Our Next Club Meeting

March 15, 2026 @ 2:30 PM

Palos Verdes Democrats will host 3 speakers for our March 15 hybrid meeting (both in-person and via Zoom). All 3 will present via Zoom, but we will meet in-person at the Peninsula Center Library and gather afterwards at Fuego Cravings in the Peninsula Center for a social hour. 

Steve Posner is a professor at the University of Southern California, with graduate degrees from Harvard and USC. He is the creator of Democracy & the News, a resource designed to help keep his students informed and engaged as voters. He is the author of multiple books, including Israel Undercover: Secret Warfare and Hidden Diplomacy in the Middle East (Syracuse University Press), Billy Graham & Me (Simon & Schuster), and Spiritual Delights & Delusions (Wiley).

His talk at the PV Dems meeting will focus on Republican threats to overturn the 2026 midterms, drawing on two recent pieces: his San Francisco Chronicle article, “How Trump Can Keep the House Without Winning the Midterms,” and his Bulwark analysis, “The Dirty Move Republicans Could Pull to Keep the House.”

Katie Porter, a leading Democratic candidate for Governor of California, joins us next.

Porter represented Orange County in Congress from 2019 to 2025, first in California’s 45th District and later the 47th. She gained national attention for her sharp oversight of corporate executives and government officials—often using her signature whiteboard to explain complex financial issues—and served as Deputy Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

A Yale graduate and magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where she studied under Elizabeth Warren, Porter later became a respected legal scholar at UC Irvine. In 2012, Attorney General Kamala Harris appointed her to oversee California banks in the $25 billion national mortgage settlement. As a gubernatorial candidate, she emphasizes protecting health care, strengthening the economy, expanding housing, and defending environmental standards.

Acclaimed author and journalist Sasha Abramsky, a longtime contributor to The Nation and other major publications will speak about what he describes as the damaging impact of DOGE on the U.S. government. He will discuss his new book, American Carnage: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered the U.S. Government, which examines the political, institutional, economic, and democratic consequences of an initiative known as the Department of Governmental Efficiency, or “DOGE.”

According to Abramsky, DOGE grew out of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” and was empowered by Donald Trump and directed by Elon Musk. Its goals include major downsizing of federal agencies, implementation of “Schedule F” to convert career civil servants into political appointees, elimination of diversity and inclusion programs, and restructuring agencies to align more closely with presidential authority.

Abramsky argues these policies have led to layoffs, loss of institutional expertise, and weakened government operations. He highlights the dismantling of USAID as one example, warning it could worsen global health crises and affect American economic and public health interests.

February Club Meeting Report