski, a longtime confidant of President Trump who currently advises the Department of Homeland Security, told conservative podcast host Benny Johnson. “We should be trying to be inclusive, not exclusive. There are plenty of great bands and entertainment people who could be playing at that show that would be bringing people together and not separating them.”

Suggesting Bad Bunny hates America is an interesting take given Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917. The three-time Grammy winner also has four No. 1 albums on the very American Billboard pop charts and has already performed during halftime at the Super Bowl back in 2020 with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. The Federal Communications Commission received more than 1,300 complaints about the show that year with the vast majority being from parents complaining about the stripper pole and twerking of the women, not Bad Bunny’s alleged hate of America.

I don’t know if Lewandowski and Johnson knew any of that before they started talking, but I get the feeling it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Once Lewandowski suggested ICE was going to be at the Super Bowl — an event that had an average resale ticket price of $8,600 in 2024 — it was clear their conversation wasn’t about solving the immigration problem.

It was clear they didn’t know much about the history of halftime acts either.

In 2006, a Super Bowl held in the heart of Detroit — the birthplace of Motown — rolled out the Rolling Stones, who are from London. In 2010, a Super Bowl in Miami — home of salsa and Afro-Cuban jazz — gave us the Who … who are also from England. In 2002, months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U2 — a band from Dublin, Ireland — did the show. There is a decades-long precedent for non-Americans to headline the Super Bowl. Though, again, quick geography lesson: Puerto Rico is part of the United States and Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Detractors like Lewandowski and Johnson want to make English being Bad Bunny’s second language an indictment of his patriotism, as if growing up speaking English is a criterion for citizenship. It isn’t and never has been. Perhaps instead of using their platform to stir fear at a time when calm is needed, the two could see next February’s show as an opportunity to grow. Because honestly, it is so counterproductive to allow influential voices to gaslight the country into forgetting the milestones it’s already crossed. “La Bamba” by Los Lobos was sung in Spanish and hit No. 1 nearly 40 years ago. The only English in the K-pop hit “Gangnam Style” is “hey, sexy lady,” and that song made PSY an international sensation.

Instead of making people fear Spanish at the Super Bowl, maybe encourage them to spend this NFL season learning something beyond “gracias.“ Because in this world, there are people who choose to speak in English and there are people who have no other choice. Only one of those scenarios feels like freedom to me.

That was the topic of discussion in the summer of 2008 after then-Sen. Barack Obama said this at a campaign stop in Georgia: “Understand this, instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they’ll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about how can your child become bilingual.”

At the time many conservatives — such as Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs — used those comments not as a prompt to debate the merits of Obama’s remarks regarding U.S. education but as a weapon to attack him. They accused him of being divisive — when years ago Nelson Mandela said when you talk to someone “in his own language, that goes to his heart.” In fact, Dobbs said “instead of diversity, he’s talking about factionalism.” Nonsense that sounds a lot like the echoes we hear from Lewandowski and Johnson today.

It’s not just a question of if our children should be bilingual; it’s also about being curious about the world we live in. This NFL season has already featured games in Ireland and Brazil. Mexico City is an annual event. The league is in it for the bag. And eventually there will be a team based overseas where Spanish is heard, visiting teams carry passports and Bad Bunny is no stranger.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

SACRAMENTO — A former state legislative leader says fellow Democrats in Sacramento have long ignored the housing needs of middle-class Californians. And he has a plan to help them buy a new home.

To their credit, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers have been chipping away at regulatory obstacles to home building in recent years, particularly in the just-concluded legislative session.

But the building pace is still far behind what’s sorely needed — and what Newsom promised when he first ran for governor seven years ago. Supply doesn’t come close to meeting demand and that pushes home prices much higher than millions of middle-class families can afford.

One of the biggest raps on California is that housing costs have skyrocketed out of reach for many. That’s a big reason why lots of middle-class folks have fled the so-called Golden State for less expensive regions.

“Much of the work by the governor and the Legislature in recent years has focused on homelessness and affordable housing, both of which require taxpayer subsidies and leave the middle class behind,” says former Van Nuys lawmaker Bob Hertzberg, who was an Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader.

“Middle-class Californians just can’t save up enough for a down payment. And the few government programs to assist middle-class buyers are complex, underfunded and are restricted to first-time homebuyers.”

He notes the political consequences: “We [Democrats] haven’t done enough for them. And they’re punishing us in their voting patterns.”

Yes, the middle class has been turning right all across the country. Housing affordability is a problem in many states, but is particularly acute in California.

In July, the median price for an existing single-family home in California was $884,050, according to the California Assn. of Realtors. The normal 20% down payment would require a buyer to lay out $176,810 in cash. Not many young couples — or middle-aged either — have that much spare money on them.

The median home price varies greatly throughout the state. In San Mateo County, it’s $2.1 million; in San Francisco, $1.6 million. Other counties: Orange, $1.4 million; Riverside, $630,000; Ventura, $949,500; Kern, $390,000; Sacramento, $559,000.

Hertzberg has submitted a proposed ballot initiative for the 2026 election that would allow middle-class buyers of brand-new homes to borrow most of their down payment.

Rather than putting up 20% of the selling price in cash, the buyer would fork over just 3% — $26,522 based on the July statewide median price — and borrow the remaining 17%, or $150,289.

So, there’d be the regular first mortgage on 80% of the selling price, plus a second mortgage on the down-payment loan.

Based on Hertzberg’s calculations, for example, a three-bedroom, three-bath Santa Clarita home selling for $700,000 would require monthly payments of $4,253 on the two mortgages. That assumes a combined interest rate of 7%.

New townhouses and condos also would qualify under the program. The statewide median price for those in July was $647,000.

Why only new homes? Hertzberg says it’s “critically important” to increase the housing supply and the only way to do that is to build more. At the same time, it creates construction jobs.

Also, politically, it draws the support of developers, carpenters unions and Realtors.

And for local governments, it generates more property and sales taxes.

Who’s defined as middle class? Buyers whose household income is less than 200% of the median for their local area. Statewide, that’s $193,000. But it varies: $213,200 in Palmdale, $262,600 in Camarillo, $207,800 in San Bernardino, $177,000 in Fresno, $311,720 in San Francisco.

Unlike other government housing programs, this one isn’t limited to just first-time homebuyers. It only requires buyers to be Californians and to live in the home as their primary residence. No renting out.

The program would be administered and implemented by the California Housing Finance Agency.

“Most importantly — no cost to taxpayers,” Hertzberg says.

