From Top to Bottom: Young Kim, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, California’s 39th District (Official Photo); Suzette Martinez Valladares, Member of the California State Assembly, 38th District (Suzette Valladares for Assembly 2022); Walter Allen III, City Councilmember, City of Covina (Official Photo – City of Covina).

TL; DR 

What started as a briefing covering the future of the GOP and their openness to bipartisanship became a propaganda match with every Republican member bringing in their own agenda. Speakers included Young Kim, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, California’s 39th District; Suzette Martinez Valladares, Member of the California State Assembly, 38th District; Walter Allen III, City Councilmember, City of Covina.

Young Kim 

With a very capitalist and business-oriented perspective, Young Kim focused her talk on government spending and taxes. Kim detests the stereotype of the Republican Party being conservative and “old.” She describes it as a “great opportunity party” being supported by more immigrants, especially “Asian Americans.” Kim asserts that the goal of Republicans is to embrace bipartisanship, support small businesses, and lower taxes. She highlights the Paycheck Protection Program Extension Act which gave an additional $54 billion to 2.7 million “small” businesses. As a business owner herself, Young Kim empathizes with the small business owners that struggled during the pandemic and recognizes a need for more support.

On the topics of the current Biden administration and the future of Trump, Young Kim showed support for most of Biden’s current initiatives, although she was critical about how the administration managed the funds and where government spending should be directed. As for Trump, Young Kim declined to answer a Siliconeer question on whether he represents the GOP of today and tomorrow.

Suzette Martinez Valladares

Suzette Martinez Valladares had an agenda of her own she wanted to bring forward. Representing Santa Clarita Valley and Simi Valley, she is the only Latina Republican in the assembly. Valladares began by introducing herself and gave a detailed account of her life story. She is a South California native and worked at Six Flags Magic Mountain before ultimately becoming an Assemblywoman claiming she represents the middle class.

Her agenda was to blast Governor Gavin Newsom. Valladares asserts that Newsom is “crushing the middle class” and that the COVID-19 response was very mismanaged. She points out that there was no direction for businesses on how to navigate through the pandemic.  There was a lack of support for the unemployed and businesses – especially amusement parks.

“…1.2 million Californians have not accessed EDD (unemployment benefits), and the distribution of vaccines has been a debacle.” Valladares boldly claims. Data shows that California has the highest vaccination rates in the country at this point and our prolonged safety precautions were beneficial in curbing the spread.

Valladares claims she dealt with extreme poverty in high school and witnessed crime and drugs tearing through her area. “I looked around me and all of my representatives were Democrats who were supposed to be the party that supported minorities and the poor. Why was I not seeing change in my own community? That forced me to look at the Republican Party,” she said.

Walter Allen III

Born in East Oakland and being African American, one would expect him to be a Democrat supporting the defunding of police. However, Walter Allen had only one agenda he brought at the table – public safety and bringing trust back into the police system.

Allen starts by saying that though he is a Republican, he works with a lot of Democrats and bipartisanship is strong in the Covina City Council. “Our City Council were comprised of Democratic membership and Republican membership, and we actually get along with one another. And I will say this at the local level. If you don’t get along, you don’t get anything done, and we’ve been able to get quite a bit done.”

According to Allen, the most significant concern for Covina is public safety and housing needs. His main reason for joining the Republican Party stems from his concern for public safety. Allen says, “…it doesn’t make any difference whether you are Republican or Democrat, I am concerned about the notion of defunding the police.” He believes that most people have a strong misconception of police brutality and police violence fueling a movement that could impact public safety for the worse. Allen’s goal is to change the rhetoric of police officers created by mainstream media. Allen claims that officers aren’t targeting people of color – specifically Blacks and/or Latinos. He says that officers condemned the death of George Floyd and the actions of ex-officer Derek Chauvin. He also points out that police officers take action based on the information given to them. Allen emphasizes an eye-opening statistic: 235 out of 1,000 people shot were black and most of them were dangerous and/or armed. Allen also specifies that 80% of officers in his academy belong to minority groups and most officer training is focused on de-escalating the situation.

The Gen-Z Take

It seemed that the topic and purpose for the call was at most, nebulous and lost in translation. The Republican freshmen were trying to paint a rosy picture by proverbially slapping lipstick on a pig. It was simply a ‘record playing on a turntable’ situation.

All this when in fact, Republicans with their conservative viewpoints and staunchly capitalistic mindset, as always, should be held accountable for the effects of climate change, division, and violence, basically a darker America as we know it today.

On the point of vaccination mismanagement, the Republican party and most Republican-run states have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation with increasing cases of Covid-19. Meanwhile, California vaccinated at a record pace, almost reaching full immunity. This wouldn’t have been possible if the distribution of vaccines were mismanaged.

On the point of public safety and police violence, we have seen and heard many cases of police officers engaging in targeted attacks – namely ‘stop and frisk.’ On another note, the argument for defunding the police is the fact that police have too much power and can shoot anyone they want – no matter the race and color. Now this person can potentially be armed and dangerous, but Republicans are against bringing gun control which could potentially get guns of the dangerous criminals.

The clear hypocrisy here defines what is fundamentally flawed with the GOP and this rhetoric can change if more young people engaged with their seniors in the Republican party and the seniors, for once, embrace the changing thought process of Gen-Z.