Were early voting and vote-by-mail efforts a success in CA? Discussing faith and politics with an evangelical leader, a closer look at hate speech.
Human Voter Guide recap: Some challenges, but smoother election than primary
For one evangelical leader, President-elect Trump an imperfect champion in faith fight
Yesterday in churches and other houses of worship across the state and the country, faith leaders spoke to their congregants about how to process the presidential election.
For some, it's been a time of mourning and grief; for others, it's a step in the right direction. To Jim Garlow, senior pastor at Skyline Church in La Mesa, Donald Trump represents a political bulwark: a self-serving sinner turned public servant for the Lord, tasked now with righting the course of a nation on the verge of abandoning its Biblical roots.
Garlow spoke with Take Two's Alex Cohen.
Highlights
A lot of people have expressed concerns about the words that Donald Trump has used to describe women, Muslims, the disabled. You have mentioned that you served on President-elect Trump's faith advisory council. What has the conversation been like about how the President-elect can best reach out to all communities to heal some of the rifts that we're seeing?
On the faith advisory council, there are people of integrity, and we try to walk in righteousness and holiness, and so there's been some very firm and strong confrontations. Most of us don't have direct access to him — I've only been a phone conversation with him once — but there are people on our council that have confronted him strongly on these very issues, and I would have to say that he's not been defensive.
He's been very teachable. He deserved correction; he needed correction, and he received it. His response to one of the most forceful confrontations was he said to the person 'will you come stay at our home tonight and fly with me on the plane the next two days?' This is right after the Access Hollywood tape came out. So we see — internally — a man who seems to be highly teachable in these areas, and, well, he should be in these areas. I don't defend those things that are said that are morally offensive.
We as evangelicals took a hard look at the constant corruption of Hillary Clinton: we'd looked at her platform — there's hardly a single thing that I can agree with.
Press the blue play button above to hear the interview in its entirety.
(Question and answer have been edited for clarity and brevity.)
States' rights? 3 key ways a Trump administration could affect California
Is California headed for a clash with President-elect Donald Trump? Last week voters pushed forward a broad progressive agenda, from legalizing recreational marijuana to strengthening gun control.
And they chose Hillary Clinton over Trump by nearly 30 points.
The state is also home to the most ambitious climate change plan in the nation while Trump has rejected the science on climate change and called it a" hoax" to benefit China.
California could emerge as a counterweight to a Trump administration's aggressive push to the political right, said Larry Gerston, professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State University – and that resistance could draw from what has in recent years been seen as a conservative argument: states rights.
"It could come from California and other states that claim that the federal government is encroaching on California rights," said Gerston.
Here are three key issues of importance to California and how a Trump administration could approach them, according to Gerston.
Climate change. "Number one, Trump says he supports the Keystone XL Pipeline. He also wants to roll back President Obama's curbs on coal and emissions from coal plants. California has banned coal from coming into the state, so really the question here is not so much just Trump, but Trump and Congress and whether in fact they'll get together and pass legislation that undoes California, or at least supersedes California, in terms of some of our cap and trade programs, [and] allows for fracking and drilling on federal lands. All of these things could have an impact on California."
Immigration. "Certainly on immigration, it would seem to me [that] the federal government has always laid a strong claim to managing who comes in and who leaves this country. In that area, I would think that the federal government under Trump would have as much power as possible."
Water and the drought. "In terms of federal water sources here in the state we have a whole pipeline, a canal that goes north to south, that's under federal control. We have federal dams. And [federal agencies] can decide literally how much water goes where. So far the federal government has been pretty understanding, as far as balancing farmers needs with the needs of urban areas and environment areas. But the Trump Administration may take a very different lead on that."
To hear the full interview, click on the blue button above
California's economy is strong. But what happens when Trump takes office?
We are 68 days away from Donald Trump moving into the White House, but almost immediately after he won the election, the economy had its say about him.
The US and global markets have been doing well.
Once he takes office, though, Trump has a broad agenda that touches on renegotiating trade deals, lowering taxes and creating well-paying jobs.
Those movements could have big implications for California's economy, which is already so big that it'd be the sixth largest in the world if we were a separate country.
Take Two brings you some advice on what California industries will stand to gain and lose the most in the coming years, and what you can do to prepare yourself financially.
Guests:
- Raphael Bostic, chair of governance at the USC Price School of Public Policy
- Delia Fernandez, certified financial planner with Fernandez Financial Advisory in Los Alamitos
- Chris Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics
Interview Highlights
Can a Trump presidency do anything to affect California's economy? Either way, up or down?
