Month: November 2024

By Kate Callen

Last night, when presidential election returns started going horribly wrong, my sister said to me, “Don’t try to spin this. You always do that.”

Guilty as charged. When life ruptures, I look to Stoicism, to the belief that while we can’t control our fate, we can control our reactions to it. But this moment is too searing for that balm. The shock needs to wear off. That will take time.

What to do as we struggle to breathe again? Right now, it might help to turn away from the national conflagration and look closer to home at some encouraging local election results.

Here are local trends that augur well this Wednesday morning:

A fifth of the American people just voted in what I’m calling “democratic fascism.”

At last count, Trump had a little over 71 million votes. It will nudge up slightly. And there’s 337.4 million people living in the U.S. right now according to the Census Bureau.

So, doing a little math, roughly 20 to 21% of the people, a little over half of the electorate, voted in democratic fascism.

Democratic fascism is a fascism that is democratically voted in. And then it’s fascism for those who didn’t vote for it — and it would also be fascism for many of those that did vote for it.

“These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis” 1776

What another Trump presidency will mean for California

by Alexei Koseff / CalMatters / November 5, 2024

Former President Donald Trump won a second term after four years out of the White House, likely thrusting California back into leading the resistance against him.

The Associated Press made its call at 3 a.m., declaring that the Republican defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who would have become the first woman president and the most powerful Californian in four decades.

Instead, Californians now face a repeat of Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021 — another four years of governance consumed by combative showdowns between the state’s Democratic leadership and Washington, D.C., possibly distracting from or even setting back progress on addressing California’s own problems.

I still have faith in America. But we must mobilize to protect those at risk if Trump achieves his worst impulses

By Robert Reich / Guardian UK – RSN/ Nov. 6, 2024

I won’t try to hide it. I’m heartbroken. Heartbroken and scared, to tell you the truth. I’m sure many of you are, too. Donald Trump has decisively won the presidency, the Senate, and possibly the House of Representatives and the popular vote, too.

I still have faith in America. But right now, that’s little comfort to the people who are most at risk.

Millions of people must now live in fear of being swept up by Trump’s cruel mass deportation plan – documented immigrants, as he has threatened before, as well as undocumented, and millions of American citizens with undocumented parents or spouses.

Election eve was a good night for San Diego’s incumbents, as they all won. Gloria, Lawson-Remer, Elo-Rivera, Whitburn — and even Ferbert if you consider her office an incumbency.

This trend also extended to the  state and House races. Here are the results so far for the County with 49.2% of votes counted.

Californians Send Anti-Trumpist Adam Schiff to the Senate; Rent Control, Prison Slavery Blocked, Prop 36 Passes

 by Ryan Sabalow and Sameea Kamal / CalMatters / Nov. 6, 2024

While Republicans celebrated a red wave nationally, California voters affirmed the state’s solid blue politics with Democratic candidates seeing strong returns for state and federal office.

As the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency loomed large over California, the state elected a new U.S. senator in Adam Schiff. A Burbank Democrat, Schiff made a national name for himself in the U.S. House by leading the prosecution of Trump’s first impeachment and for his key role investigating the Jan. 6th storming of the Capitol.

While Republicans are also leading most of the key contested races to represent California in Congress, Democrats are ahead in races that would expand their supermajority in the state Legislature, making the state well positioned to lead the resistance to a second Trump presidency.

California’s voters were hesitant to fully embrace a progressive agenda.

Mayors Race

8:38pm From CNN: PT It’s 11:30 p.m. ET, and polls have closed in most of the US. Here are the latest updates on voting

Polls have closed in most of the United States while voting continues in some Western states, as tens of millions of American voters went to the polls Tuesday to choose the country’s next leaders.

Here’s the latest on the voting front:

By Lori Weisberg / San Diego Union-Tribune / Nov. 1, 2024

SeaWorld, which continues to insist that it doesn’t owe millions of dollars in back rent to the city of San Diego, filed a motion in federal court this week demanding that a judge decide in its favor now, instead of waiting for a trial next summer.

At issue is a lawsuit filed last year by the city alleging that the Mission Bay theme park violated its lease by failing to pay more than $12 million in rent and fees during the height of the pandemic when it and many other California theme parks were forced to shut down. SeaWorld, in turn, filed a countersuit contending that the city’s forced closure was a violation of its lease and it, therefore, owes nothing to the city.

SeaWorld made a similar argument in a motion it filed Tuesday seeking a summary judgment of its case, a legal move that allows a party to ask for a ruling in its favor based on its contention that the facts of the case are undisputed and therefore no trial is needed.

Kat Schuster /San Diego Patch / Nov. 4, 2024

In California, 8,058,584 vote-by-mail ballots have been returned and 98% of them were already accepted, according to data posted by California’s Secretary of State the day before the election.

Counties were required to mail out ballots by Oct. 7 — all active, registered voters should have received a vote-by-mail ballot for the general election.

Nationwide, more than 76.5 Americans have already cast their ballots in Tuesday’s 2024 presidential election.

According to a Monday analysis by NBC News of data from election officials across the country, 49% percent of early votes in California were cast by Democrats, 30% were by Republicans and 21% were by people who haven’t declared a party.

Not all California residents who received an early-vote ballot had returned them by Monday. The returned ballots represent 47% of those sent to Democrats, 25% sent to Republicans and 28% sent to no-party voters.

The swing states that took the longest in 2020 and could again be slow this year: Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada. If the race is close, other states could join the list.

By Patrick Marley and  Amy Gardner / Washington Post / Nov. 4, 2024

Finding out who won the presidency may take days.

Election officials in key swing states are urging Americans to be patient as they tally results, a process that varies from state to state because each has different vote-counting laws.