Remember how we all wanted the Clinton-Trump campaign to be over so all the noise, ranting and ugly attacks would end and we could safely watch TV and read the national news again? Who knew our post-inauguration world would also beckon a regime of post-truth, alternative facts and government-by-Twitter?
This means it’s still not safe or gratifying to tune in the day’s big news to try to get a grip on what our new president is up to. Maybe Mr. Trump’s tweets, tirades and tantrums don’t seem to be aimed at us in Sonoma County, a place that seems more and more distant from the anger, division and “carnage” of America that Trump described in his inauguration address.
But, beware.
While the Trump presidency is only a few weeks old, the impacts and repercussions here are many and mounting. Many of us may support “draining the swamp” in Washington, D.C. and our patriotic spirit may also be stirred by “America First” promises. But we’d do best to study the local consequences of Mr. Trump’s boldly executed executive orders.
For instance, our local farmers and members of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau oppose Trump’s recent attacks on the TPP and NAFTA free trade agreements. Our farmers want to sell and export their crops, products and wine to Canada, Mexico and all Pacific Rim countries. They don’t like tariffs and they want stabilized international markets.
Our local farmers are joined by many other employers who don’t favor more restrictive (build The Wall) immigration laws. Our business leaders have long favored immigration reforms to allow more workers and families to legally immigrate here — not be declared outlaws and exported.
More than 30,000 county residents won new and expanded health care under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) since 2010. Most of the rest of us now get better (and sometimes free) preventative coverage. Republican threats of “repeal and replace” pose real losses of care and access for local patients, doctors, clinics and hospitals. Even local health care jobs are at stake.
During the Great Recession earlier this decade, several thousand county families lost their homes in mortgage foreclosures and thousands more lost home equity and other personal savings. Last week, Mr. Trump used a single stroke of his pen to call for wiping out consumer protection and bank regulation laws that would protect against those tragedies happening again.
Our own state senator, Mike McGuire, has found it necessary to propose a new California law that no person can run for U.S. president here unless he or she makes their tax returns public. “The world is a dangerous place and all potential conflicts of interest a future president may have … must be disclosed. This legislation will help make transparency great again,” said McGuire.
Causing more public attention for his Trump Inauguration boycott than his recent legislative actions, our congressman Jared Huffman just launched a multi-lateral defense against Trump’s vows to dismantle many clean air and water protections that are unique to Sonoma County and California — including protection of the local coast from oil exploration drilling. “We are going to need to fight in the courts,” Huffman, a former environmental defense lawyer said. It helps to remember that during a rare California campaign visit last summer, Trump declared “there was no drought” or other effects of climate change happening to us.
It’s true that only a small minority of voters here supported Trump and many here continue to march in opposition of him. But until Mr. Trump there always has been some assurance that a new president would reach out to serve all Americans and not be more divisive or dismissive.
So far, Mr. Trump’s reach in Sonoma County has not felt very reassuring, to say the least.