Chris: "When you think about the Trump presidency, the question you have to ask yourself is, which Trump is going to show up in the White House? It's interesting you should bring up the stock market, yes the stock market did jump because what the stock market sees is tax cuts, fiscal spending such as infrastructure, probably all being fueled by deficit spending at the federal level. But these are all stimulative, these will all make the U.S. economy grow faster and that in turn, will benefit California. Now go to the other side, the other Trump so to speak. That Trump wants to throw three million people out of the country. That Trump wants to create trade wars with Mexico, Canada and China. That Trump would slow down the economy and that would harm California. So, I think myself, like many economists, we're all sitting here wondering, well, which Trump is going to show up?
Delia, what are your clients saying? Not fancy experts, real people. What are they saying?
Delia: "They're concerned, I've had the people closest to retirement or in retirement are probably the most concerned. Certainly, we've had a very tumultuous election period and campaign and so they don't like the rhetoric and so they want to come in and find out what their situation is going to be like. I think when we do any kind of planning we look at best case, worst case, most likely case. I've had just a handful of people completely sell out and they did it a couple weeks ago. It was jut because of politics and now, I've even had people who are republicans who have voted for Trump who are also concerned. So, I think we just don't know how it's going to settle down yet."
...We were at a change point anyway. We are coming down from reducing all of this debt after 2008. We have a healthier economy and we were looking at raising interest rates anyway. That was going to be a change for everyone, although we weren't looking at the fiscal stimulus, that we're now looking at, possible in this administration. So, I think that we were going to have to do some adjustments and I just think people are going to be a little bit on the edge of their seats until they see how it shakes out."
During the campaign, President-elect Trump complained that home ownership rate is at a 51-year low, what has he proposed that could be a benefit to listeners out there, maybe trying to buy or sell a home?
Raphael: "As you've heard throughout this whole conversation: we don't really know. There's a lot of things he could do. He's talked about reducing regulation, he's talked about trying to promote more lending by the banking industry but we've been very short on specific proposals and there's a real question as to whether the home ownership should go up too much more from where it is now. So there's a school of thought which would say that one of the reasons why the crisis was so bad was because we got a bunch of people in home ownership in ways that didn't work for them and were'nt sustainable and so working too hard to push to get people into home ownership could put us right back where we just came from which is a real concern..."
To hear the full segment, click the blue audio above.
Bonus Audio: To hear the conversation in its entirety, click the link beneath the blue play button.
This post has been updated.
On The Lot: Strong post-election box office, Hollywood reacts to Trump
Perhaps people were tired of watching political news, or maybe they just needed an escape. Whatever, Hollywood movies sold lots of tickets over the weekend, easily beating the same period last year.
Meanwhile Hollywood executives and creative types are still trying to get their heads around what the Trump Administration may mean for their business. One worry - China. Film studios here depend on Chinese audiences for foreign revenue, and Chinese companies have made large investments in US entertainment firms.
Just a couple of the things we talk about with Vanity Fair Hollywood correspondent Rebecca Keegan.
To listen to the full interview, click the blue player button above.
Civil rights group catalogs more than 300 hate incidents since Election Day
Since Tuesday night, there have been reports of election-related harassment and hate incidents across the country.
Here in Southern California, on the day after the election, parents of a 6th-grader at a South L.A. middle school allege that a substitute teacher told students that their parents would be deported.
A witness says a group of white men in Anaheim pulled up next to a black family in a car, shouted the N-word and said it was "Trump's country now."
Ryan Lenz, editor of the Hatewatch blog at the Southern Poverty Law Center, says that over the past week, his organization has collected around 315 incidents of election-related harassment and intimidation.
The reports have come from the Southern Poverty Law Center's #ReportHate site, social media, and news reports. Lenz says the organization is currently working to independently verify the incidents.
Most of the reports have been of instances of anti-Black and anti-immigrant harassment, Lenz says, "with a third large category being anti-Muslim harassment." Many of the incidents, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, involve direct references to the Trump campaign.
"These reports are quite heart-breaking," Lenz says. "And [they're] quite indicative, we feel, of what America is now in the aftermath of a campaign that legitimized and gave a huge seat at the table to ideologies and extremist perspectives that had long been relegated to the fringe of American culture."
To hear the full interview with Ryan Lenz, click the blue player above.
How to find post election peace buried deep within books
Every full moon we take a look at literature with David Kipen, owner of the Libros Schmibros lending library in Boyle Heights. This week he helps us find post election peace deep within the pages of the books that you should be checking out at your local library.
To find your own peace, hear about what writers around the world are saying about the election and what can be expected from the National Book Awards, check out the audio embedded at the top of this post.