Opinion: Rich Californians sure are eager to help fund Trump’s attacks on the Golden State

President Trump is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon. There will be traffic delays and street closures, as there always are when the president comes to town. But I don’t hold that against Trump; traffic is what we do here.

Nor is it surprising that the president should visit, given his preoccupation with the state. To get a sense of just how much Trump is obsessed with California, a state he lost quite dramatically in 2016, check out this collection of his tweets.

What is galling, however, is why he is here: to raise money for his reelection campaign.

According to Politico, the pricey fundraisers here and in the Bay Area have sold out. One of them in Beverley Hills will be hosted by real estate developer Geoff Palmer, the billionaire behind the Renaissance Collection apartment complexes in downtown L.A. I wonder how many residents of the Orsini, DaVinci and Lorenzo know they are indirectly helping Trump’s reelection bid.

Of course this is nothing new. GOP presidential candidates have been tapping the state’s rich Republicans for years. Nevertheless, it’s disheartening that fellow Californians are so eager to support a president whose retrograde positions on the environment threaten the very things that make the Golden State great.

He’s rolled back environmental laws that protect our water, our air, even our wild animals. He’s planning to divert $8 million in wildfire-fighting funds to build the unnecessary border wall. He’d like to open the coast to more oil drilling.

And when California bested the president on vehicle emission standards, his administration launched an antitrust investigation into the state’s deal with four automakers to make their cars run cleaner. Trump’s local fundraisers may as well be titled “Help Me Make California Smoggy Again.”

Is that really what California’s Republicans want to see?