Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT by Don Polson          Red Bluff Daily News 11/12/2024

        What a night at Rep’n HQ

Veterans of all services earn and deserve our gratitude.

Advice for Democrats: We found our solace, after losses to Obama and Biden, in skiing. Look around; find some of your own “joy” in life.

The pot luck spread at our Republican headquarters did not disappoint; there were tasty meatballs in sauce, fruit salad (what a combo for the stomach), delightful cucumber sandwiches, and cheese logs. The cookies—oatmeal raisin and white chocolate macadamia—were comforting.

The mood in the room as we arrived was cautiously optimistic as election returns were only just beginning; the “cautiously” part faded when Pennsylvania went for Trump. For Republicans who endured wins by George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden—it has been a quarter century of the good, the bad, the good, and the ugly.

We had little doubt our local candidates LaMalfa, Gallagher, and Dahle would prevail; they not only prevailed, they dominated in their races. Ms. Yee was not the Democrat to put Congressman Doug LaMalfa out to pasture, it was hardly a contest.

My anticipation over President Trump’s margin in Tehama County was rewarded; his winning majority of 63 percent in 2016, which rose to 66 percent in 2020, peaked at a super-majority of 69 percent last Tuesday. Indeed, Trump’s domination in the electorate across the nation saw his percentage increase in both “red” (Republican) and “blue” (Democrat) states. His majorities became bigger majorities, and his losses became lesser losses in blue states, becoming outright wins in “swing” states to the point of soundly taking all of the battleground states.

As all now know, it became a 312 Electoral College vote landslide, combined with a solid popular vote majority rivaling President Obama’s 51 percent win in 2012. Even leftist Democrat-dominated California went from 34 percent for Trump in 2020, to 40 percent this election; the Democrat share declined from 63 percent to 58 percent this year.

You can use “uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS” to dig into “tall weeds” on the subject. Clicking on California, you can compare 2020 to 2024 and marvel at the rise in the number of Trump counties vs. Democrat counties over 2 presidential elections. But for coastal and urban Dem strongholds (plus Mono, Alpine and Imperial counties—go figure), California is a vast “sea” of Republican majorities.

Even Chico-dominated Butte County flipped from 49 (Biden)/48 (Trump) to 49 (Trump)/48 (Harris). The Financial Times put together a chart showing almost every conceivable demographic group going further to the Trump side, including every minority group, and every age, sex and education subgroup.

The only ones that increased their Democrat share were 1) white college women; and 2) those 65+. Someone can explain the college women, but I can only bemoan, as a Boomer, that much of my generation apparently never left their affinity for leftist causes behind—belying the adage that “if you’re an adult and still a socialist, you don’t have a brain.” Mind you, these are all marginal changes but trends nonetheless.

Now, get this: Democrats and their big money targeted some California Republican House races and failed to flip them Democrat; in fact, the several that remain Republican constitute the seats needed to keep Congress in Republican hands. So, chew on that; I thought they were adamantly opposed to “buying” elections.

As another harbinger of common sense in our state, Prop 36, which essentially overturned the Kamala Harris-backed “soft-on-crime” Prop 47 (hypocritically named by her “Safe Schools and Neighborhoods Act”)—it was approved by about 70 percent of our residents. I can’t say “of our citizens” because ballots were sent to, and many used for voting by, non-citizen voters via the DMV.

Crime-sympathizing, George Soros-funded prosecutors were turned out in Los Angeles and Alameda counties. It appears that the common sense of populist sentiment is actually bringing some sanity to our state. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom remains the greatest “salesman” for U-Haul moving vans leaving CA.

Newsom is conducting a political “jihad” and tilting at windmills in a delusional effort to “Trump-proof” this state. Briefly, he wants 1) the ironically-named “reproductive freedom” to kill as many human lives as possible; 2) to replace gas- and diesel- powered vehicles, which people and businesses love, with unpopular EVs which are apparently designed to sacrifice personal and economic freedom on the altar of fake science-based environmental fallacies; and 3) to regularize illegal occupants of our state in opposition to the voters’ mandate of removal.

Newsom, and other fanatical Democratic governors, are setting themselves up to be anti-Constitutional states of rebellion, not unlike the rebellion of Southern states before, during and after the Democrat-led Civil War.

Go to donpolson.blogspot.com for “The seeds of Kamala Harris’ defeat were sown four years ago”; “Harris was always doomed”; “Democrats have learned nothing, maybe they’re too stupid”; “The left’s narrative about ‘Democracy’ died Tuesday night”; “Trump secured two wins on election night”; “Kamala campaign manager vows to kneecap Trump presidency”; and many more.