Some California Republicans in the deep-blue, liberal Golden State love President Donald Trump — especially those who felt like they had been forgotten and neglected during the vicious election cycle that torn the nation apart.
“I really feel forgotten,” Lorin Meeks-Harris, 35, an African-American from Sacramento, told the Sacramento Bee. “I was always the kid in school who did the right thing but wasn’t the ‘A’ student. I wasn’t a trouble-maker, either.”
But when she heard Trump pledge that “the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” she reportedly felt renewed hope. Meeks-Harris had reportedly gone all-in for Trump early on.
“Seeing all those like-minded people standing together today felt amazing,” West Walker, a 59-year-old Tracy middle-school teacher, who was one of the earliest grassroots organizers for Trump in California, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Walker, the chairman of Californians for Trump, reportedly said that he and other Trump supporters created a private Facebook group so “they could talk freely” about their support for Trump.
Meanwhile, in the “red” part of the Bay Area, nearly three dozen Republican men and women gathered in Auburn to watch Trump’s swearing-in ceremony on Friday. The group has been around since the 1930s.
“I’m very moved,” Bev Bowen, a member of the Auburn Area Republican Women Federated, told the Chronicle. “I love (Trump’s) confidence, the change he’s going to do for us and his throwing government back to the people. He’s just a genuine person.”
Over 300,000 Californians cast their ballots for Trump in the Bay Area. Many of the Golden Staters had also traveled to Washington, D.C. to be part of the historic moment. They braved the cold and stood with over 1 million other supporters on the National Mall.
Among them was Shannon, a 48-year-old accountant from Encino, who told the Los Angeles Times, “I can wear a Trump sweatshirt without getting hoots and hollers. In L.A., you can’t even put a bumper sticker on your car — it would be keyed in a second.”
Even Republican lawmakers rejoiced in their long-awaited victory. Back in California’s Orange County Coast, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) reportedly toasted Trump’s inauguration with his own Liberty Ball at the Library of Congress.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Rohrabacher told the crowd at the black tie Friday night gala, “We’ve turned the car around and our children will be safe, America will be safeWe have saved America again from falling into the abyss.”
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz
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