by John Earl (formerly of Surf City Voice),
cross-posted from his SoCalWaterWars Substack,
Nov. 26, 2025

‘We the People, in order to form a more perfect water district …’

(revised edition)

Here’s a great way to spend the holiday season:
Start organizing to oust the water plutocrats, reform state government
& overthrow The Fascist Beast.

Most of us understand that human-induced climate catastrophe is an urgent and escalating issue of life, which I favor, versus death. It demands an immediate and collective response to minimize humanity’s self-inflicted evolutionary collapse and ensure a life worth living for future generations.

The ability of Southern Californians to minimize and adapt to climate catastrophe depends on four key factors: the President of the United States and Congress, the Governor of California and the State Legislature, the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and its General Manager, and the member agencies, like the Municipal Water District of Orange County and the San Diego County Water Authority.

Currently, as diligent news watchers know, the climate future for SoCal residents looks bleak on all fronts. Here’s why:

• On his first day in office, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, which bound nearly every nation except Iran, Libya, and Yemen in a collective—if imperfect—effort to confront climate change. In another executive order, he directed the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” from their websites.

• More or less half of MWD’s ratepayers are Hispanic. Trump’s Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) anti-immigrant campaign, launched in January, continues in Democratic‑run cities across the country. Last June, Trump deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. marines to Los Angeles to accompany ICE, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in a provocative “public safety” operation designed to terrorize immigrants, suppress protesters, and create mini Reichstag‑like moments. DHS is also in charge of FEMA, which the Trump administration is dismantling. Previously, DHS national security and disaster prevention initiatives included taking into account the realities of human induced climate change, but any references to climate change have been eliminated from its playbook.

• California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom badly wants us to believe that he’s a progressive, a true environmentalist, and that he is our national leader in the fight against MAGA overreach. But he’s also perceived as a limousine liberal and is compromised by the state’s Big Agriculture industry and other corporate campaign backers. Newsom continues his campaign for the presidency. He strongly opposed Trump’s Los Angeles invasion and supported California AG Rob Bonta’s lawsuit challenging the invasion. But on water issues, like the Delta Conveyance and Sites reservoir projects, his views are the same as Trump’s. And he blocked a bill that would have required water guzzling AI data centers—an existential threat to water supplies everywhere in the world—to report projected and actual water use to regulators and suppliers.

• When MWD hired Adel Hagekhalil as general manager in 2021, it marked the first time in its history that it seriously valued inclusion in the workplace and sustainable water management policies based on environmental justice designed for an era of climate change. However, an inner power struggle led to Hagekhalil’s unethical dismissal last January, despite an outside investigation that cleared him of any wrongdoing. Now, it appears MWD will revert to its previous policy of relative complacency over climate catastrophe.

During his first term in office Trump successfully rolled back over 100 environmental rules, according to a survey by the NY Times published in 2021. This left a “truly unprecedented legacy” that included significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions, which a study by the New York School of Law in 2019 estimated would lead to “thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality each year.”

This time, Trump’s fascist beast within is more fully unleashed. His lawlessness is better planned than ever and fully backed by a Supreme Court that slants toward Trump on Constitutional law and recently ruled that presidents have almost complete immunity for criminal behavior conducted while holding office.

The Goatfürher at Burning Hills, California (2025) ©️2025 Martha Previte  https://www.patreon.com/MarthaPrevite

In his second term, Trump has escalated his attacks on environmental protections—rolling back air and water pollution rules, slashing funding for renewable energy and climate research, weakening endangered species safeguards, fast‑tracking oil leases on federal lands, and erasing all references to climate change from federal agencies, including Homeland Security.

It’s easy to see which MWD faction his administration would favor, whether old guard or new, through incendiary politics and funding control. The consequences could be significant for the 19 million people who rely on MWD, yet the agency and its members wait to see what comes.

Meanwhile, the Municipal Water District of Orange County eagerly celebrated Homeland Security’s Orange County–born Deputy Secretary, Troy Edgar, with a Board‑hosted dinner at The Westin in Costa Mesa on June 26. More on that event here.

How bad is it? Pretty bad

Before we delve into the severity of the challenges facing Southern California, let’s inoculate ourselves against cynicism by looking back at the most inspiring moment in our nation’s history: the American Revolution.

