California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said the Republican Party led by President Trump will have little to no long-term impact on the United States.
“America in 2019 is California in the 1990s,” Newsom told told Politico. “The xenophobia, the nativism, the fear of ‘the other.’ Scapegoating. Talking down or past people. The hysteria. And so, we’re not going to put up with that. We are going to push back.”
Trump and nationalist Republicans “are into the politics of what California was into in the 1990s … and they’ll go the same direction — into the waste bin of history, the way Republicans of the ’90s have gone. That’s exactly what will happen to this crop of national Republicans,” Newsom said.
Newsom said he believed California was a bellwether for the U.S., and that in a few decades the entire country would mirror the staunchly Democratic state.
He and the California legislature recently agreed to a new state budget that will allow illegal immigrants up to age 26 enroll in Medi-Cal, the state’s medical insurance program. The budget and its program will start in July.
The budget also includes a provision, called the individual mandate, that fines people who do not have health insurance.
