The ugly spectacle of an openly racist and possibly traitorous president is now being embraced by the California Republican Party.
“I don’t know about you, but Donald Trump’s just rockin’ my socks,” the GOP Chairman Jim Brulte said during the state Republican convention last Friday.
Et tu, Brulte?
It’s hard not to read that comment with despair. California needs two parties that are committed to competing visions of the future that include us all. But California Republicans, after years of trying to get past their history of bigotry and anti-immigrant prejudice, are now going the other way by signing up with a national party that’s embracing the nativism, xenophobia, dictator love and racism of President Trump.
News report suggest that Trump has energized the California party, and that appears to be true of many party activists. But, as an independent California voter who pulls the Republican lever on occasion (and strongly supported capitalism and small business and is wary of Democratic actions on everything from housing regulation to pension protection), I can tell you: a giant gate is being slammed in my face by Brulte and his fellow Trump lovers.
You’re not who I thought you were. Down to your socks, you’re embracing the worst, most dangerous sort of rhetoric and action.
And save me the “he’s not politically correct” excuse. I’m not politically correct either. But there’s an ocean between speaking in off-color or risque ways and Trump’s official actions and statements (from executive orders to press conference) that attack people for who they are. Trump is intentionally frightening and unsettling millions of people in our state, many of them poor and desperate, and you tell us Trump is “rocking our socks.”
I get the message: the Republican inn is a segregated one. And it only welcomes haters. Don’t worry: the overwhelming majority of Californians, including this one, won’t be visiting there again anytime soon.