The “Middle Class Homeownership” act would be financed by the sale of $25 billion in revenue bonds that would create the down-payment loan pot. Borrowers must repay their second mortgage if the home is sold or refinanced within 15 years.

Regular lending institutions would arrange the loans and charge minimum fees.

“It’s very difficult to work with a government bureaucracy, so we’ll have banks handle all the paperwork,” Hertzberg says.

He says the program would be self-financed. Loan repayments would resupply the pot for additional homebuyers. He figures the $25-billion kitty would generate up to 150,000 new homes — helpful, but still well below the millions more that California needs.

Dan Dunmoyer, president and chief executive of the California Building Industry Assn., says California would need to be building 437,000 new homes annually to reach Newsom’s original campaign promise of 3.5 million by the time he leaves office after next year. Instead, we’re building only 112,000.

Hertzberg recalls that about five years ago he introduced legislation to spur middle-class home ownership. “It got loaded up with taxpayer-subsidized affordable housing and provisions from so many interest groups, I just walked away,” he says.

“Anytime there’s a nickel on the table, the interest groups find a way to grab it.”

“I was majority leader of the Senate,” he continues. “I know how to do this stuff. But I couldn’t get something just focused on the middle class.

“Let’s get them a home. Home is where the wealth is. Home is a dream.”

Hertzberg’s plan makes sense in concept. We rightly help veterans buy homes. Why not also help the entire struggling middle class.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Supporters of redrawing California’s congressional districts raise tens of millions more than opponents
The deep dive: DC Explained: Medi-Cal Cuts Loom in San Diego as ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Begins to Hit Home
The L.A. Times Special: Who’s winning the redistricting fight? Here’s how to read the polls

Until next week,
George Skelton

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As one way to keep tabs on President Trump’s state of mind, I’m on his email fundraising lists. Lately his 79-year-old mind has seemed to be on his mortality.

“I want to try and get to heaven” has been the subject line on roughly a half-dozen Trump emails since mid-August. Oddly, one arrived earlier this month on the same day that the commander in chief separately posted on social media a meme of himself as “Apocalypse Now” character Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, satisfyingly surveying the hellish conflagration that his helicopters had wreaked, not on Vietnam but on Chicago. “Chipocalypse” was Trump’s warning to the next U.S. city that he might militarize.

Mixed messages, to be sure.

The president hasn’t limited his celestial contemplations to online outlets. “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” he told the hosts of “Fox & Friends” in August, by way of explaining his (failed) effort to bring peace to Ukraine. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well.”

Well, Mr. President, here’s some advice: I don’t think you’ll get to heaven by wishing that many of your fellow citizens go to hell.

The disconnect between Trump’s dreams of eternal reward and his earthly avenging — against Democrat-run cities, political rivals, late-show hosts and other celebrity critics, universities, law firms, cultural institutions, TV networks and newspapers, liberal groups and donors, government employees, insufficiently loyal allies and even harmless protesters at a Washington restaurant — was rarely so evident as it was at the Christian revival that was Sunday’s memorial for the slain MAGA activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.

Mere minutes after Erika Kirk, Kirk’s widow and successor as head of the conservative group Turning Point USA, had tearfully forgiven her husband’s accused killer, the president explicitly contradicted her with a message of hate toward his own enemies, and his continued determination to exact revenge.

Erika Kirk spoke of “Charlie’s mission” of engaging his critics and working “to save young men just like the one who took his life.” She recalled the crucified Christ absolving his executioners on Calvary, then emotionally added: “That young man. I forgive him.”

“I forgive him because it was what Christ did and what Charlie would do,” she said to applause. “The answer to hate is not hate. The answer, we know from the Gospel, is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”

Then it was Trump’s turn.

Just one minute in, he called the 22-year-old suspect “a radicalized cold-blooded monster.” And throughout, despite investigators’ belief that the man acted alone, Trump reiterated for the umpteenth time since Kirk’s death that “radical left lunatics” — his phrase for Democrats — actually were responsible and that the Justice Department would round up those complicit for retribution.

Trump acknowledged that Charlie Kirk probably wouldn’t agree with his approach: “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them.” Then Teleprompter Trump went off script, reverting to real Trump and ad-libbing: “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.” He spat the word “hate” with venom. And he got applause, just as Erika Kirk had for a very different message.

Jesus counseled “turn the other cheek” to rebuke those who harm us. Trump boasts that he always punches back. “If someone screws you, screw them back 10 times harder,” he once said. Love your enemies, as Christ commanded in his Sermon on the Mount? Nah. You heard Trump in Arizona: “I hate my opponent.”

Trump might have some explaining to do when he seeks admittance at the pearly gates.

The Bible’s words aside, a president is supposed to be the comforter in chief after a tragedy and a uniter when divisions rend the American fabric. Think of President Clinton, whose oratory bridged partisan fissures after antigovernment domestic terrorists bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, and of President George W. Bush, who visited a mosque in Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in a healing gesture intended to blunt rising anti-Muslim reactions. (Later, of course, Bush would cleave the nation by invading Iraq based on a lie about its complicity.)

Trump, by contrast, is the inciter in chief. Just hours after Kirk’s death on Sept. 10, and before a suspect was in custody, he addressed the nation, blaming “radical left political violence.” He has repeated that indictment nearly every day since, though the FBI has reported for years — including during his first term — that domestic right-wing violence is the greater threat. “We have to beat the hell out of them,” Trump told reporters. When even one of his friends on “Fox & Friends” noted radicals are on the right as well, Trump replied: “I couldn’t care less. … The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible.”

All of this vituperation and vengeance suggests a big “what if”: What if Trump were more like Charlie Kirk? To ask is not to gloss over Kirk’s controversial utterances against Black Americans, gay and transgender Americans and others, but he did respectfully deal with those who disagreed with him — as he was doing when he was shot.

What if Trump, since 2016, had sincerely tried to broaden his political reach, as presidential nominees and presidents of each party historically did, to embrace his opponents and to compromise with them? What if he governed for all Americans and not just his MAGA voters? He might well have enacted bipartisan laws of the sort that Trump 1.0 promised on immigration, gun safety, infrastructure and more. In general we’d all be better off, less polarized.

And with a more magnanimous approach like that, Trump just might have a better chance at getting into heaven.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
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X: @jackiekcalmes

SACRAMENTO — John Burton was the unique sort of political leader we need much more of in today’s hate-spewing politics.

First, he dedicated his life to fighting for a cause that earned him only personal satisfaction and absolutely no political gain: the powerless poor, particularly the aged, blind and disabled.

