Hillary Clinton’s diagnosis of pneumonia, followed by her near collapse at Sunday’s 9/11 remembrance, followed by her dismissal of Trump supporters as a basketful of deplorable racists, followed by a dismal performance at Matt Lauer’s NBC veterans’ forum last week all lead to one conclusion: Donald Trump’s probable election as president in November, and the crisis that will mean for California.
In the past three weeks Clinton’s lead in many of the battleground states has withered away, and these latest incidents are sure to result in a further decline in her once formidable lead. As veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart put, Trump just needs “one sane month” and he could well win.
Leaving aside the uncertain sanity of The Donald, almost all the surprises we can expect over the next two months work to the disadvantage of Mrs. Clinton. Julian Assange sits in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London with what may be a number of “smoking guns” from the mysterious Clinton e-mails that could sink her already fragile credibility. And Clinton’s recent coughing spells only feed her health rumors.
So California’s political and media elite ought to begin focusing on what a Trump presidency will mean for California, and the picture is anything but pretty. Although Trump seems to have backed off his plan to immediately deport the two million or so illegal aliens residing in California, he does plan to build his wall with Mexico that will traverse hundreds of miles of the California Mexican border.
His Attorney General will almost certainly be New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and the Trump Department of Justice will launch a major assault against California’s “sanctuary cities” which could mean a cut off of federal funds to cities like San Francisco. Christie will be anything but a fading violet, and with the Supreme Court back in conservative hands thanks to Trump’s appointment of its ninth member, California will have little redress when the Trump Administration goes after its “special status” for undocumented aliens.
Even more dramatic will be the Trump Administration’s attack on California’s fixation with global warming. Trump certainly intends a major increase in fossil fuel extraction as part of his build up of the American economy. California will not be allowed to stop the shipment of coal and shale oil through its ports. The bullet train will surely be dead, as well as any federal support for Gov. Jerry Brown’s dream of petroleum free automobiles. The Trump Administration will probably do everything it can to increase the production of American made automobiles.
The signature achievement of the legislative session just ended was the passage of Senate Bill 32, a mandated reduction of greenhouse gas emission over the next few years that can only be reached with a major reduction of economic activity in this state. But the Trump Administration will have no patience for this, it will insist on federal water policies advantageous to agriculture, EPA policies that enhance manufacturing despite greenhouse gas impacts, and more pro-development policies along California’s coast and on its federal lands. All this will be part of Trump’s promise to “make America great again” by expanding economic opportunities in industries generally shunned by the Obama Administration and its California supporters.
Trump is likely to make California an example of the kind of economic and social policies he distains. For example, should he succeed in a slapping a tariff on Chinese imported goods, Californians will find an inflated cost for almost everything we purchase since our economic is so much dependent on foreign trade.
What can California do about this, probably not much. A Trump presidency will surely be accompanied by a Republican House and Senate, and the expansion of federal powers achieved by the Obama Administration will now be turned against its allies.
Californians have generally gone along with the expansion of presidential powers in the Obama years, so it will be hard pressed to argue that President Trump is overstepping his powers. One of the first things that California politicians should consider if Trump wins is repealing the unrealistic emission goals of SB 32 because the Trump Administration economic policies will surely make those goals impossible to achieve.
Major political change may be coming to California, but it is not the political change our state’s liberal elites were expecting.