Versions of the same question were asked over and over.
How can the average person keep the federal workforce from being slashed? What’s the best way to resist Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency? How should citizens oppose President Donald Trump?
Rep. Mike Levin, a member of San Diego’s Congressional delegation, returned repeatedly to the same answer: People around the country needed to speak up. “You all remember the Women’s March, the March for Our Lives, the Science March,” Levin told a packed theater in San Juan Capistrano on Sunday afternoon, referring to protests from Trump’s first term. “All of that happened not because anybody in Washington told them to march, it happened organically, it happened from the bottom up — and that’s what needs to happen again.”
Levin, a 46-year-old Democrat from San Juan Capistrano, represents the relatively purple 49th Congressional District that stretches from Del Mar in San Diego County to Ladera Ranch in Orange County. Much of that coastal area had been in Republican hands until Levin first won in 2018 — he was re-elected to a fourth term in November — but the crowd that showed up to San Juan Hills High School for his latest in-person town hall was overwhelmingly opposed to the current presidential administration.
The few times attendees became frustrated were when Levin didn’t appear angry enough about what’s happening in the nation’s capital. After a woman asked about Trump ignoring judicial rulings, Levin noted that many lawsuits challenging the White House’s sweeping executive orders were headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. “That’s when we will really see whether we are in a near constitutional crisis or a full-blown constitutional crisis,” Levin said, adding that he was relatively confident that a majority of justices would vote to reign in the president.
The crowd grew restless. “I don’t think so,” one person murmured.
Another time, a woman who appeared to be in her 30s interrupted the event to point out that nobody from younger generations had so far been able to ask a question. (Much of the crowd appeared to be older and attendees had to submit questions in advance.) The woman was soon given a microphone and demanded to know Levin’s position on a host of issues, including the sky-high cost of housing.
Levin assured her that he and other Democrats were similarly concerned about how hard it is to make ends meet.
“I get very frustrated when I just hear about every federal dollar spent like it’s a bad thing,” he said at one point. “When you invest in infrastructure, when you invest in clean drinking water, when you invest in children, for goodness sake, these are investments in the future.”
The discussion occasionally veered into local problems, such as sand replenishment at area beaches, yet most of the time was spent on national issues. Levin slammed members of his own party for recently approving a funding bill that critics see as too friendly to the Trump White House. “I am profoundly disappointed that Senate Democratic leadership caved instead of holding the line,” Levin said to applause.
The Congressman later told The San Diego Union-Tribune that he hoped future budget negotiations, including an upcoming vote to raise the debt limit, might offer more opportunities to push for a host of priorities, including securing money to help Los Angeles rebuild from multiple wildfires.
Several guest speakers also highlighted how proposed cuts to the federal government could affect Social Security, health care and veterans’ benefits. Kolin Williams, a counselor for veterans at Saddleback College, argued that staff reductions at local VA’s might reduce people’s access to benefits they earned while serving in the military. Wait times were already bad, Williams said. If anything, the VA needed to add staff.
Susan Dixon, president of the California Retired Teachers Association, recommended that concerned citizens write their elected leaders using postcards, not letters, as the latter can get stuck in security checks.
Levin said reductions in the federal workforce might be part of a larger strategy to undermine people’s faith in government, which in turn could set the stage for some agencies, like the VA, to be privatized. He pledged to keep using litigation and legislation to slow Trump’s momentum and urged attendees to view the fight as just lasting until the next congressional election, in late 2026, when different leaders may be voted into Congress.
“We can’t wait for midterms,” one woman in the crowd responded, triggering the biggest standing ovation of the event. “We have to stand up to the bully in the White House.”
Levin was receptive. “All I can tell you,” he started.
“Oh jeez,” one attendee mumbled.
“— is that I’m as pissed as you are.”
