Opinion: Steve Bannon shows California voters are wise to keep Republicans on the sidelines

To the editor: Republicans should be nervous if they’re relying on Steve Bannon to show them the alt-right road back to relevancy in California. (“Stephen K. Bannon brings his ‘war’ against the GOP establishment to California,” Oct. 20)

The last time Republicans exerted any power in California, they used it to force government employee furloughs and agency shutdowns during the budget fiasco of 2008-09. A minority of intransigent Republican members of the Legislature held California hostage to their hard line against any new taxes to balance the budget.

Since then, legislative rules have changed along with a Democratic supermajority and a fiscally responsible Democratic governor. Democrats have shown they can effectively govern the world’s sixth-largest economy without drama or political strife. The budget has run at a surplus, the economy is humming, the unemployment rate is low, and our state defends the American ethic and values that have been discarded by the Trump administration.

Bannon represents the worst possible Republican vision for California. By having Bannon speak at their state party convention on Friday, Republicans are letting us know they belong right where they are: on the sidelines.

William Goldman, Palos Verdes Estates

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To the editor: If California Democrats needed even more good news in state politics, nothing should please them more than the fact that Bannon spoke at the Republicans’ convention on Friday.

Why GOP leadership thinks it a good idea to tie the party to the alt-right is truly wondrous to behold. To many Americans and probably most Californians, “alt-right” has become a generally accepted code word for white nationalism and even neo-Nazism, irrespective of the highly nuanced and tortured distinctions that are being drawn by Fox News talking heads and GOP stalwarts.

As the California GOP faces a near existential crisis, party leadership might be well reminded of the venerable caution of a “distinction beyond the compass of mortal minds” and seek a public image that clearly insulates them from a seemingly disastrous association.

David A. Grey, Los Angeles

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To the editor: As I read your coverage of the California GOP’s welcoming of Bannon to address its convention, I am reminded of Aesop’s fable of the scorpion and the frog.

In it, the scorpion garners a ride across a stream by invoking mutual calamity if he were to strike the frog. In midstream, he stings anyway and seals their fate.

When Republicans face imminent peril from the sting of this partnership, no doubt Bannon will, like the scorpion, shrug and say it was his nature to do so.

Ed Sibby, Temecula

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