LOS ANGELES — Republican Donald Trump’s victory in the Nov. 8 presidential election left some local Hillary Clinton supporters stunned, but Democratic-leaning Southland elected officials tried to maintain a positive attitude as they looked to the future.
“As a supporter of Secretary Clinton, this was a painful, even heart-breaking conclusion, but that is the way democracy works,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank. “We have a peaceful transition of power, and for those of us that got knocked down, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves of and live to fight another day.
“We also do everything we can to make the country successful with its new president, to find common ground when we can, to energetically oppose him when we must, but always to work for the common good,” he said. “The country faces enormous challenges — both at home and abroad — and all Americans must now come together to lift up the country we all cherish.”
Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke at a Clinton election-night gathering in downtown Los Angeles, trying to provide some optimism.
“Let me just speak for a moment from my heart, because I know for a lot of people tonight, your heart is heavy,” Garcetti said. “I know it is in the little girls who I talked to this morning who joined their mothers and fathers at the ballot box to try to change history. I know it’s in the faces and the conversations I’ve had with immigrants, who are so fearful about their future in this America.
“Let me tell you, America is in this room tonight. Our America is right here. We’re an America that says each one of us has worth,” Garcetti said.
“We’re an America that doesn’t ask you where you come from or what your religion is. We’re an America that doesn’t degrade you or insult you.”
Garcetti said he and other Democrats who supported Clinton “will stand up for who we are and what this campaign has represented” and show that “we can come together across those divisions.”
City Councilman Paul Koretz said Trump’s victory gave him pause.
“I’ll have to take a deep breath and think about what things will be like for a city in a Trump administration,” he said.
He called the prospect of a Trump presidency “pretty frightening,” but said he was encouraged that voters backed a $1.2 billion bond for homelessness and were narrowly approving another half-cent tax for transit and transportation projects.
“I think that’s particularly important because I don’t think the federal government is going to be giving us a lot of help, so we need to be self-reliant,” he said. “And that’s what these initiatives are about.
“It would certainly be better to get the federal help that we were hoping for, too, but it makes these measures more important than ever,” Koretz said. “I think if we knew that we were going to wind up with a Trump administration, I think more people would have even voted for [Measures] M and HHH.”
Sue Dunlap, CEO of the Los Angeles chapter of Planned Parenthood, an organization that has been criticized by Trump and other Republicans, told Clinton supporters that the election results simply means they need to “roll our sleeves up and keep on working.”
“At Planned Parenthood, we know what it is to work hard,” she said. “We know that we don’t win and lose, but that we stand up each and every day and do hard work.”
More than 300 teenagers and young adults rallied outside Los Angeles City Hall Nov. 9 to protest Trump’s win.
Some protesters chanted “Not my president,” and at least one had a sign that stated: “Trump Equals Death.” Other signs read “Epic Fail,” “Rapist President” and “Artists Against Trump.”
The protest was noisy but peaceful, and appeared to be growing.
Several motorists honked their horns when they saw the crowd of protesters. A helicopter hovered above the crowd, and a row of about eight police officers stood at the top of the stairs.
The rally started about 11 a.m. as a walkout at several Los Angeles Unified School District campuses, according to 16-year-old Gerson Macias, a student at Ramon Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts.
Macias said he joined the protest after seeing other students march past their school because Trump’s policies could affect him as a Hispanic and gay person.
“I believe this man cannot split families apart anymore, and cannot take away our rights as LGBT people, because we have been fighting for this for years, and this man cannot come in and just take that all away,” he said.
Alexa Orozco, 16, said she feels personally affected by this election because she has friends and family who are “not born here.”
Because she was unable to vote, the rally was her way of expressing her opinion on Trump, she said.
“I feel like a lot of our generation, we feel strong about certain things and I feel like that it’s devastating to not be able to do something like vote,” Orozco said. “But we’re not going to let that stop us from trying to do something, and that’s why we’re here today.”
Seeing Trump win in other states, such as Florida, was a “wake-up call to me, realizing that I haven’t been anywhere else besides California,” Orozco said.
Since the results were settled, she says she has been obsessed with looking at what demographic groups voted for which candidate.
“It’s sad to see that sexism, racism, it’s all over the place,” Orozco said. “Maybe we don’t see a lot of it here.”
Some of the protesters said they learned about the rally on Instagram, via hashtags such as “notmypresident.”
After rallying outside of City Hall, the protesters moved across the street to the front of Los Angeles Police Department headquarters at 100 W. First Street and chanted, “Black Lives Matter.”
As of 2:45 p.m., the protest was noisy but peaceful, as the group moved east on First Street.
In the evening the protest grew to as many as 5,000 people. The crowd headed west and after 10 p.m. began blocking traffic on the Hollywood (101) Freeway.
The freeway was shut down for several hours and as many as 30 protesters were arrested.
The post Trump’s election stuns officials; young people protest appeared first on Wave Newspapers.