With popular vote-loser Donald Trump set to wage war on everything we hold dear, the center of the resistance will shift outside of Washington to the two biggest Democratic bastions in the country—California and New York.
In California, we should all celebrate Xavier Becerra’s appointment as attorney general to fill the seat vacated by Kamala Harris, who was elected to the U.S. Senate.
California officials have already signaled their intention to resist any efforts by Trump — who has called global warming a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese — to roll back the state's progressive climate-change policies. And efforts are underway to expand the state's "sanctuary" protections for undocumented immigrants to include college campuses in the state system. California counts dozens of such cities and counties within its borders, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, the nation's first sanctuary city.
Or put another way:
Becerra will be taking on a mirror-image version of the role that catapulted current Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to conservative stardom.
Hillary Clinton should’ve picked Becerra as her VP nominee, if it wasn’t going to be Elizabeth Warren. Now, his stature will inevitably be elevated as he faces off against Trump. And it puts him on track to be the nation’s first Latino president.
But he won’t be fighting the Trump administration alone. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has already shown a willingness to take on the powerful, and who better to challenge than the neo-fascist ignoramus?
It is clear: those who resist Trump will see good things in the future. Those who try to accommodate and normalize him? Quite the opposite.