Por his first trip outside Washington, Friday January 24, Donald Trump chose Los Angeles. Even as president, he does not intend to miss such a great opportunity to mock California, or even to humiliate the Democrats who lead the most populous state in the country.
The fires which ravaged several neighborhoods of the “cinema capital” between January 7 and 10, and the unpreparedness they exposed, came at the right time to allow him to practice the transactional approach he now intends apply in relations between Washington and the States of the federation: no humanitarian aid without a minimum of cooperation.
A few days before his departure, Joe Biden had granted massive aid to the Californian megalopolis for reconstruction, but the governor of the state, Gavin Newsom, and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, remain at the mercy of a ukase of the White House. Especially since Donald Trump has renewed his accusations against the Democratic state, which he claims is wasting water. His ally Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, has not ruled out, for his part, using federal aid to bring down a state that refuses to follow the injunctions of the new administration on the expulsions of people without -papers.
« California bashing »
Donald Trump could not delight his supporters more. In their eyes, California is the anti-model, the symbol of the excesses of progressive policies and “wokism”. The propensity for “California bashing” is not new in the Republican Party. But because of the candidacy of Kamala Harris, the former state’s attorney, the Golden State’s scapegoat status has redoubled in the national culture war.
-It was not always this way. During most of the 20th centurye century, California was seen as the El Dorado of new gold prospectors. People came there looking for fame, beaches, freedom and renewal. California’s aura was tarnished in the 1960s and 1970s, when conservatives discovered that the state was also home to protesters (in Berkeley), hippies (in San Francisco) and supporters of free love (everywhere). ).
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