Opinion: Make Los Angeles great again

We were somewhere above Omaha when my euphoria faded. After a few giddy, wild days experiencing the presidential inauguration along with thousands of other joyful Americans in Washington, D.C., I was reluctantly headed back to Los Angeles.

What was left of it.

It was a welcome three-day furlough from a city in the throes of a hellish ongoing human tragedy. On the calamitous night of Jan. 7, Altadena, my current home, and Pacific Palisades, where I grew up, were both obliterated by fire.

Now, in the aftermath, I see Angelenos of both parties asking hard questions and demanding answers from L.A.’s liberal political leaders that I haven’t seen before.

Life in Los Angeles for a Trump supporter was never easy. Risky, even. Insane, to outsiders. Years ago I bought a MAGA hat in defiance of my liberal neighbors with their “In This House We Believe” and “Immigrants Welcome” lawn signs, but I chickened out and never wore it.

I spent years keeping my political beliefs hidden out of fear of getting fired or defriended — or worse. The simmering threat of being “doxxed” and outed to your company was ever-present.

In the 2016 election, Republicans in L.A. County were outnumbered 22% to 71%. By 2024, COVID and the subsequent waves of lawlessness had triggered a mass exodus of friends and family. Those of us who stayed behind had our reasons. We stayed for work, school, aging parents, or just for the unbeatable weather, but a lot of us stayed because this is home. Where else would we go? We loved growing up in L.A., we hate its current unaffordability, crime, homelessness, and governance — but we all dream of what it can one day be again.

And so we grimly accept our status as second-class citizens and get on with it. In November, there was a glimmer of hope: Bolstered by former liberals turned off by the sharp left turn California had taken, L.A. County, incredibly, got a little less blue. What had been 22% of the electorate in 2016 jumped to 32% and to 40% statewide. Trump flipped 10 blue counties red. An unthinkable dream suddenly shimmered on the horizon — maybe Trump’s promised economic Golden Age would finally arrive in the Golden State after all.

But daily life in L.A. County continues to beat us down. It’s gotten worse in the last few years. Car break-ins are commonplace. Homeless camps are all over Pasadena. A dozen eggs are still $9 at the supermarket. My sister, who fled during COVID for a red state, pays under $50 a year to register her car; our DMV wants close to $400. We pay 10% state income tax; she pays zero. We cough up onerous property taxes, but the local public school has a Greatschools.org rating of 4. My mother recently sold her house on the Westside and moved out of state — after 51 years, she’d finally had enough.

The night of the fires, we followed hundreds of other cars south into downtown Pasadena. The bad news kept hitting our phones all night: At least 10 families at our school were newly homeless; some barely escaped. My childhood home on Via De La Paz — gone. My mother’s former home of 25 years in Big Rock was on fire. In disbelief, I tried to process the insane reality: Two beloved communities of mine, 40 miles apart, were turned to ash on the same night.

How could this happen? Climate change can’t shoulder all the blame. It is now obvious that decades of compounding errors by mismanagement and misplaced priorities contributed to this devastation.

Need proof? How about the waterless reservoir in the Palisades? The evacuation system that failed to alert some Altadena residents until it was too late? The lack of advance deployment of fire trucks in the Palisades?

Then there is the damning fact of nonfunctional hydrants in both locations. A friend a few blocks north of me spent 12 hours trying to save his street using a construction company’s water pump. He reported that there was no water in the fire hydrants on his street. My husband and son confirmed this; they were up in the fire zone early Wednesday and witnessed a firefighter in front of a fully engulfed home wrench open the spigot on the closest fire hydrant and exclaim “Shit!” when he realized no water was coming out. How many of L.A.’s hydrants don’t work?

The tireless firefighters who saved lives and homes are heroes. But L.A.’s fire department is chronically understaffed for a city this size. City leaders focus mindlessly on “sustainability” at the price of sustaining it in a real emergency.

Los Angeles can’t continue under its current leadership. Changing it will require making a fundamental shift in attitude. Maybe the destruction — and any further bureaucratic failures in rebuilding — will cause people to finally wake up. Meanwhile on the other side of the blue wall, there is a real sense of hope for the future. Part of making America great again must include making Los Angeles great again, too.

So maybe it’s time to try something new. Maybe the families and companies fleeing this state are trying to tell us something has gone wrong in California.

Are we brave enough to heed their message?

A mother of five and a lifelong Angeleno, Peachy Keenan (a pseudonym) is the author of “Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War.” She writes at peachykeenan.com and on X @keenanpeachy.