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Nithya Raman Blames Everyone, Including Trump, for LA's Disastrous Condition. Take a Look in the Mirror.

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  May 11, 2026 5:30 PM

Los Angeles mayoral candidate and City Councilwoman Nithya Raman had the audacity in a recent interview to blame the city’s problems on President Trump as well as establishment Democrats. Raman argued that one of the reasons Republican candidate Spencer Pratt is resonating with so many Angelenos is because he is tapping into voters’ frustration over the city’s deteriorating condition. 

Yet her proposed solution amounts to more of the very policies many residents are rebelling against. Rather than moderating, Raman believes Los Angeles needs to move even further left, as the race’s most progressive candidate and a self-described democratic socialist.

What she refused to acknowledge is that it has been progressives, who dragged cities like Los Angeles, alongside establishment Democrats, further left through policies that became increasingly lenient on crime and homelessness while expanding bloated bureaucracies ripe for corruption and taxpayer fraud.

"I think that Spencer Pratt is tapping into a lot of the frustrations that people have in Los Angeles by the way that things are going. And his Trumpian qualities is exactly why I think Angelenos should be taking this race seriously, but should also be grappling with the critiques. LA right now feels worse than it did two years ago or three years ago," Raman said. "For a lot of Angelenos, it feels like we are moving in the wrong direction rather than in the right direction. And that isn't just a consequence of the fact that economically things are harder, it's also a consequence of the fact that even some of our most basic services in the city, like streetlights and potholes, are worse than what they were before."

There's 30,000 streetlights across the entire city. There's more potholes than they were. And our homelessness crisis continues to exist on our streets. And I think this is the same issue that we're facing nationally, which is if you feel like the country is moving in the wrong direction, and if you feel like establishment democratic politics is not feeling that urgency to solve those issues or to prevent them from happening in the first place, people lose faith in government.

"And I feel that frustration around me in Los Angeles every day. And it drives me in my work, and it drove me to run for this seat. But I also think it's a very real thing that we should take seriously and we need to grapple with, and we need to offer it an honest response, a response that's rooted in actually solving these problems," she added. "Otherwise, people will turn to fascism, to mini Trump, which is who I think Spencer Pratt really represents."

Spencer Pratt may be viewed by some as a mini-Trump, but largely in the sense that his candidacy is a reaction to the excesses of the left, built around a platform of straightforward, common-sense policies. He wants to clean up the streets, address the homelessness crisis, allow police to arrest criminals, prosecute offenders, and root out fraud in city government. None of those proposals are particularly radical, which is why Pratt argues his message is resonating not just with Republicans, but with voters across the political spectrum.

Candidates like Nithya Raman represent, is a continuation of the very policies many voters believe created the crisis in cities like Los Angeles. As more moderate or “common sense” candidates attempt to address problems tied to crime, homelessness, and government dysfunction, progressives often respond by blaming Republicans or Democrats who refuse to move further left.

If anything, Democrats from the early 2000s would sound far closer to many modern Republicans than they would to today’s progressive wing. It is, in fact, the progressive movement that has pushed the party toward increasingly unpopular policies and, in doing so, set Democrats up for political failure. In other words, the very policies Raman champions are the reason a Republican like Spencer Pratt now has a legitimate opening in the mayoral race.

And until progressives are willing to confront the consequences of those policies and acknowledge that many voters believe they have made conditions worse rather than better, little is likely to change, at least in progressive strongholds. 

Californians are deeply familiar with the failures associated with progressivism; they have been living under those policies for more than a decade. While that frustration has not yet fully transformed the state’s voting patterns, both the Los Angeles mayoral race and the gubernatorial race suggest the political landscape may be beginning to shift.

Across California, growing numbers of voters appear increasingly frustrated with crime, homelessness, bureaucracy, and the rising cost of living, issues opponents often tie to progressive governance. Whether that frustration spreads nationally remains to be seen, especially as many Democrats continue embracing more progressive candidates and policies heading into the 2026 midterm elections.