Young Kim wants it all ways.
The representative for California's 40th congressional district needs you to think she's not a MAGA stooge. Bad news—she is.
Earlier this week, when constituents called the offices of Young Kim, the U.S. representative for California's 40th congressional district, they were told—promised, really—that she did not support yesterday’s House budget resolution, which (according to Forbes) “lays the framework for Donald Trump's agenda, likely extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts and boosting defense spending in exchange for trillions in spending curbs.” They were told Kim considered the interests of her people as a top priority; were told that, yes, she was a Republican—but, first and foremost, she was a Californian.
And this is pretty much the modus of Young Kim, a legitimately gregarious and likable 62-year old who lacks the snarling douchiness of a Marjorie Taylor Green; who lacks the jarring stupidity of a Tommy Tuberville; who doesn’t vape in public, a la Lauren Boebert and who—I am quite certain—genuinely loves the state of California and probably finds Donald Trump to be little more than an orange-painted buffoon.
Alas …
Despite the reassurances and concerns, Young Kim joined her follow Republicans in voting for the Trump-backed budget resolution which—when it inevitably passes—will have this devastating impact …
And Young Kim wasn’t available in the aftermath of the vote. She hid, as politicians do when they’re embarrassed, but posted this little message to explain her (sad and pathetic) actions ..
Then, moments later, the post vanished. She took it down.
Typical.
So why would Young Kim vote for a budget resolution she knows is awful? Because—deep down—she is the worst type of politician. For all their faults, MTG and Boebert show you who they are. For all his blathering and pratfalls, Tuberville isn’t hiding his MAGA crush. But Young Kim is a coward. She pretends to be the anti-Trump when she needs to be the anti-Trump. Yet she’ll turn around and host a high-dollar Newport Beach fundraiser for Mike (MAGA Lite) Johnson when (she hopes) no one moderate is looking. Why, the Orange County Register ran this editorial in 2023, calling out Kim for lacking a soul …
And … truly, it sucks. Because, in these dark days, we actually need seemingly decent people like Young Kim to step up and look beyond political affiliation. We need Young Kim to—when she knows right from wrong—vote against MAGA, even if that means Elon Musk will Tweet mean thing about her.
Yes, her district leans conservative. But it’s not Kentucky conservative. People will appreciate her being independent from time to time. Hell, they’ll appreciate her standing on principle against Donald Trump’s worst impulses.
Will she muster the courage?
I’m skeptical.
Thanks for posting this, as I'd seen little discussion of Rep. Kim's position on the budget vote that we all knew was coming. FYI her twitter post reappeared pretty quickly Tuesday night. Maybe she wanted to re-record the video message or something. But the comments on the post are not informative at all, mostly just finger pointing with no real information.
I was having trouble reconciling the conflicting information: Rep. Kim stating emphatically that she will not vote for Medicaid cuts, and the low-information comments calling her a liar. This morning, I read this excellent and clear explanation of how this budget process works, and why, for all practical purposes, it's impossible to get an actual budget that both fits within the framework of the just-approved budget resolution AND preserves funding for Medicaid. So truly, we need to keep voicing our opinions as constituents and then see if Rep. Kim follows through on her pledge to preserve Medicaid funding.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thinkbigpicture/p/trump-gop-budget-resolution?r=24rf6f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
She reminds me a lot of Mimi Walters in 2017/2018. She knew better, but you are exactly right, mean tweets and a primary challenger are scary as hell to these moderate Republicans, so they become no different than their MAGA colleagues. I hope that next year I can extend the comparison to Walters by kicking Kim out of office. We are going to continue protesting at her offices so she can never pretend she didn't know her constituents were unhappy with her.