Look, Santa Cruz County, much less most of coastal California, is not MAGA country.

Not hardly.

But here we are, with the 2016 “resistance” seemingly faded into powerlessness as the nation’s 47th president has taken office.

So what does our community, our state, face with the second Donald Trump presidency?

Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised the state will fight back against many Trump directives and policies and Democratic state legislators are working to provide resources to fight Trump’s expected actions in court.

While much of the media coverage Monday, post inauguration, was focused on Trump’s promises to pardon nonviolent Jan. 6 insurrection defendants and to commute sentences of many other, for California the immediate focus is on two aspects of federal policy: Disaster aid and immigration.

For a state, and county, ravaged by natural disasters, the question is whether the new administration will withhold emergency aid. Many Republicans in power say they believe approval of wildfire aid to California should be contingent on policy changes in the state that would include building more dams and doing a much better job of forest and brushland maintenance.

Newsom sent a letter to congressional leadership last week asking members to swiftly approve aid, without strings attached. But Trump, shortly after the Los Angeles fires broke out, started posting insults directed at Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, explicitly blaming them for the fires.

He has said on his Truth Social platform that Newsom failed to sign “the water restoration declaration” – a document that does not exist – and directed the governor to “RELEASE THE WATER FROM UP NORTH.” Trump is trying to turn attention to a modest amount of water supply that is not pumped from the Delta in order to help save one fish, the Delta smelt.

Elon Musk, who poured $277 million into helping Trump get elected and has had his own battles with California, has been cheering Trump’s criticisms and making his own claims about how the state is run, deriding the Los Angeles Fire Department chief as a DEI hire and using X to declare the fires were a result of government mismanagement.

Musk, expected to pay a major role in the new Trump administration, also criticized the state’s Coastal Commission, and stated that residents seeking to rebuild homes lost in the fires would “face multiyear waits” because of the agency, “which should not even exist as an organization.”

On immigration, Trump is vowing to carry out what he has called “the largest deportation program in American history” and Monday repeated his call to restart construction of the border wall.

Last week the Watsonville City Council unanimously voted to uphold the city’s commitment to the safety and well-being of the local undocumented immigrant community. The city of Santa Cruz has been a sanctuary city for 30 years (which means it will not enforce or cooperate with federal immigration laws, including raids by border police). Watsonville first passed an ordinance proclaiming itself to be a sanctuary city in 2007.

Santa Cruz County has declared itself a “sanctuary county” for local immigrant communities. County supervisors made a similar declaration in 2017 after Trump’s first victory. According to the latest county resolution, 17.4% of the county’s total population, or about 46,237 people, are foreign-born and undocumented immigrants, many living in South County, and making vital contributions especially in agriculture, hospitality and construction.

Local immigrant rights advocates have stated that local government needs to provide more resources including increased legal aid for families already traumatized and panicked by threats of deportation.

Trump was elected by a majority of Americans, many of whom ostensibly support his crackdowns on left-leaning California communities seeking disaster aid and much stricter immigration policies. Santa Cruz County and California have a moral duty and a real need to resist.