Many Californians fear that democracy is at risk

The most important issue facing America? It’s not the economy or immigration.

That’s the discovery of A, representing a shift from last fall’s presidential election, said Mark Bardassaa, PPIC’s voting director.

The two pivotal policy issues that led to President Trump are inflation and illegal immigration, and the fact that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris refused to grasp or hide it.

But it wasn’t politically a problem in blue California, when her hometown daughter beat Trump on a landslide.

But even in California, residents’ PPIC opinion in October showed that they believe the economy is far more important than a threat to democracy.

“People are still nervous about the economy,” says Bardasare. “But they are now more concerned about the state of democracy due to a change in (national) leadership. It has changed from a divided government to a government run by one party.”

Republicans control both the White House and Congress homes, as well as conservative jurists control the Supreme Court.

“For the first time now, we understand that more Americans are handing over the full control of the government,” says Democrat consultant Steve Mabiglio. “There’s no checks and balance. It’s something that most Americans have never seen.”

Well, it’s not perfect. Californians have seen control of one party in the state government for the past 15 years. But that’s for another column.

I think phrases like “political extremism” and “threat to democracy” are considered abstractions with little relevance to everyday life compared to energy costs and food prices.

But “Elon Musk and Trump have specifically threatened democracy,” says Bob Schlam, director of USC’s Center for Political Futures and former Democratic strategist.

“Trump ran to things like inflation and egg prices and won. He didn’t run anything else that appears to be on the agenda of him and masks.”

The poll gave California residents a list of 14 issues, including the economy, immigration, crime, healthcare, inequality and the environment, including climate change. They were asked to be the most important dilemma for America. No topics approached “political extremism or threats to democracy.”

Thirty-one percent of those surveyed were selected, followed by 19% for “economy, unemployment, employment” and 15% for “immigration.” Everything else was single digits.

It was even more one-sided among potential voters. Politicians are most interested in the 42% selected threat to democracy and extremism. The economy and immigration cited only 14% each.

There is a huge gap between the views of Democrats and Republicans, highlighting the political polarization that grasps the state and the nation. California is a deep blue outlier for most of the country as Democrats outperform Republicans here by almost 2-1.

Of Democrats, 58% viewed the threat to democracy as America’s most pressing issue. So was 42% of independents, but only 12% of Republicans. Within the GOP, the most important issue for 36% of those surveyed was immigration, followed by the economy, 17%, crime, and 16%.

The light-form of democracy is particularly concerned about two groups of Californians. A group of university graduates and over 55 years old.

The same question was asked by people across America in a late January poll by market research firm Ipsos. Similarly, the survey found concerns about the threat to democracy, although less intense nationwide than in California. The economy was chosen by 21%, democracy was chosen by 20%, and immigration was chosen by 14%.

The PPIC poll also asked California voters how satisfied they were “in the way democracy works” in the country. Two-thirds replied “I’m not too satisfied” or “I’m not at all.”

So why is there all discernment about democracy?

“I say more people would have been expecting it than they knew what Trump was doing.

That’s because Trump’s presidency is historic in its destruction of boundaries, and news media is closely followed.

“Musk and Trump suck up everyone else,” Schram says. “They take the whole screen, they made democracy a more prominent issue.

“Look at the New York Times front page. The story after the story is about it, and late-night comedians always talk about it.”

Veteran Democratic consultant Bill Carrick said:

“He does a good job of scaring hell from people.”

People are scary for good reasons.

This is the president who personally sets an American precedent for the country’s journalists themselves, a privilege to proudly assure press freedom.

Trump banned the Associated Press, merely because he refused to succumb to his demands that the Gulf of Mexico be called the “Gulf of America.”

And historians will never forget that this is the first president to try to overthrow the election he lost. He admits his defeat in 2020 and stubbornly refuses to make concessions to America by lying that the votes have been consolidated.

It is clearly a threat to democracy and the opposite of making America great.