These aren’t folks with any money to donate to political coffers. They’re not members of unions harboring large piles of campaign cash. They don’t volunteer to walk precincts before elections. Many can barely walk. They’re not organized. More likely they live lonely lives. And they never heard of John Burton.

Burton — and only Burton — had these peoples’ backs in Sacramento’s halls of power for many years. And no one has taken his place.

Second, this bleeding-heart San Francisco liberal instinctively liked and befriended many political opposites with whom he developed working relationships to achieve his and their goals. He’d loudly denounce their conservative positions on issues but not them personally — in contrast to today’s ugly, click-driven, opportunistic American politics.

Right-wingers? “I never held that against anybody,” Burton writes in his recently released autobiography, “I Yell Because I Care: The Passion and Politics of John Burton, California’s Liberal Warrior.”

“Like, you never know when you might need a right-winger for something. And when you do, it’s best to give them something in return. And it’s even better when what they want is something you don’t really care about. Sometimes, that’s the way s— gets done in politics.”

When it gets done, which is almost never these days in Congress. Things might get done in Sacramento — for good or bad — because Democrats wield ironclad control over all branches of government, unlike when Burton was a legislator during decades that required bipartisan compromise.

Burton was infamously foul-mouthed and often rude. But colleagues, staffers, lobbyists and reporters rolled their eyes and adjusted. OK, so you couldn’t always quote his exact words in a family newspaper or on TV.

At heart, Burton was a softie and extrovert who genuinely liked people of all political persuasions. And they liked him because he was a straight shooter whose word was golden — the No. 1 asset for most anyone in politics.

Softie? Longtime Burton spokesman David Seback recalls this incident when the lawmaker was Senate president pro tem, the No. 2 most powerful office in the Capitol:

“There was a guy who was pretty severely disabled who would go with difficulty using crutches from office to office delivering copies of these multi-page conspiracy theory laden packets he put together to all 120 legislators. There were some typewritten parts, some handwritten, some xeroxed photos.

“One day John stopped him and said, ‘From now on, you deliver one copy to my office.’ After that, all the legislators got a copy of these packets stamped, ‘Compliments of John Burton.’”

Most Capitol denizens — if they noticed him at all — probably dismissed this packet-carting conspiracy theorist on crutches as a sad kook. But he’s the type who was Burton’s purpose in life to help.

Burton, 92, died Sept. 7 at a hospice facility in San Francisco.

The Times ran an excellent Page 1 obituary on Burton written by former Times staffer Dan Morain. It covered the bases well: A pro-labor lawmaker instrumental in shaping California politics over six decades on topics as varied as welfare, foster care, mental health, auto emissions and guns.

Burton was integral to a powerful political organization founded by his older brother, U.S. Rep. Phil Burton, that included two of John’s closest pals: future San Francisco mayors George Moscone and Willie Brown. The organization kick-started the political careers of future U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

John Burton left Congress in 1982 to fight cocaine addiction and remained clean and sober the rest of his life. He was reelected to the Legislature in 1988, ultimately chosen as Senate leader and termed out in 2004. Then he became state Democratic Party chairman for the second time.

When Burton died, I was recovering from an illness and missed out writing about him. That bothered me. So I’m doing it now.

I got to know Burton when he was first elected to the Assembly with Willie Brown in 1964. Both were fast learners about how the Capitol worked and ultimately each was elected leader of his house.

“Sometimes all it takes to succeed in politics is to make sure somebody has a nice view of Capitol Park and an extra secretary,” Burton writes in his autobiography of rounding up enough of Senate votes to become leader.

In the entertaining book, co-written with journalist Andy Furillo, Burton writes extensively about “the neediest of the needy…. My district included a ton of single-room occupancy hotels south of Market Street that were filled with people who cooked off hot plates and had to go down the hall to the bathroom. They survived on their federal and state assistance checks.”

Governors and legislative leaders of both parties routinely ripped off these poor folks’ federal aid increases to help balance the state budget in tough economic times. Or they’d try to until Burton blocked them.

“For some people,” Burton once told me, “it can be the difference between tuna fish and cat food for lunch.”

Without calling up local TV — as most politicians would — Burton bought blankets and drove around San Francisco by himself handing them out to the homeless.

“We were brought up to be that way,” Burton told me. “My old man [a doctor], he’d do house calls in the Fillmore, a Black area, at 2 in the morning. And if the family looked like it didn’t have money, he’d say, ‘Forget it. Go buy the kid a pair of shoes.’”

Thanks to Burton, the state was forced into buying lots of tuna fish lunches for the neediest of the needy.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: ‘We’re not North Korea.’ Newsom signs bills to limit immigration raids at schools and unmask federal agents
The TK: Here’s why the redistricting fight is raging. And why it may be moot
The L.A. Times Special: Don’t hold your breath, but as raids stifle economy, Trump proves case for immigration reform

Until next week,
George Skelton

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Remember the vaunted Trump-Putin summit? It was just a month ago this week, but Americans could be excused for having forgotten. Nothing good has come of it. The cringy Alaska photo-op for the American and Russian presidents certainly didn’t yield President Trump’s long-promised deal to end Vladimir Putin’s criminal war on Ukraine.

In fact, as each day since has shown, worse than nothing has come from that failed bro-fest. Which begs renewed attention to it. Putin arrived to Trump’s literal red-carpet welcome and left with an apparent if unstated license — as then-candidate Trump said last year of the Russians — “to do whatever the hell they want.”

And they have.

On Tuesday last week, a Russian bomb hit a group of Ukrainian retirees collecting their pension checks, killing two dozen and injuring more — another day’s civilian toll in Putin’s ongoing offensive, the harshest in more than three years of war and one that’s struck U.S. and European installations. The next day, stunningly, about 20 Russian drones flew over next-door Poland, a NATO ally, forcing the alliance to scramble jets to shoot down threats over its territory for the first time in NATO history.

And mostly we’ve heard bupkis from Trump — except to keep blaming the war on his predecessor President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, never Putin. Even servile Senate Republicans have roused themselves to press for punishing sanctions against Russia, but Trump withholds his blessing.

You’d think the self-proclaimed “president of peace” would at least be riled that Putin’s impunity since Alaska is a stick in the eye to Trump’s wife as well. Melania Trump wrote Putin a letter — which Trump delivered at their summit — urging him to protect children. “It was very well received,” Trump boasted later.

Oh, yeah? Putin’s public response to the first lady has been missiles and drones that have killed and injured Ukrainian children in their beds and at their schools. Meanwhile, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children remain kidnapped in Russia, a war crime.

