California

Steven Greenhut | 1.9.2026 7:30 AM

Los Angeles is the City of Angels, Pasadena is the City of Roses, and Huntington Beach, once known as Surf City, has a new nickname: City of Losers.

Don't be offended, as I'm not criticizing the fine residents of that lovely community. But the City Council keeps pursuing performative MAGA policymaking and keeps losing in the courts. Unless it turns things around, this moniker might stick.

Politically, Huntington Beach used to be a typical coastal Orange County city. Local issues centered on the usual: protecting local wetlands, dealing with parking problems, harassing skateboarders, and policing drunken revelers. There was much to criticize, and I did so, given the city's abuse of eminent domain in its downtown redevelopment and its tolerance for heavy-handed policing.

"People didn't run on party preference. They ran on what they could do in the community and how they could make the city a better place to live," said former GOP council member and state Sen. Tom Harman in a 2024 Washington Post article about how the "laid-back beach town became California's MAGA stronghold." I sometimes butted heads with Harman, once calling him "Tax Hike Tom" in the Orange County Register. But he was a gracious and practical legislator who epitomized the city's politics.

Under the leadership of former........

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