By Kate Callen
The year 2025 hit San Diego with a double dose of political wreckage.
Along with the rest of the country, we watched a president take a sledgehammer to democracy. Here at home, we saw a mayor extort taxpayers to replenish a treasury he looted.
Donald Trump and Todd Gloria began their second terms with the same playbook: They would use their executive powers to do whatever they damn well pleased.
This is called “tyranny,” and it’s the subject of a book that a wise friend gave me in 2025 to raise my hopes for 2026.
Tyrants have been with us since cave people learned to conquer one another. Sooner or later, they all topple. But the wait can be agonizing. Are there steps we can take to speed things up?
On Tyranny by University of Toronto historian Timothy Snyder is a primer on disrupting despotism. Snyder has studied the Holocaust and led efforts to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty. He has seen autocracies destroy nations, and he knows how they can unravel.
I won’t apply his insights to Trump because I can no longer bear to think about the horror of that man. I leave him to Editordude Frank, who has the inner fire for it.
Gloria is a different story. Over two decades, I’ve watched him fall upward from an earnest young aide to Susan Davis to a glossy protégé of local magnates. He was never cut out to be mayor, and he has failed at the job.
But he still has three years in office. How do we minimize the damage he can do in the time he has left? And more importantly, how do we prevent another despot from succeeding him in 2028?
Snyder’s book is subtitled “Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.” I’ve read each of his lessons through the prism of “How can community activists in San Diego use this to start taking our city back?” Here are a few that stood out.
Defend institutions. Why did Gloria risk the solvency of Balboa Park with new parking fees that would alienate visitors? Because he assumed the public would just roll over. The fight for Balboa Park is only beginning. Every future candidate for elected office in San Diego should be asked to make an iron-clad promise to bring back free parking and restore this civic treasure.
Practice corporeal politics. This is a fancy way of saying: Get up from your computer, leave your house, and show up in public support of democracy. “No Kings” marches have had a seismic impact. In 2025, City Council chambers were filled with community leaders in brightly colored T-shirts demonstrating solidarity. Gloria, who never attends Council meetings, has reportedly nicknamed these activists “The Shirts.” So yes, he has noticed.
Contribute to good causes. Or contribute to good candidates. Autocrats feed on the wealth of cronies who profit from abuses of power. Populists must depend on support from the public. Ordinary people make up in numbers what they lack in money. If you are disgusted by San Diego’s pay-to-play government, support candidates of your choice financially and give them more than you think you can afford.
Investigate. Tyranny’s worst enemy is truth. The more truth comes to light, the weaker tyrants get. We want to take this opportunity to thank Rag followers for helping us root out government misconduct by giving us the coordinates on where to dig. One of our top 2025 stories, Geoff Page’s expose of the Mission Beach “surplus lands” scam, started with a tip from a reader.
Please keep those tips coming in 2026. We’re in this together.
Those four were great choices, Kate. They seem so simple and logical when written out, but to actually do those things takes energy and commitment. But, energy and commitment are the by-product of people who have just had enough. And, there is lots of that today.
I really don’t know why to distract with the Federal level. There is so much out of personal control that amounts to time spent spinning wheels. Frank would likely disagree, but, we tend to fix what is in our control. That does not mean we ignore it. It can obscure the priority or what is controllable.
We do spend much time on the local level which is great, but leave out the state level here. There seems to be a Newsome can do no wrong approach here. 4 failed budgets in a row. Failed homeless and bullet train policies are highlights. Corporate home ownership allowed and land owners be damned. Now it’s the billionaires tax to run more wealth out of the state. The super majority needs to be reduced. Keep these guys honest. Where are we keeping corporations out of home ownership?
Todd is odd.
Who else would put out the ADU policy he has while gutting infrastructure fees? We reduce single family starter home ownership for investors to build investment driven properties without realizing a key component to step up family wealth has been pulled out from under by reducing inventory.
And yet we have Midway Rising conflicts of interest. We have Ash St. conflicts of interest. We almost had the 30 mil a year homeless shelter conflict of interest. Property taxes rise. Water fees rising. Trash fees rising. Parking fees rising. And the unions, mainly associated with Browning and Rottenstreich keep representing candidates that proliferate this city and county. Now the unions want to raise sales taxes in the city and county. Even after all the increases in costs they are in control to say no. More keeping corporations out of home ownership. Including AirBnB’s.
There will come a time to vote a person who you may not agree with. That doesn’t mean they will be there forever. That can mean they will neutralize the majority and keep them honest acting in good faith. GLTY.
I agree with you, Chris. We need to keep it local and ‘non-partisan’.
We have 10 elected officials at city hall (9 cc + TG); all Democrats and only one (RC) who appears to have some good ideas and tries to have thoughtful discussion about policy. This is the worst and most incompetent city council ever.
So another suggestion would be let’s vote for the person who will advocate for San Diegans and stop this insane one-party rule.