What a tragic irony that the president who promised he’d end the Ukraine war on “day one,” and who incessantly contends Russia never would have invaded had he, Putin’s friend, been president in 2022, now presides over Russia’s escalation of the war and its unprecedented incursion into NATO territory. And Trump acts all but impotent.

For three years until his return to power, Russia did not test the United States’ pledge to “defend every inch” of NATO territory. Now it has. And at the news of the Poland intrusion, Trump, the supposed leader of the free world, showed himself to be little more than an internet troll.

“What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” was his online outburst long hours after the news last Wednesday. The next day he suggested the drones’ flight into Poland “could have been a mistake,” provoking rebuttals from Polish leaders and NATO allies. And when NATO’s European members last Friday reinforced the alliance’s eastern flank defenses against Russia, they announced no U.S. contributions.

Much was made last spring of Trump’s nickname among some Wall Street types for his on-again, off-again tariffs: “TACO,” for Trump Always Chickens Out. But that moniker better describes Trump’s Russia stance: He repeatedly sets up a face-off against Putin, and invariably face-plants.

For weeks ahead of the August summit, Trump threatened “extreme consequences” if Russia didn’t agree to a cease-fire. Then, as quickly as U.S. soldiers rolled out the red carpet for Putin, Trump rolled up his cease-fire talk. After hours under Putin’s sway, he came away talking not about what Russia would do for peace but what territorial concessions Ukraine would make. And a month later, he’s still resisting Congress’ proposed sanctions against Russia, even as he’s levied big tariffs on India and China in part as punishment for buying Russian oil.

Nothing Trump claimed would happen as a consequence of his summitry has come to pass. Not a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, nor a trilateral follow-up with the Nobel-coveting Trump joining as mediating peacemaker. Putin has had high-level meetings since the Alaska summit, but they’ve been with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — all drawn closer in solidarity against the United States’ hegemony.

Trump’s embarrassingly weak response to Russia’s aggression, together with his passivity in the face of Israel’s defiance in renewing its offensive in starving Gaza, recently prompted a New York Times analysis declaring “the bystander phase of the Trump presidency.” A Wall Street Journal headline said Trump is “sidelining himself” in foreign policy. On Wednesday, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote that, just as Trump sought to rename the Department of Defense to be the Department of War, the White House should be called “Waffle House.” (Or Taco Bell?) The criticisms are international: Poland’s deputy prime minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said in a video last week that Putin, by his hostilities, is “mocking” Trump’s peace talk.

There’s mockery indeed in Moscow, where politicians and state-run media continue to celebrate Putin as the summit winner. Russians weren’t quaking in their valenki when Trump told “Fox & Friends” hosts on Friday that his patience with Russia is “running out fast.” Alexei Zhuravlyov, a leader of the Russian State Duma, said Trump’s “normal state” is “either waiting to talk to Putin, talking to Putin or explaining how well he talked to Putin.” Pundit Mikhail Rostovsky dismissed Trump’s fussing and threats as “a new ‘Groundhog Day.’”

“The Kremlin believes that Russia is slowly but surely achieving its goals in Ukraine,” Rostovsky added. “Therefore Moscow does not intend to stop there.”

Putin has said as much himself. Only Trump doesn’t seem to hear him. Or doesn’t want to.

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From the outside looking in, Gov. Gavin Newsom unofficially announced he was running for president on Thursday, March 30, 2023, the day he transferred $10 million from his state campaign funds to launch his PAC, Campaign for Democracy, along with a nationwide tour. Newsom unofficially suspended his campaign a month later, on April 25, the day President Biden announced he was seeking reelection.

This timeline is important when it comes to talking about Kamala Harris. Newsom, like Harris, has been in the wings for years as part of the next generation of Democratic national leaders — and, like Harris, he was ready for the spotlight when Biden decided to stick around instead.

The title of Harris’ upcoming book, “107 Days,” is in reference to the amount of time she had to launch a campaign, write policy, secure the nomination and fundraise after Biden bowed out in the summer of 2024. An excerpt from the memoir titled “The Constant Battle” was published this week in the Atlantic. In it, Harris suggests some of the foes she was battling during her time in the White House were Biden loyalists who did not want to see her succeed as vice president.

It’s a rather scathing critique given the stakes of the 2024 election. The excerpt in its entirety is an uncomfortable glimpse into one of the most chaotic moments in American politics. Unsurprisingly there have already been reports of pushback from former Biden aides with one being quoted as saying: “No one wants to hear your pity party.”

Which is why it is important to remember the timeline.

In March 2020, while campaigning in Detroit, a 77-year-old Biden stood next to Harris, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and told his party that he viewed himself “as a bridge, not as anything else,” adding: “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.” Recognizing his age was a concern for voters back then, the message Biden sent that day suggested he was running for only one term.

And then more than three years later, Biden changed his mind and his message. In doing so, he did not just go back on a campaign promise, he prevented the future of his party — like Newsom, Whitmer, Booker and Harris — from making a case for themselves in a normal primary.

That’s why the book is called “107 Days.” That’s how much time he gave his would-be successor to win the presidency.

Biden was a tremendous public servant whose leadership steered this nation out of a dark time. He also was conspicuously old when he ran for president and considered a short-timer. The first woman to be elected vice president didn’t decide to run for the top job at the last minute. But Biden went back on his word in 2023 and drained all the energy out of his party. It was only after the disastrous debate performance of June 2024 that the whispers inside the Beltway about his ability to win finally became screams.

“Joe was already polling badly on the age issue, with roughly 75 percent of voters saying he was too old to be an effective president,” Harris writes. “Then he started taking on water for his perceived blank check to Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza.”

That’s not slander against Biden; that’s the timeline. It may not be what some progressives want to read, but that does not mean the message or messenger is wrong.

Legend has it James Carville, key strategist for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run, once went to a white board at the campaign’s headquarters in Arkansas and wrote three key messaging points for staffers. The catchiness and humor of one, “the economy, stupid,” elevated it above the other two: “change vs. more of the same” and “don’t forget health care.” Clinton’s victory would later cement “the economy, stupid” as one of the Democratic Party’s most enduring political quips — which is really too bad.

Because the whole point of Carville going to the white board in the first place wasn’t to come up with a memorable zinger, it was to remind staffers to stay on the course. The Democrats’ 2024 chances were endangered the day Biden changed direction by running for reelection, not when he stepped aside and Harris stood in the gap.

