California governor says divided nation needs common ground
SACRAMENTO — California’s outgoing governor, Democrat Jerry Brown, said Wednesday the deeply divided nation needs to find comity and common ground, even as his state’s aggressive confrontation of President Donald Trump looks to accelerate under his successor.
Brown is preparing to hand o power to Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who ran on his promise to stand up to Trump and promote California’s liberal values.
“I see the central challenge of America is pulling itself together and minimizing the deepening divergence of our people,” Brown told reporters in a rare availability in the Capitol o ce he’ll vacate in two months.
California must stand up for human rights and the environment, he said, “but we have to do it in a way that finds greater commonality, we have to maximize the sense of being Americans.”
“I’ve seen other countries that are pulling apart,” Brown said. “Democracy’s in trouble everywhere.”
Brown has relished the role of foil to Trump on some issues but also frustrated his party’s liberal wing that’s eager to much more aggressively confront Trump and enact an array of left-wing priorities like universal health care.
He said he doesn’t care for framing California’s role as the “resistance” to Trump. Rather, he said, the state follows its own path and fights those who get in the way.
Brown was responding to data from AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate, which found that 7 in 10 Californians disapprove of Trump and more than half said they were driven to the polls by their opposition to the president.
He noted with approval that U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the party’s leader in the House who is looking to be speaker, said she’d be cautious and move slowly on investigating and potentially impeaching Trump.
Accepting victory following Tuesday’s election, Newsom took a confrontational tone toward Trump and presented California as the model for an approach to politics that’s diametrically opposed to the president’s views. He extolled the state’s diversity — it is home to millions of immigrants, and Latinos make up the largest ethnic group — and its powerhouse economy.
“At our best, we always stand up. We step in and we fight for what’s right,” Newsom said. “There’s a reason why California’s dream is America’s leading brand. Because California’s dream will always be too big to fail and too powerful to bully.”
Speaking to reporters at a campaign stop in Sacramento last week, Newsom rejected a suggestion that he and Brown have different approaches to confronting Trump, noting both used harsh language to criticize the president.
Brown, 80, leaves office on Jan. 7. He said he intends to use his remaining weeks to push for a negotiated agreement among water users long at war over the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta east of San Francisco.