California could be buffer to Trump policy whims
Thomas L. Friedman
Has the first 100 days of the presidency made Donald Trump nuts?
I don’t ask that question as a doctor. I don’t do medical diagnoses. I ask it as a newspaper reader. You read all of Trump’s 100-day interviews and they are just bizarre.
Out of nowhere, Trump tells us he would be “honored” to negotiate directly with the leader of North Korea, after weeks of threatening war. Out of nowhere, he says he would consider a gasoline tax to pay for infrastructure. Out of nowhere, he says he is considering breaking up the nation’s biggest banks. He also insists that his Obamacare replacement legislation contains protections for people with pre-existing conditions that it doesn’t.
There’s barely a dictator in the world for whom he doesn’t have praise. And he repeats a known falsehood — that Barack Obama wiretapped him — and tells reporters they should go find the truth, when, as president, he could get the truth from the FBI with one phone call, and when pressed whether he stands by that allegation, answers, “I don’t stand by anything.”
Is this a political strategy unfolding or a psychiatric condition unfolding? I don’t know — but it tells me that absolutely anything is possible in the next 100 days — both good and bad. Trump is clearly capable of shifting gears and striking any deal with any party on any issue.
So who will protect us during the next 100 days? I’m counting on California. I believe California’s market size, aspirational goals and ability to legislate make it the most powerful opposition party to Trump in America today.
How so? Trump wants to scrap Obama-era standards requiring passenger cars to average 51 mpg by 2025; today it’s just under 37 mpg. But as the Los Angeles Times recently noted, under the Clean Air Act, California “can impose emissions standards stronger than those set by the federal government, and a dozen other states have embraced the California rules.”
More than one-third of the vehicles sold in the United States are subject to the rules California sets. Trump can deregulate U.S. automakers to make more gas guzzlers all he wants, but they can’t if they want to sell cars in California. Trump can sue, but that will take years.
Ditto California companies: Apple is now powering 96 percent of its operations around the world with renewable energy including the U.S. and China. Trump’s pro-coal campaign will never get Apple back on coal.
As Kevin de León, leader of the California state Senate, told me: California has far more clean energy jobs than there are coal jobs in all of America, and California’s now nation-leading growth rate in jobs gives the lie to everything Trump says: You can have gradually rising clean energy standards, innovation, job creation and GDP growth — all at the same time.
California is also leading the resistance to Trump’s draconian immigration policies, with a web of initiatives embracing tighter border controls while also creating health care, education and work opportunities for unauthorized immigrants who have been living here responsibly and productively.
“We have made it very clear — we will protect our economic prosperity and our values from Trump,” said de León, whose Legislature recently hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to defend it against Trump suits. Holder is California’s (and my) secretary of defense.