Thanks Lisa and generally agree but most opponents seem to be of the opposite extreme which discourages any change what so ever unfortunately. I had thought this might change with the last mayor and D9 races, but here w we are.
Great article Kate and I share your thoughts too Geoff.
We will be launching the Repeal the Fees campaign first of the year to gather signatures to stop the trash tax and also paid parking at Balboa Park. We hope the Rag will promote these initiatives so we will get enough signatures in order to put these measures on the 2026 ballot.
Neither of these fees that were passed by the current city council will put a dent in the deficit nor generate revenue and should be repealed by the public. But local media must get the word out so that people will become informed voters.
In addition, we will need a majority of community advocates to get elected on the council in November 2026 so they can overturn Todd’s destructive agenda. That will be the beginning of the resistance by the new city council.
Let’s rise up as long time community advocates and vote for the person that will speak out for our communities whether they have a D or R after their name. We would do well with more moderate thought that is non-partisan.
The Repeal the Fees campaign is a fantastic concept. Inevitably, anyone who threatens the status quo will be labeled as a MAGA supporter. Class warfare sells, & that is how we ended up with Sean E-R. As history has shown, the Unions who benefit from the City Council ‘s largess, will fund a media blitz of mailed flyers and TV time, in support of the politicians they own. So far, this has worked. At some point in the looting, you’d think the citizenry would turn on them, giving us another Prop 13 moment, but in 2025/6 the Mayor, City Council, & County will champion 2 sales tax increases, a 5400% increase in property sales tax, 2nd home $5000 per bedroom tax, increasing trash fees, doubling parking fees (then again 4x that for downtown), & the elimination of coastal height limitations, + parking fees in our greatest park. If all this isn’t enough to end this sorry era, we deserve our fate.
I agree with your every word, Norman. If you want to register your support for the Repeal the Fees campaign, go on the website: RepealtheFees.com You will be notified when the petition drive begins.
Thanks Lisa, I’m willing to work on getting signatures on my block. You have my contact info. Let me know when I can pick up the forms. Norm
Great articles, thanks to all of you.
I’m wondering about the building one could learn to sky-dive in that was/is located downtown. The sky-diving went belly up, if I remember correctly, then it was to be turned into a one stop shop for the homeless, with social services staff on site and other services to assist the homeless. Then it just wasn’t the topic of news any more. Is it now standing vacant? Dumb and dumber are going to come up with a viable plan for H Barracks, and the homeless. HA! They better not follow the old plan of “first come, first served”. That will put predators in the same area as teens, family’s, single women, and bring on the lawsuits. Hopefully they figured out a better plan, or better yet have someone that knows what they’re doing in on figuring out a viable plan.
No, we don’t need someone with an R or a D after their name. We need a Democratic Socialist. Someone who would advocate for free transit, or how about this, free transit for kids. Would that really break the bank? Bust the budget? Really? you think so? We need to take housing out of the hands of Wall Street corporations, make developers pay for the infrastructure that their developments overload, like sewers, streets, fire and police protection. We need someone who will advocate for the people, not the corporations and/or the unions. We need to put our resources into schools, libraries, parks and open space. But none of that will happen if you look for a middle road between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Those two parties have not served us well in the past and they will not do it going forward. To move forward we need bold action, not the same old same old.
Apparently advocating for the people equates to endless new fees and ever increasing taxes, championed by our very own Democratic Socialist on the Council. I see no free transit for kids, all I’m seeing is wildly out of scale housing projects that have trashed our community plans, discarding the hard work from generations of San Diegans who were advocating for their communities. Oh that’s right, public open space, lawfully adopted height restrictions, and environmental regs no longer matter either. I’ve seen quite enough from this failed experiment in Democratic Socialism, thank you very much.
I agree completely, Norman. We have an opportunity to get a majority of community advocates elected to the city council and they can reverse ‘Todd’s Glorious’ agenda. I hope people will be empowered to vote for the person over party.
Let’s also realize that the two incumbents who are darlings of the local Democratic Party (Foster & Lee) have no record to stand on except rubber stamping Todd’s developer driven agenda.
It is the responsibility of everyone to be an informed voter. Go to all meet and greets during the campaign and find out if candidates can have a two-way conversation to discuss issues and not mudslinging, more problems and solution discussion.
Please do not use the ballot as a memory test by checking the box on the names you recognize. The future of our city depends upon it.
Let’s change the dynamic and stop this zombie council from destroying our city.
Anyone want to run for District 3? If so, maybe we can recall Whitburn rather than having him working against our district.
Norman, you are very quite mistaken if you think the current city council travels in democratic socialist politics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yeah, I know Elo-Rivera calls himself that in some circles, but from his practices, is not a democratic socialist at all. So, there has NOT been any experimentation as you assert; if has been experimentation in legislating what developers want.
There is no possible way you really think the current Mayor and city council are “Democratic Socialists”.