Countering California’s Rightward Shift

Nov 15, 2024

Reflecting the national mood that resulted in Donald Trump’s presidential victory, voters in the nation’s most populous state also seemingly succumbed to the politics of fear. Proposition 36, which passed by a wide margin, increases penalties for petty crimes—a police- and corporate-backed measure that undoes a decade of progress on decarceration.

Californians also voted down Proposition 6, a simple initiative that would have ended forced prison labor, a form of modern slavery. They rejected a rent control measure in spite of anxiety over the rising cost of housing, and failed to raise the minimum wage in spite of anger over the economy.

In Southern California, incumbent District Attorney George Gascón, considered one of the most progressive DAs in the nation, lost his reelection bid by a wide margin to a pro-cop former Republican.

And voters in East Bay successfully recalled two top officials—Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao—who were painted as “soft on crime.”

James Woodson, co-founder and executive director of the California Black Power Network, spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about the newly formed We Are California coalition, its plans to counter California’s rightward tilt, and Trump’s second term.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.