THE CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC COMES ROARING BACK
LIKE MANY OF THE OTHER NEARLY 9 MILLION PEOPLE IN CALIFORNIA who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, artist Eric Rewitzer reacted to Donald Trump’s victory as if a tornado had swept his house away. “I just didn’t believe he was serious,” says the longtime San Francisco resident. “And I didn’t see it coming.” As disbelief gave way to sadness and then anger, the bespectacled printmaker found himself sitting at the table in the middle of his studio just blocks from the Pacific Ocean. He and his wife are known for their prints of a sweet “California bear,” a version of the grizzly on the state’s flag that likes to give hugs and sells very well at airport souvenir shops. But after he spent 40 hours carving and pressing a giant sheet of linoleum, a vastly changed animal appeared—roaring, teeth glaring, claws out. “You’ve stirred a beast,” says the usually sweet and soft-spoken Rewitzer. “Watch out.”
In a landslide year that saw Republicans win almost everywhere, America’s most populous state turned even bluer. Home to about 1 in 8 Americans, California is now one of only five states to have a Democratic governor and both chambers of the legislature controlled by Democrats. (The next biggest is Oregon.) With Republicans reigning in Washington, D.C., the Golden State has become “the largest and most influential Democratic outpost in the country,” says University of Southern California lecturer Dan Schnur. And it’s not just printmakers who are mobilizing. From the streets of L.A. to the halls of the capitol in Sacramento, Californians seem uncommonly united in their opposition to all things Trump. “We must prepare for very uncertain times and reaffirm the basic principles that have made California the great exception that it is,” Governor Jerry Brown said in his State of the State speech on Jan. 24. Declaring that California would not compromise its crusade to fight climate change or stop welcoming immigrants with protective arms, he drew a line: “California is not turning back, not now, not ever.”
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