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December 11th, 2024

Insight

Come to California, Mr. President. For your own good!

Greg Crosby

By Greg Crosby

Published August 23, 2019

 Come to California, Mr. President. For your own good!
I'm a Republican living in California, which right away puts me on the endangered species list.

Out here in California Democrats outnumber Republicans by about two to one, which makes us as popular as General Custer at Little Bighorn. To make matters worse I'm a President Trump supporter.

Being a Donald Trump supporter in my state is akin to being a French freedom fighter during Nazi occupied Vichy France. No kidding. In order to survive you've got to be quiet and operate underground.

Needless to say, wearing a MAGA cap in public would be taking my life in my hands. A Trump 2020 bumper sticker would be asking for my car to be keyed or damaged in some other way. A Trump 2020 lawn sign at my home is an absolute guarantee for rocks to be thrown through my windows and maybe worse.

Living on the west coast and voting conservative can be isolating and depressing. You realize that for all the good it will do, your vote might just as well be thrown into the ocean. (However, I still insert it into the ballot box, that way I won't be arrested for pollution. Pollution in my state is worse than a capital offense.)

We watch President Trump broadcast live on C-Span and Fox holding his rallies in the various states. We know full well he'd never come out to California and do one because his reelection people see it as a waste of time. But is it? From what I hear grass root support for President Trump is growing. People are quietly getting on the Trump bandwagon.

Never mind the polls, Lots of people are feeling good about the economy, jobs, and America again.

Most people want to see America succeed and they know that Trump has done a lot to make that happen. Most believe in the innate goodness of our country, that shining city on a hill that President Reagan spoke of. President Trump's story is a positive one, while the Democrats tell a negative story of a racist, evil, deeply flawed America that needs to be brought down and fundamentally changed.

And then there's that news story that appeared last week in The Seattle Times with the headline: "In blue Seattle, Trump supporters are starting to come out of hiding." Things have changed in the state of Washington since 2016, the writer stated. "The latest federal-election reports show that Trump is doing surprisingly well getting backers in this bluest of blue places."

"With nearly 15 months to go before the 2020 election, he already has drawn more donations from Seattle addresses than he did during the entire 2016 campaign." The piece goes on to say, "In Washington state, where his approval rating is 28 points underwater, Trump has still racked up far more donations, big and small, than any of the Democratic candidates --- in fact more than the top six Democrats combined."

In 2016 Bernie Sanders led the field in donations, now Trump, of all candidates, has nearly three times as many donations from Washington state as Bernie Sanders does. Something is definitely going on here on the west coast if a far-left state like Washington is seeing Trump supporters coming out and aggressively putting their money on the president.

I have to believe that a similar groundswell could be quietly occurring even down here in La La Land as well. Crazier things have happened. And politically things have never been weirder than they are right now. Anything is possible.

While it's true that the Democrats outnumber the Republicans in California by a large margin and all the political geniuses say that President Trump doesn't stand a chance of winning the state, no one takes into account the independent voters. The share of voters who say they are independent (also known as "decline to state" or "no party preference") has been increasing.

California independent voters are now at around 25.5%. There are still around 5 million registered Republicans in the state of California, which is another 25% or so of the total electorate. That just might be enough to win the state.

And that is why I say to President Trump, Mr. President come out and stage one of your great rallies in California. It just might make a difference this time. Who knows? And by the way, what the hell do you have to lose?

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JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. He's been a JWR contributor since 1999.

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