That’s not to suggest her campaign did everything right or Biden staying in for as long as he did was totally wrong. But there’s a lot to learn right now. Democrats are extremely unpopular. Perhaps instead of dismissing the account of the party’s most recent nominee, former Biden aides and other progressives should take in as much information as they possibly can and consider it constructive feedback.

In 2020, Biden had one message. In 2023, it was the opposite. I’m sure there are things to blame Harris for. Losing the 2024 election isn’t one of them.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

Democrats have to change their ways. Ideally yesterday.

The Democratic Party is the pro-government party, simply speaking, and Republicans the antigovernment party. Democrats want to make the government work for people. Trump-era Republicans might as well wear knock-offs of Melania Trump’s old “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket. For three decades, as actual and threatened government shutdowns have become routine for Washington funding fights, it’s generally been Republicans who’ve provoked them. For Democrats, shutting down the government goes completely against their brand, against their very DNA.

But what are Democrats to do when the federal government is wholly run by Republicans — in Congress, the executive branch and even the Supreme Court — acting in thrall to a president who in eight months has transformed that government into a plaything for his whims, compulsion for chaos, personal enrichment and political retribution?

What to do when the government has stripped states, cities, universities and federal programs of funding Congress appropriated by law for teaching grants, healthcare, scientific research and so much more, and fired hundreds of thousands of public employees without cause, including federal prosecutors, military lawyers and inspectors general who might blow the whistle on administration lawlessness?

What to do when the government sends masked federal agents to seize people, without warrants, and disappear them into unmarked cars (with at least the temporary, precedent-breaking blessing this week of the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority)?

Do Democrats in Congress vote to keep that government running?

That’s the question they face this month as government funding expires with the fiscal year on Sept. 30: Do enough Democrats give Republicans the votes they need in the Senate to keep the Trump train running on Oct. 1 and beyond?

Despite all that is wrong with that track, the answer to whether to keep going isn’t a simple “Hell, no.”

Shutting down the government hurts Americans who work for it, who receive benefits or need information from it, who visit national parks and veterans’ hospitals — people Democrats seek to help. A shutdown further empowers the president, who gets to decide what’s essential and can stay open. A shutdown hurts the economy in the short term. And as Republicans of the past can attest, a shutdown usually exacts a political price for the party that’s blamed for it.

For all those reasons, when Congress last had to vote to fund the government in March, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York led a small group of fellow Democratic senators in acquiescing to Republicans’ package. Democrats in the House and the party’s voter base erupted in fury. Morale tanked among Democrats spoiling for a fight, and with it the party’s standing in polls.

All but one House Democrat opposed the March funding bill, but the Republican majority narrowly passed it. Under Senate rules, however, the slim Republican majority couldn’t go it alone; they needed a few Democratic votes to reach a 60-vote supermajority and avoid a filibuster. It’s practically the only leverage Democrats have in Donald Trump’s Washington. In March they didn’t use it.

This time should be different.

I say that as someone who reluctantly supported Schumer’s decision six months ago, even as I and many others were infuriated by his ham-handed execution: his party’s lack of a message against the earlier spending bill, Schumer’s mixed signals and then his eleventh-hour surrender. It was because of Democrats’ message-less morass that I supported his action: because Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries hadn’t made the Democrats’ case ahead of time so that the party could win a shutdown showdown with Republicans in the court of public opinion.

It might already be too late, with less than three weeks before a new fiscal year, but the Senate and House Democrats must prepare their ground and take a stand. It’s a bad sign that they’re only now huddling, that they weren’t ready with a message and strategy when Congress finally returned after Labor Day from its August recess or, better yet, before Congress left.

But here we are, and now the Democrats should do two things:

First, they must demand that Republicans finally negotiate with them. Outline concise conditions for getting any Democrat’s vote on a government funding bill, whether it’s a stopgap measure to buy more bargaining time or a longer-term bill. Show Americans what Democrats are for, not just that they’re against President Trump. Harp daily on the Democratic demands — say, restoration of healthcare money that was slashed to pay for Republicans’ tax cuts; extension of expiring Obamacare tax credits for lower- and middle-income workers; less money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and more for local police. And elevate new, younger Democrats to spread the word — like first-term Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who tweeted on Monday, as party leaders were still noodling: “If the President wants my vote, he has to negotiate. One place to start is to walk back cuts to health care.”

Second, when Trump and the Republicans inevitably don’t compromise — the president has never met with the Democratic leaders since he took office, and his pre-recess message to Schumer in a social media post was “GO TO HELL” — then Democrats should vote no on funding the government. And hold their ground during a shutdown, even as pressure builds when federal offices close and services lapse.

Senate Democrats’ leverage on spending bills is pointless if Democrats don’t use it. Yes, Schumer was correct in March when he defensively wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the victims of a government shutdown are “the most vulnerable Americans” and communities. But the six months since then have shown that, under Trump, the vulnerable are suffering anyway — as he shutters more and more of the government and the innocent are swept up in, or live in fear of, his dragnets. If Democrats can alter that picture, even a little, a temporary shutdown is worth it.

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WASHINGTON — The United Nations mission in Afghanistan reported recently that U.S. airstrikes and Afghan security forces killed more civilians in the first half of 2019 than the Taliban did.

The mission says “pro-government forces” killed 717 civilians while “anti-government forces” killed 531, and 118 deaths could not be attributed.

U.S. officials dispute the numbers. But if the U.N. is right, Afghans face greater danger of death from their government and its allies than from the Taliban, even counting a recent series of grisly car bombings in Kabul.

In Syria and Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition estimates that its airstrikes and artillery killed 1,321 noncombatants in the war against Islamic State since U.S. forces intervened in 2014 — but Airwars, an independent monitoring group, says at least 8,106 were killed.

In Yemen, where Saudi Arabia’s military is using U.S. intelligence to bomb Iran-backed Houthi insurgents with U.S.-supplied munitions, the U.N. says almost 20,000 civilians have been killed. Last week, a U.N. panel accused both sides of war crimes and warned that the United States may be complicit.

The Trump administration has also escalated the U.S. war against Shabab militants in Somalia, launching 123 airstrikes since early 2017. That’s four times as many as the Obama administration conducted over eight years. The Pentagon has acknowledged only two civilian deaths since 2017. Amnesty International says at least 14 civilians were killed, but on-the-ground reporting is almost impossible.

What’s the common thread? In all these conflicts, the Trump administration is trying to minimize the number of American troops on the ground by disengaging, fighting through proxies or limiting U.S. involvement to airstrikes and special operations.

But that hasn’t reduced the civilian casualties caused by U.S. and allied forces. It has made the problem worse.

