Overview: The recent federal government shutdown in the United States resulted from failed budget negotiations, with the main point of contention being the extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies. Failure to extend the subsidies will lead to increased out-of-pocket healthcare costs for millions of Americans, and the president’s aggressive and relentless pressure on blue states, such as California, requires state and local leadership to remain nimble and ready to respond. The situation may lead to increased federal layoffs in these states, with the president blaming the Democrats for the shutdown.
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It was another whirlwind political week in Washington, D.C. that reverberated nationwide.
I am a firm believer that all politics are local and during the normal course of history, we can influence what happens nationally by working to align on important issues within our own communities.
Today, although the march of history continues, the aberrational activities being triggered by the nation’s commander-in-chief are requiring us to pay close attention to what is happening at all levels of government and to harness and leverage the community cohesion experienced during normal times to help steady our course during times like this.
Not unlike an ominous, gigantic tsunami that follows any major shift of tectonic plates and washes away everything in its path, what is happening in America today is leaving state and local officials limited space to maneuver as they search for higher ground in response to the deluge of actions threatening our way of life.
The truth is, with the president acting outside the bounds of the U.S. Constitution and/or skirting along the edges of the law; with Republican leaders in Congress either too afraid or too willingly complicit in supporting his nationalistic and authoritarian tendencies; with the Supreme Court at his beck and call; and Congressional Democrats too impotent, too compromised or too weak to even stand in solidarity against a bill making a martyr and hero of the recently slain, modern-day racist, Charlie Kirk, I believe it leaves limited space for those operating at local and state levels to push back against the Trump deluge of dysfunction.
Since Trump took office again in January it seems much time and money is being spent on defense, pushing back against the impacts and potential impacts of cuts to federal programs and services that impact local programs and services. Also, working to protect local residents from excessive ICE activity; pushing back against changes to environmental protections, and of course, the list goes on.
This week, as many in the nation continued making adjustments to rising unemployment due to DOGE actions, other government layoffs, tariff impacts, immigration activities, etc., the federal government shut down abruptly at midnight on Wednesday after Congress failed to reach a budget agreement.
Although the threat of shutdown had loomed for weeks, the nation has often reached the precipice of a shutdown during budget negotiations, only to avoid it by reaching an agreement–just ahead of the shutdown deadline. But, in the “Age of Donald J. Trump,” and during this second term with him as U.S. president, a last minute agreement was not to be reached, this time.
Although Washington politicians are blaming the shutdown on each other, the true sticking point in the budget negotiations was rooted in the Democrats pushing for an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies and the Republicans’ long-standing dream of putting an end to the Affordable Care Act. The timing of the ACA subsidy expiration created the perfect opportunity for Republicans to push to end them.
An end to the subsidies will increase out of pocket healthcare costs for millions of Americans who depend on these subsidies and is likely to result in a loss of coverage for millions. This, in addition to the millions of Americans already projected to lose healthcare coverage due to pending budget cuts next year.
Of course, Trump used his typical ‘double speak’ to make it appear he was both “against and for” a government shutdown. He claimed on the one hand, that he did not want a shutdown while at the same time declaring, “A lot of good can come down from shutdowns.”
The president also seemed unable to resist using this opportunity to further threaten federal workers in “blue states” (those states like California that he did not carry in the 2024 Presidential Election), by promising even more federal layoffs in these states and blaming it on the Democrats that, he claims, caused the shutdown.
Trump’s pressure on California, due to its blue state status, is both aggressive and relentless. To date, California (along with New York, another blue state) seems to be at the forefront of the president’s ire. Whether he is taking a hatchet to California’s climate standards; using Los Angeles as a place to test the deplorable, military enforcement of his anti-immigrant tactics; or pressing the University of California, Los Angeles, to settle an alleged civil rights violation in order to restore federal research funding worth more than a billion dollars, the president’s pressure on this state requires state and local leadership to remain nimble and ready to respond.
One of the ways California is fighting back is with Proposition 50–our state’s way of putting a check on Trump’s power. If approved by voters on November 4, it will replace the state’s current congressional maps with new congressional maps drawn by the California State Legislature. The goal is to flip five seats from Republican to Democratic as a way to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The measure is an effort to offset a directive issued by Trump to the state of Texas demanding its state representatives redraw their congressional maps to ensure they gain five Republican seats thus enabling Republicans to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives while also diluting the state’s Black vote. It is important to note that California’s Prop 50 will not supersede future redistricting efforts in the state. Those will continue to be determined by an independent redistricting commission.
Meanwhile ICE agents tussled with and arrested peaceful protestors in Chicago over the weekend. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed the protestors were “advocating for violence against the American people.” Really? I don’t think so.
Also, this weekend, ICE agents propelled from Blackhawke helicopters and used flash-bang bombs, etc., an undetermined number of ice agents (some say as many as 300) descended on a single apartment complex located on the Southside of Chicago (a well-known Black community), claiming it was a hangout for Venezuelan gang members.
The attack/raid was unsettling (but not surprising). To witness the federal government traumatize an entire community to further a political agenda was alarming in and of itself. But to watch as Trump uses the same political propaganda and military tactics being deployed by Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, in his attacks against the Palestinians in Gaza, is unnerving.
Netanyahu has used the proclamation of ‘the bad guys (Hamas) were hiding there,’ as justification for his leveling of neighborhoods, apartments, schools, hospitals, markets, and whatever other place he sets his mind to–all under the guise of rooting out terrorists. Like Trump, Netanyahu is never held accountable and he never bothers to provide proof of his claims.
Last week, Trump gave the world a preview of what he has in store for America’s Black and Brown communities when he pulled the nation’s military leaders together from around the world and gathered them for a rambling monologue at Quantico, Virginia.
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military,” he encouraged, referring to the inner cities of America. At one point he also rambled about having sent submarines to Russia. Inferring that they were nuclear in nature he noted how the word “nuclear” can never be said. He went on to explain, “I call it the N word. There are two N words, and you can’t use either of them,” Trump said. I’m sure we all know what he meant.
As always, I encourage you to do whatever it is given for you to do at this time to help stop the madness and reclaim this nation so that it can regain its footing along the pathway to a more perfect union.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.