California is in crisis – and not because of Donald Trump.

Housing is unaffordable. Groceries and gas cost more here than almost anywhere else in the country. Families are stretched thin. Young people are leaving. And while California Democrats hold a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature, plus every statewide office, somehow they still want to shift the blame for this mess onto Republicans.

Let’s be clear: Democrats don’t need a single Republican vote to pass meaningful reform in California. They have total control. If they truly wanted to fix housing, lower the cost of living, or improve quality of life across the state, they could do it. But they haven’t. And instead of owning that failure, they deflect. They talk about Trump.

Take Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’s recent speech at the California Democratic Convention. He says:

“Right now, too many Californians are struggling,,,they don’t feel seen. They don’t feel heard.”

He’s right. People are struggling. But who’s in charge? Who’s supposed to see them and hear them? Who has the power to actually do something? It’s not Donald Trump.

Yet Rivas also says:

“Donald Trump is back in the White House. He’s louder, he’s meaner, and he’s more dangerous than ever…his agenda is wrecking the economy.”

Even with Trump in the White House, he’s not the one setting California’s housing policy. He’s not in charge of state taxes, fees, or environmental rules. He didn’t pass the zoning laws making it nearly impossible to build homes here. California’s sky-high cost of living is not coming from D.C. — it’s coming from Sacramento.

The Speaker wants Democrats to be “the party of building, not blocking.” Great. So what’s stopping them? They’ve had full power for years. But instead of building, we’ve seen paralysis. We’ve seen delays. We’ve seen endless excuses.

And now they want to fire up the fear machine and make it about Trump again. Why? Because they don’t want voters to look too closely at what’s happening here at home.

The truth is California doesn’t need more speeches. It needs leadership.

We need lawmakers who will stop dodging accountability. We need policies that actually help working people afford to live in the state they love. We need to break the cycles of blame and distraction and start solving problems.

The cost of living crisis in California is not about Donald Trump. It’s about the people in power right now and whether they’re willing to stop posturing and start delivering.

Until that happens, nothing changes.