It’s tempting to ascribe the change to the tone set by President Trump, who once proposed killing militants’ family members and boasted: “We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists.”

U.S. forces haven’t relaxed their prohibitions against targeting civilians. They insist they still take pains to avoid harming innocents.

Instead, most of the increase in civilian casualties has stemmed from a sharp increase in U.S. and allied airstrikes. The Pentagon says its forces in Afghanistan conducted 1,302 airstrikes in the first seven months of this year; that’s more than any full year since 2013.

U.S. and allied forces also relied largely on airstrikes to help retake two urban centers held by Islamic State in 2017: Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. Thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire, or blocked by the militants from fleeing.

“It’s not so much that the gloves are off or that they don’t care about civilians,” Daniel Mahanty, a former State Department official at the Washington-based nonprofit Center for Civilians in Conflict, told me. “It’s that they want to execute these operations in a way that focuses on speed, agility and overwhelming force.”

When the core U.S. strategy in Afghanistan or Iraq was “counterinsurgency,” winning the hearts and minds of civilians was an essential military goal. It’s no longer central.

Local militias and special operations units, some of them directed by the CIA, are partly to blame for the increase in civilian casualties.

One such unit, the Khost Protection Force in eastern Afghanistan, has been accused of a series of abusive actions. On Aug. 11, according to Afghan reports, the force captured and executed 11 unarmed civilians, including several students. Last week, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fired his national intelligence chief, who helped direct the units.

Saudi Arabia’s war against the Houthis in Yemen has produced the most egregious casualties, with airstrikes hitting hospitals, schools and other civilian targets. The Trump administration is providing the Saudis with intelligence, tactical advice and weaponry — including help in targeting airstrikes.

U.S. military officials have jawboned the Saudis since the war began in 2015 to avoid civilian targets, arguing that harming civilians is counterproductive as well as immoral.

“It is a catastrophe,” then-Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis told a Senate committee last year. He said U.S. advisors were trying to change the Saudi military’s “culture.”

The effort has had no visible effect. Last week, a Saudi airstrike struck a detention camp run by the Houthis inside a university south of Sana, the capital, killing at least 100 people.

After 18 years of grinding wars on distant battlefields, Americans are understandably eager to bring the troops home.

But even if most are pulled out, the Trump administration plans to stay involved in these conflicts — through airstrikes, special operations, intelligence sharing and other aid to “partner forces.” Paradoxical as it may seem, civilian casualties may continue to increase.

We will be tempted to declare that our wars are over. They won’t be.

SACRAMENTO — There are echoes from California Republicans’ disastrous past in their solid support of the Trump administration’s ugly raids targeting Latinos suspected of illegal immigration.

California’s GOP apparently still hasn’t learned. Scaring, insulting and angering people is not an effective recruiting tool. It doesn’t draw them to your side. It drives them into the opposition camp.

That should have been a lesson learned three decades ago when Republicans strongly pushed a harsh anti-illegal immigration ballot initiative, Proposition 187. It became principally responsible for changing California from a politically competitive state to one where the GOP is essentially irrelevant.

This occurred to me when reading recent poll data that showed strong overall objection in California to President Trump’s oft-inhumane immigration enforcement policies — among virtually every group, that is, except Republican voters. They overwhelmingly support his tactics.

The in-depth poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies delved into voter attitudes toward Trump’s mass deportation actions.

On the basic question of his immigration enforcement strategy, 69% of registered voters disapproved and just 29% approved. But there was a sharp difference between political parties. Democrats almost unanimously disapproved — 95%. And 72% of independents were opposed. But 79% of Republicans approved.

Interviewers also asked about specifics. And GOP voters were with Trump all the way.

Strong majorities of Republicans disagreed that federal agents “have unfairly targeted Latino communities for their race or ethnicity,” believed the raids have “primarily focused” on undocumented “serious” criminals — although evidence shows that many law-abiders have been snatched — and thought “all undocumented immigrants need to be deported.”

Smaller Republican majorities disagreed that detained undocumented immigrants “have a right to due process” and a court hearing — although the due process clause of the 5th Amendment indicates they do — and agreed that “agents should expand enforcement into schools, hospitals, parks and other public locations.”

Democrats and independents expressed emphatically opposite views — and they greatly outnumber Republicans in California.

The parties also reported diametrically opposite feelings when viewing news accounts of raids by federal agents. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans said it made them feel “hopeful, like justice is finally being served.” Democrats said they were “enraged and/or sad. What is happening is unfair.”

Republicans were more divided on whether immigration agents should be required to show clear identification, such as wearing badges. Armed agents have been going incognito in street clothes, traveling in unmarked vehicles and wearing masks.

Among GOP voters, 50% opposed requiring identification and 45% supported the idea.

Two bills currently are awaiting votes in the state Assembly to require agent identification and ban masks in most circumstances.

“Agents have been running around wearing essentially ski masks, grabbing people, throwing them into unmarked cars and disappearing them,” says Sen. Mark Wiener (D-San Francisco), author of the mask ban bill. “In a democracy, we don’t have secret police running around masked.”

Listening to Republican voters, I’m hearing reverberations from 1994 when that GOP generation overwhelmingly backed Proposition 187, led by Gov. Pete Wilson, who was subsequently demonized by Democrats and, particularly, Latinos.

That now-infamous measure would have denied most public services — including schooling — to undocumented immigrants, and turned teachers and nurses into snitches. It passed by a landslide, but a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional.

Republicans voted for Proposition187 by 3 to 1 and independents by 3 to 2, according to a Los Angeles Times exit poll. Democrats opposed it by 2 to 1.

White people voted for Proposition 187 by 59% to 41% — the exact victory margin — but Latinos opposed it by 78% to 22%. Today, there are a lot fewer white people and lots more Latinos in California.

The measure awakened Latinos and spawned a new generation of Democratic political leaders, including U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, former L.A. Mayor and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and other legislative honchos.

And it instigated a hemorrhaging of Republican voters in California. In the November presidential election, Republicans amounted to only 25% of registered voters. In 1994, they were 37%. Many have since shifted to registering as independents, who amounted to only 10% back then and are 22% now. Democrats also have lost slightly to nonpartisan ranks, falling from 49% to 46%.

No Republican candidate has won a statewide race since 2006, and Democrats hold supermajorities in both legislative houses.

The GOP has been touting an uptick in Latino support in November’s election. But is that a trend, or just the reflection of a sorry Democratic presidential campaign? How will Latino voters react to immigration agents chasing people through farm fields, seizing teens without telling their parents and stalking picnickers?

