Screenshot from a video for the song 'Rising Together,' which features the repeated line: 'With Trump and Musk, the future's so bright...'
Good morning and happy Monday. As our neighbors to the south refocus their anxieties from fire alerts to flood watches, let’s nevertheless take a moment to say a prayer of thanks for the rains that graced much of California this weekend.
I want to remind you that below The Newsletter’s featured article, recipe, etc., you will find a News Digest consisting of articles we’ve selected from our Media Allies and other trusted news sources. This week, you can find out how the various municipalities in your county are responding to Pres. Donald Trump’s executive order regarding undocumented immigrants. (As you may have heard, many California law enforcement officials are vowing to not cooperate.) Other news too—on a variety of topics depending on where you live—that’s how we do it.
But first, let’s just say it—‘broligarchs.’ That is a funny word and a frightening reality. I first saw the word back in August, in The Atlantic, in an article by Brooke Harrington, who wrote of “prominent male tech plutocrats who previously opposed the former president [and who] have done an about-face.”
I witnessed this movement from the perspective of a journalist who worked in Silicon Valley way back in the day, and has since witnessed its metastatic growth with both fascination and dread. Mostly, if I’m honest, fascination. The tech bros who give the broligarchy its name are men I have followed for years. I’ve paid close attention to Elon Musk himself from the moment he arrived on the scene, and written about him and his ventures countless times, beginning in 2008, when he gave a keynote at a conference dedicated to the newly burgeoning green-technology sector. At that time, he was a bit of a hero to folks longing to see the fossil-fuel-dominated ecomony displaced.
(For those of you who do not recall that Musk was someone who progressive Americans liked and admired, check a fact that Brooke Harrington included in her Atlantic piece, that Musk once waited in line for six hours to shake Barack Obama’s hand.)
So when we talk about the broligarchy, I need to remind everyone that these men, who now appear to be entirely corrupted, were recently revered as the good guys. I can say that for Musk, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet/Google, Netscape-founder and VC Marc Andreeson—three leaders of the pro-Trump Silicon Valley cohort—and others. (Not so sure about Zuckerberg and Bezos.)
And how is it that these men have now decided that public enemy number one is federal support for public education? (And why is government-subsidized public education worth defending?) Let’s find out.
Tech Bros vs. the US Department of Education
In a 2021 video, Elon Musk likened the US education system to a local community theater company staging of The Dark Knight—the Batman movie directed by Christopher Nolan. “That would suck,” Musk said, in the adolescent vernacular that he has adopted with increasing enthusiasm.
Instead, Musk said, our educational protocol should be “as close to a video game as possible. … if you can make it interactive and engaging, then you can make education far more compelling and far easier to do.” Okay, then. You didn't like school...so...let's shut 'em all down? And go online?
As it happens, it was during his interview with Elon Musk on X that Donald Trump stated his intention to shut down the US Department of Education. This idea may sound radical but it’s not new. Ronald Reagan campaigned in 1979 on a pledge to do the same thing. But after he became president, when his education secretary commissioned a report they thought would kill the department, that report instead warned that America was losing its competitive edge, and advocated for a strong federal role to arm students with a high-quality education.
While the federal role in the education system survives as a key spurce of funding, our schools are mostly local institutions—as you will see in Chris Neklason’s report below. The federal government only covers about 11% of the costs of providing a K-12 education. But the U.S. Department of Education does important work. It monitors school performance and provides money to poor schools and to students with disabilities. Controversially, the department also enforces civil rights protections. Therein may be the rub.
Meanwhile, California's educational system comes with built-in guarantees of democratic governance, as you shall see.
One of President Trump’s first executive orders threatened to withhold federal funding from so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. California is one of them.
(01/27/2025) CalMatters
Damages in the ongoing Southern California wildfires are topping $250 billion, on track for the costliest disaster in US history. Read on to learn more.
(01/24/2025) Los Angeles Times
With President Donald Trump bound for Los Angeles today and once again threatening to withhold wildfire aid to California unless the state abides by his water policies, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills Thursday to provide $2.5 billion in state funding for wildfire response and preparedness.
(01/23/2025) CalMatters
The president’s order has no immediate effect on offshore wind leases already authorized, including two large areas off California’s coast. But it sends a current of uncertainty through the fledgling renewable energy industry, which relies on federal and state support.
(01/23/2025) CalMatters
A look at how the rebuilding effort is going in the California town of Paradise, wiped out in a 2018 fire, and how it offers insights for the tough road ahead for residents in neighborhoods destroyed in the fires of Southern California.
(01/22/2025) CapPublicRadio
At the Pasadena City College disaster resource center, the long, methodical work of putting lives back together is underway.
(01/22/2025) CalMatters
It would be impossible to overstate the complexity of water supply management in California.
(01/22/2025) CalMatters
Some schools destroyed years ago in the Sonoma and Butte fires are just now reopening. The long, expensive process of rebuilding in LA may eat up much of the money voters approved in November for school repairs statewide.
(01/21/2025) CalMatters
Trump apparently wants to override new Biden-Newsom rules that have widespread support among Southern California cities and some Central Valley farmers.
(01/21/2025) CalMatters
California’s Democratic leaders set aside tens of millions of dollars to challenge President Donald Trump’s executive orders and policies.
(01/21/2025) CalMatters
