California’s Democratic leaders offer a fitting, appropriate response to Trump’s “triumph”

Hillary Clin­ton, Barack Oba­ma, and oth­er nation­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic fig­ures are show­ing a lot of def­er­ence to Don­ald Trump in the hours fol­low­ing the pro­jec­tion of his like­ly vic­to­ry in the Elec­toral Col­lege — per­haps owing to their belief that def­er­ence is required to ensure a peace­ful tran­si­tion of power.

Said Clin­ton:

Don­ald Trump is going to be our pres­i­dent. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.

Our con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy enshrines the peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er, and we don’t just respect that, we cher­ish it. It also enshrines oth­er things—the rule of law, the prin­ci­ple that we’re all equal in rights and dig­ni­ty, and the free­dom of wor­ship and expres­sion. We respect and cher­ish these things too—and we must defend them.

Said Pelosi:

The peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er is the cor­ner­stone of our democ­ra­cy.  After an elec­tion in which Don­ald Trump won the elec­toral col­lege and Hillary Clin­ton won the pop­u­lar vote, we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to come togeth­er and find com­mon ground.

Only by rec­og­niz­ing and respect­ing the impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions that all Amer­i­cans make to our country’s suc­cess can we build an inclu­sive and stronger future for America.

Said Oba­ma:

Now, every­body is sad when their side los­es an elec­tion. But the day after, we have to remem­ber that we’re actu­al­ly all on one team. This is an intra­mur­al scrim­mage. We’re not Democ­rats first. We’re not Repub­li­cans first. We are Amer­i­cans first. We’re patri­ots first. We all want what’s best for this coun­try. That’s what I heard in Mr. Trump’s remarks last night. That’s what I heard when I spoke to him direct­ly. And I was heart­ened by that. That’s what the coun­try needs — a sense of uni­ty; a sense of inclu­sion,; a respect for our insti­tu­tions, our way of life, rule of law; and a respect for each other.

I get that Oba­ma, Clin­ton, Pelosi, and oth­ers feel they have to call for uni­ty and a peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er. They’re try­ing to be Amer­i­ca’s bet­ter angels.

But now is not a time for uni­ty. Now is not a time for def­er­ence. Neo­fas­cism won last night, and we have to fight it. We have to resist the dark­ness with all we have.

Now is a time for orga­niz­ing – orga­niz­ing to resist Trump, orga­niz­ing to defend our vital pub­lic ser­vices, orga­niz­ing to advance pro­gres­sive causes.

Let’s not be naive or pre­ten­tious here. Don­ald Trump just got elect­ed after hav­ing run one of the most divi­sive, mean-spir­it­ed, nasty cam­paigns in U.S. his­to­ry. He walks, talks, and acts like a neo­fas­cist. No one can believe a word he says. He’s total­ly untrust­wor­thy and unfit for the pres­i­den­cy. The notion that a neo­fas­cist can uni­fy this coun­try around its finest tra­di­tion­al val­ues is utter­ly preposterous.

It won’t hap­pen, nor should we want it to hap­pen. The oth­er side isn’t inter­est­ed in find­ing any com­mon ground. To them, bipar­ti­san­ship = capit­u­la­tion. It’s their way or the high­way, peri­od. We’ve seen this before. Repub­li­cans have a big, fat dou­ble stan­dard: they demand Democ­rats show def­er­ence when they have the pow­er, but do not return the favor after Democ­rats win elections.

Remem­ber Mitch McConnel­l’s scorched-earth oppo­si­tion tac­tics? Remem­ber the abuse of the fil­i­buster? Remem­ber the U.S. Sen­ate’s out­ra­geous fail­ure to take up Mer­rick Gar­land’s nom­i­na­tion for Supreme Court justice?