“Republicans can talk about crime and homelessness and gas prices all they want but the immigration issue is a boulder in the road that will keep large numbers in California from listening to what they say on any other issue,” says Dan Schnur, a USC and UC Berkeley political science instructor who was Wilson’s spokesman in 1994.

GOP consultant Mike Madrid, who has written a book about how Latinos are transforming democracy, says Republicans “are limiting what could be a tidal wave of voters in their direction. They’re their own worst enemies.”

He adds: “Latinos are primarily economic voters but will respond when attacked. As long as the GOP resorts to anti-Latino appeals they’ll fight back.”

Republican voter attitudes also are symptomatic of today’s extremely polarized politics.

“Wherever Trump decides to steer the ship, Republicans are following him. Trump is the Pied Piper here,” says Mark DiCamillo, the IGS pollster.

Republican consultant Kevin Spillane theorized that Republican respondents in the poll were “rallying around Trump. They thought they were really being asked about him.”

Whatever. They need to evolve into the increasingly diverse 21st century. We can secure the border without storming churches, hospitals and schools.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Newsom, California lawmakers strike deal that would allow Uber, Lyft drivers to unionize
The TK: ‘The party is in shambles.’ But some Democrats see reasons for optimism
The L.A. Times Special: Their brotherly love transcends politics — and California’s tooth-and-nail redistricting fight

Until next week,
George Skelton

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The afternoon sun glimmered off the ocean as I drove down MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach to fulfill a promise.

This September marks five years since I debuted as a columnist for The Times. My first dispatch was from the mausoleum niche at Pacific View Memorial Park that holds the cremains of one of my predecessors, Ruben Salazar.

Exactly 55 years ago, Salazar was killed in an East Los Angeles bar by a tear gas canister launched by an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy that tore through his head. He was one of three people who died that day during the Chicano Moratorium, a rally against the Vietnam War that out-of-control cops turned into a melee.

Salazar was only eight months into his columnist gig. He was a well-respected Times veteran who had done stints covering immigration, as a foreign correspondent and Metro reporter for the paper. Once he got a Friday slot on the op-ed page at the start of 1970, the journalist became a must-read chronicler of the Chicano experience.

In death, Salazar became immortal. Murals of him sprang up around the Southwest. Wearing a suit jacket and tie, with a full head of hair and a confident look on his face, he symbolized the potential and peril of being a Mexican American in the United States. Even as the decades passed, and his clips were relegated to archives and the memories of those who had read him in real time, Salazar has thankfully yet to fade from L.A.’s physical and spiritual landscape.

A high school is named after him in Pico Rivera, as are Salazar Park in East L.A. and Salazar Hall at Cal State L.A. The U.S. Postal Service sells stamps with his likeness.

United Teachers Los Angeles gives out a scholarship in his name, just like the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists. The nonprofit CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California honors reporters who cover Latinos with the annual Ruben Salazar Awards, handing out medallions bearing his image.

When I visited Salazar’s final resting place in 2020, I brought a bottle of Manzanilla to toast the hard-charging bon vivant’s memory and ask for his blessing in my new role. I promised to visit and offer an update about my career every year near the anniversary of his death … but, well, the job got in the way.

A historic pandemic. The storming of the U.S. Capitol. A racist audio leak scandal that upended L.A. City Hall. Corrupt politicians. Increasing poverty. The rise, fall and return of Donald Trump. Horrible fires. A cruel deportation deluge. I’ve barely had time to spend with friends and family, let alone an afternoon driving to a far-off cemetery for a few minutes with a long-gone man I had never met.

For 2025, there would be no excuses. Because in a year that seems to get worse by the day, we need to remember Salazar more than ever.

A painting of former Los Angeles Times journalist Ruben Salazar and a copy of his last column, published on Aug. 28, 1970, the day before he died, are on display inside Ruben Salazar Hall on the campus of Cal State Los Angeles.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Every time my Times colleagues report from a protest, I invoke Salazar’s name in my prayers to God that He watch over them. Our profession faces existential threats — and I’m not just talking finances.

The Trump administration has pursued scorched-earth campaigns against news organizations it doesn’t like with lawsuits and funding cuts, while limiting access to mainstream reporters in favor of sycophantic press coverage. Journalists have suffered injuries at the hands of LAPD officers while covering this summer’s anti-migra protests, from being struck with less-lethal projectiles to getting smacked with batons.

The climate against my profession is so ugly that the L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a motion this month requiring the Sheriff’s Department to send them a report about what training, if any, deputies receive on allowing reporters to do their jobs during protests. Supervisor Hilda Solis, who authored the motion, cited Salazar as an impetus, calling his killing “one of the most painful chapters in Los Angeles County history.”

She also described him as “a crucial voice for the Latino community, dedicated to covering stories that mainstream outlets often ignored” — a legacy that all Latino reporters at The Times must try and live up to. So every time I open my laptop to start my next columna, I ask myself:

What would Ruben write?

That Salazar died in the course of doing his job has sadly eclipsed what he actually wrote, so I always encourage people to read his columns. The Times republished them online for the 50th anniversary of his death, so there’s no excuse not to familiarize yourself with his work. It would have seamlessly fit into this hell year — the 1970 in his columnas reads eerily similar to what we’re going through right now.

Immigration raids were terrorizing Los Angeles. Democrats were still lost after suffering a historic beatdown from a once-defeated Republican presidential candidate. Young progressives were disgusted with their moderate Democratic elders and tiring of the party altogether. Latinos were pushing for more political power. A redistricting battle in California was about to explode. The rise of computers was upending life. Politicians were going after nonprofits they accused of fomenting wokosos.

And there was Salazar, covering every development and hero and villain with crisp columns that got better with every month. All of this at just 42, four years younger than I am today.

I think he would have been thrilled to see regular people filming the cruelties of la migra as a counternarrative to the lies of the Trump administration. He would have urged young reporters who believe in so-called movement journalism — unapologetically leftist, with talking to the other side considered unnecessary and even immoral — to not let their biases get in the way of a good story.

I know he wouldn’t have been lionized the way he is today. In a June 19, 1970 columna, he antagonized the left by describing the pachucos of a previous generation as “anarchistic.” In the same column, he angered the right, arguing that because of programs such as Head Start and Chicano studies, gang members were “experiencing a social revolution and so is learning and liking political power.”

And that’s what makes Salazar more important today than ever.

He wanted Chicanos to better themselves, so he wasn’t afraid to call out their failures. He was skeptical of our legal system but wanted it to succeed — “A Beautiful Sight: the System Working the Way It Should” was the title of a July 24, 1970, column about the federal grand jury indictment of seven Los Angeles Police Department officers in the deaths of two unarmed Mexican immigrants.