Starting with the “shot heard round the world” in 1775, America’s founding revolutionaries fought for independence from Great Britain, officially declared on July 4, 1776. They believed in “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and envisioned a new government based on consent of the governed, liberty, equality, and democratic republicanism. While these ideals weren’t unique in history, their eventual codification—through 27 amendments—into a constitution as the guiding force for a new nation-state was unprecedented.

But the new Constitution came with a caveat. Just after the original version was signed in 1787, Benjamin Franklin reportedly answered a question, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” with, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

“In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.”

– Benjamin Franklin, Monday, September 17, 1787

Franklin’s answer from 1787 is more relevant today than ever. Whether we can maintain our democratic republic and remain faithful to the Constitution—from the White House down to local government boardrooms—is key to how we respond to climate catastrophe. Another crucial question is how much we value life itself versus our insatiable greed, selfishness and lust for power. This brings us first to the figures of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who embody these destructive tendencies better than anybody else in America today.

Der MAGA Führer and his Nazi-saluting co-despot, Elon Musk, sacked thousands of highly qualified, ethical, merit-based civil service employees across the federal bureaucracy, replacing them with unqualified but loyal MAGA partisans. They vowed to persecute resistors as they dismantled federal agencies. Trump weaponized the F.B.I. and Department of Justice not only in paranoiac retribution against those who opposed him in the past but for personal financial gain and to push the nihilist MAGA agenda forward.

Backed by his dictatorial influence over his appointed regulators who can approve or deny mergers and broadcast licenses, Trump has used used the civil courts to file ridiculously week lawsuits in order extort large financial settlements from billionaire media hobbyists who come to him on bended knee promising to censor the news for him.

Trump’s gravest threat to our democratic republic is his drive to expand ICE—under DHS—into the largest, most secretive, and least transparent law enforcement agency in U.S. history—answerable only to him.

Its poorly qualified, overpaid agents hide their faces while brazenly and brutally violating human rights on a massive scale: kidnapping racially profiled “suspects” to detain them in remote locations, beating them, and making false charges of assault on ICE agents to justify their illegal and unconstitutional actions.

Working with shadowy agencies, ICE uses racial profiling and fantasy to attack America’s supposed “enemies within”. Those accused enemies include non-criminal undocumented immigrants labeled “illegal aliens”, legal residents or even U.S. citizens. They also include members of a fictional terrorist group called ANTIFA. To advance these goals, DHS is building one of the nation’s most advanced high‑tech surveillance systems, which it uses with even less oversight than other law enforcement agencies.

Remember, whatever illegal acts Trump commits, the Supreme Court has already granted him immunity from prosecution after leaving office. If Democrats secure strong majorities in 2026, he could be removed sooner through impeachment—but he has a plan to block that too: illegal gerrymandering. Even when lower courts rule against him, SCOTUS may still shield him.

Perhaps the Epstein files scandal will undo Trump. Reports suggest cracks are forming in his fragile MAGA majorities, especially in the House. Yet with his die‑hard base and the Democrats’ weak opposition, nothing is certain.

We’re so depressed. WTF can we do?

There is a way to stop America from sliding into a MAGA‑fascist state, but it won’t come from following any political party. Party leaders will not lead us to the Promised Land—not even ones like Bernie Sanders or Zohran Mamdani.

We the People must chart the path and compel politicians to follow. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the San Diego County Water Authority—SoCal’s two largest water agencies—are ideal places to begin honing our organizing skills.

First, we should demand the right to elect the directors who sit on their boards: 38 at MWD and 34 at CWA. These directors make decisions that directly affect our survival in a world of shrinking water supplies, yet none are chosen by the public. Instead, they are appointed by political insiders on local water boards and city councils.

Representation on the MWD and CWA boards—and the voting power each representative holds—depends on the assessed property value within their district or city. That is not democracy; it is plutocracy. Because these agencies are not directly accountable to ratepayers, scandals and poor water policies are inevitable.

More

MWD’s new GM; Not by or 4 the people; MWDOC bows to fascist icon

Shivaji Deshmukh: the new GM
Live Press Conference
Gov. Newsom’s presumed favorite sidelined
First there was a new GM then there wasn’t
Three GM candidates left
Field allegedly narrows to 6 who are named
The inexcusable excuses of … violating due process