Let’s not for­get that from the moment Oba­ma began run­ning for Pres­i­dent in 2007, right wing Repub­li­cans — includ­ing Trump’s enablers — began spread­ing vicious lies about him, most noto­ri­ous­ly that he was­n’t born in this coun­try, when we know for a fact he was. Don­ald Trump embraced those lies sev­er­al years ago and became Birther-in-Chief. Now, dis­gust­ing­ly, he will become Oba­ma’s suc­ces­sor as Com­man­der-in-Chief. It’s a hor­ri­ble moment in this coun­try’s history.

Don­ald Trump does not deserve our sup­port or def­er­ence. He has not earned any; he should not receive any. His con­duct dur­ing and before this cam­paign has been mon­strous. It should be repu­di­at­ed at every turn, not excused away.

Trump must not be legit­imized by Democ­rats sim­ply because he duped mil­lions into vot­ing for him. Except for on the Left Coast, New Eng­land, and a few oth­er places, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty is every respect Amer­i­ca’s oppo­si­tion par­ty now. In a few months, Repub­li­cans will con­trol every branch of the fed­er­al government.

It’s time for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to embrace its role as the loy­al opposition.

Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive lead­er­ship woke up to the same grim out­come that Clin­ton and Oba­ma did, but they came up with a much bet­ter response: affirm that Trump and his agen­da are com­plete­ly incom­pat­i­ble with Amer­i­ca’s finest tra­di­tion­al val­ues — which res­i­dents of Cal­i­for­nia vot­ed emphat­i­cal­ly to uphold last night. In a joint state­ment, they declared:

Today, we woke up feel­ing like strangers in a for­eign land, because yes­ter­day Amer­i­cans expressed their views on a plu­ral­is­tic and demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety that are clear­ly incon­sis­tent with the val­ues of the peo­ple of California.

We have nev­er been more proud to be Californians.

By a mar­gin in the mil­lions, Cal­i­for­ni­ans over­whelm­ing­ly reject­ed pol­i­tics fueled by resent­ment, big­otry, and misogyny.

The largest state of the union and the strongest dri­ver of our nation’s econ­o­my has shown it has its surest con­science as well.

Cal­i­for­nia is – and must always be – a refuge of jus­tice and oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple of all walks, talks, ages and aspi­ra­tions – regard­less of how you look, where you live, what lan­guage you speak, or who you love.

Cal­i­for­nia has long set an exam­ple for oth­er states to fol­low. And Cal­i­for­nia will defend its peo­ple and our progress.

We are not going to allow one elec­tion to reverse gen­er­a­tions of progress at the height of our his­toric diver­si­ty, sci­en­tif­ic advance­ment, eco­nom­ic out­put, and sense of glob­al responsibility.

We will be reach­ing out to fed­er­al, state and local offi­cials to eval­u­ate how a Trump Pres­i­den­cy will poten­tial­ly impact fed­er­al fund­ing of ongo­ing state pro­grams, job-cre­at­ing invest­ments reliant on for­eign trade, and fed­er­al enforce­ment of laws affect­ing the rights of peo­ple liv­ing in our state. We will max­i­mize the time dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion to defend our accom­plish­ments using every tool at our disposal.

While Don­ald Trump may have won the pres­i­den­cy, he hasn’t changed our val­ues. Amer­i­ca is greater than any one man or par­ty. We will not be dragged back into the past. We will lead the resis­tance to any effort that would shred our social fab­ric or our Constitution.

Cal­i­for­nia was not a part of this nation when its his­to­ry began, but we are clear­ly now the keep­er of its future.

This was a great state­ment. Note its pos­i­tiv­i­ty and stead­fast­ness, note the com­mit­ment to defend the val­ues we hold dear. Note the pro­gres­sive framing.

It is an appro­pri­ate and fit­ting response to Trump’s “tri­umph”. Capit­u­la­tion is not the way for­ward. I hope to see a sim­i­lar joint state­ment very soon from Gov­er­nor Inslee and Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers here in Wash­ing­ton, and from Gov­er­nor Kate Brown and Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers in Oregon.