As an immigrant himself, he loved a United States he had no problem criticizing. For his sole Fourth of July column, he urged people to tone down their pomp and circumstance and to relate to their fellow Americans rather than “to fixed ideas that apparently are not working.”

To paraphrase a 2014 PBS documentary about his life, Salazar was a man in the middle. His business was truth-telling for the greater cause of a just society. He literally lost his life for it. The least we can do is follow his example.

A bronze marker hangs outside the niche that holds the cremains of former L.A. Times columnist Ruben Salazar, who was killed in East L.A. on Aug. 29, 1970, while reporting on the Chicano Moratorium, a protest against the involvement of Chicanos in the Vietnam War.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angles Times)

No one was around when I finally got to Salazar’s niche, in a section of the cemetery called the Alcove of Time. A simple bronze plaque included the accent over the “e” in “Rubén,” which his Times byline never had. Instead of Spanish wine, I brought a flask of mezcal — I don’t think he would have minded the stiffer drink in this 2025.

I thanked Salazar again for his work — I learn more from it every time I read it. I told him about some of the columnas I’ve published and those I want to do. I shared how there are far more Latino reporters at The Times and beyond, but still not nearly enough. I apologized for not visiting more often and swore to never stop talking about him and his words.

“To you, Ruben,” I quietly said. I hoisted my flask in the air, took a small swig and splashed some in front of where he rested.

I made the sign of the cross, offered a short prayer, then drove back home. Another columna loomed. I’m sure Salazar would have understood and hopefully would have been proud.

“I am not a crook,” President Nixon said in 1973.

“I’m not a dictator,” President Trump insisted on Monday.

And with that, another famously false presidential proclamation entered the annals of memorable statements no president should ever feel compelled to make.

It took months more for Nixon’s crimes to force him to resign in 1974 ahead of his all-but-certain removal by Congress. But a half-century later, Trump is unabashedly showing every day that he really does aspire to be a dictator. Unlike Nixon, he doesn’t have to fear a supposedly coequal Congress: It’s run by slavish fellow Republicans who’ve forfeited their constitutional powers over spending, tariffs, appointments and more. Lower courts have checked Trump’s lawlessness, but a too-deferential Supreme Court gets the last word and empowers him more than not.

Americans are indeed in proverbial uncharted waters. Four months ago, conservative columnist David Brooks of the New York Times wrote — uncharacteristically for a self-described “mild” guy — “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising.” It’s now past time.

Perhaps more troubling than Trump’s “not a dictator” comment was a related one that he made on Monday and reiterated on Tuesday during a three-hour televised Cabinet praise meeting (don’t these folks have jobs?). “A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator,” he said. Alas, for once Trump isn’t wrong. MAGA Republicans are loyal to the man, not the party, and give Trump the sort of support no president in memory has enjoyed.

A poll from the independent Public Religion Research Institute earlier this year showed that a majority of Americans — 52% — agreed that Trump is a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” Those who disagreed were overwhelmingly Republicans, 81% of whom said Trump “should be given the power he needs.” Americans’ split on this fundamental question shows the extent to which Trump has cleaved a country founded and long-flourishing on checks and balances and the rule of law, not men.

That Trump would explicitly address the dictator issue this week reflects just how head-spinningly fast his dictatorial actions have been coming at us.

The militarization of the nation’s capital continues, reinforced with National Guard units from six red states, on trumped-up claims of a crime emergency. Trump served notice in recent days that the thousands of troops and federal agents will remain on Washington’s streets indefinitely despite a federal law setting a 30-day limit — “We’re not playing games,” he told troops on Friday — and that Chicago, Baltimore, New York and perhaps San Francisco are next.

In all cases, as with Los Angeles, Il Duce is acting over the objections of elected officials. But who cares about stinking elections? Trump warned on Friday from his gilded Oval Office that Washington’s thrice-elected Mayor Muriel Bowser “better get her act straight or she won’t be mayor very long, because we’ll take it over with the federal government.” And after Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another Democrat, slammed Trump for his threats, El Presidente replied that he has “the right to do anything I want to do.”

This is scary stuff, and it’s being normalized by the sheer firehose nature of Trump’s outrages and by the capitulation of his Cabinet, Congress, corporations and rightwing media. That’s why the remaining citizenry must take a stand, literally.

Trump’s sycophants atop the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, the equally unfit Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard, continued their purge of senior military officials and intelligence experts whose loyalties to Trump are suspect. And on Friday, the FBI raided the home of former Trump advisor John Bolton, in a chilling signal to other critics.

In a first for a president, Trump on Tuesday tried to fire a member of the independent Federal Reserve board, Biden appointee Lisa D. Cook, in apparent violation of federal law aiming to protect the Fed against just such political interference. The Fed’s independence has been central to the United States’ role as the globe’s preeminent economic power; investors worldwide believe the central bank won’t act on a president’s whims. But Trump is determined to cement a majority that will deeply cut interest rates, inflation be damned. Cook is suing to keep her job, setting up a Fed-backed showdown likely headed to the Supreme Court. Despite its partiality to a president’s power over independent federal agencies, the court has repeatedly suggested that the Fed is an exception. Let’s hope.

Trump, who regularly assails Democrats as socialists and communists, now boasts of compelling private corporations to give the government a stake. Speaking on Monday about a new deal in which the beleaguered head of chipmaker Intel agreed to give the government a 10% stake, Trump declared, “I hope I have many more cases like it.” And yet we get more crickets from Republicans who profess to be the party of free enterprise and free markets.

The president’s campaign against federal judges who oppose him continues as well. On Tuesday it was one of his own appointees, U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, who tossed Trump’s lawsuit against the entire federal judiciary in Maryland. To accept the president’s suit, Cullen wrote, would violate precedent, constitutional tradition and the rule of law.

Alas, such violations pretty much sum up Trump’s record so far.

He’s trying to rewrite history at the Smithsonian Institution, including whitewashing slavery, and dictating to law firms, universities and state legislatures. On Tuesday, Trump had Republican state legislators from Indiana to the White House to press them to join those in Texas and other red states who are, on his orders, redrawing House districts expressly so Democrats don’t win control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

Amid all this, the New Yorker was out with an exhaustive review of Trump’s finances that conservatively concluded that he’s already profited on the presidency by $3.4 billion. If he’s not careful, Trump won’t only be denying he’s a dictator; he’ll be echoing Nixon on the crook rap.

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