Trib columnist criticized ‘Good Trouble’ protests. Readers are pushing back | Opinion

Aristocratic nonsense

It appears Clive Pinder — British citizen, self-said “reformed” conservative Tory, émigré living the wine hobbyist’s life on a hill in Templeton — hasn’t quite gotten over the Boston Tea Party.

Protesting against violent, oppressive, lawless government is embedded in the American DNA. It’s the rock upon which our national character was founded, a cornerstone of the American psyche.

It’s unsurprising an English royalist might not understand or appreciate this fundamental feature of Americanism, given his former life under the class-based monarchy on which the once-expansive British empire perches.

Pinder’s recent screed in the SLO Tribune mocks local street activists who are demanding due process, the rule of law, adherence to the Constitution, common decency from an outlaw federal government. He distracts from what the protests are all about with a “whataboutism” tour de force: homelessness, high housing costs, drug addiction, etc.

Without offering a whiff of solution, Pinder recites a litany of easily Googleable ills besetting his newfound home state – the largest, wealthiest, most politically progressive in the nation, bastion of anti-Trumpism resistance to actual, documentable tyranny – a place he’s chosen to live free from monarchy, for now.

Pinder blows past the needlessly violent, masked kidnappings and disappearings, the warrantless searches, the demand for “papers!” from brown people, the heavily armed militarization of American streets. He scolds us never to reference 1930s Germany when discussing government atrocities in the United States today, never to remind anyone that the fascist rise to power in Europe then is the template the Trump government is following now.

No thanks, Clive. Keep your foreign, patrician distain for the American character. Clutch your contempt for the American tradition of rebelling against oppressors. Don your smoking jacket, stuff your apologia for dictatorship into your pipe, then puff on it. Like the Americans who dumped British tea into Boston Harbor some 251 years ago, we’ll do just fine without anyone’s aristocratic advice.

Tom Fulks, chair

SLO County Democratic Party

Are you part of the solution?

So, dear Clive Pinder, what are you doing to make California a better place for all of us? If you’re a member of the Republican Party, not much. If you approve of the criminal administration we now find ourselves stuck with, then you’re doing nothing. Instead of demonizing Sacramento politicians, why don’t you run for office yourself and see how you do!

Victoria Grostic

San Luis Obispo

No ‘groupthinkers’ here

Regarding: “SLO County’s ‘Good Trouble’ protests ignore a state in crisis” The idea that activists in SLO County or elsewhere shouldn’t protest because “this isn’t Selma” ignores John Lewis’ actual message. He believed democracy requires constant participation — not just when it’s convenient, not just when the issues are dramatic enough to warrant bloodshed. It’s not “virtue signaling” to care about inequity, poverty or injustice. It’s not “groupthink” to challenge systems that repeatedly fail working people. It’s called being engaged. Cynicism may feel cool and clever, but it doesn’t build homes, heal patients or educate children. California is imperfect. It is messy. But it’s also trying — imperfectly but earnestly — to address deep structural problems other states pretend don’t exist. And it’s full of people, including those “Good Trouble” protesters, who are committed to making it better, not mocking those who try. It seems like the California conservative call is to bash California without offering solutions. Let’s spend less time sneering at “yard signs promising equity” and more time asking what we can build together.

Jill Stegman

Grover Beach

Why we protest

Mr. Pinder’s critique of local “Good Trouble” protests suggests activists aim their fire at the two decades of Democratic rule in Sacramento, instead of speaking out against authoritarianism in Washington, DC.

Although he makes a few solid points regarding poverty, access to healthcare and K-12 school funding, it is hard to imagine that he wouldn’t prefer to spend even less trying to address California’s structural inequality.

As the Trump administration assaults American democracy almost daily, enabled by cowards in Congress and on SCOTUS, Pinder is lost in the trees while the forrest burns. We need leaders from both parties who care about improving the loves of the American people, not condescending blowhards belittling their fellow citizens for protesting tyranny.

We are Americans; we can work for better leadership on bread and butter issues while expressing outrage at the destruction of our political system. These two are not mutually exclusive.

Rebecca Bernhardt

Austin, Texas

Editor’s note: The writer is a San Luis Obispo Senior High graduate, class of 1989.

Your assignment: Thank a teacher

Just got home from the San Luis Obispo High Class of ‘95 reunion. It was great to see former students, hear about their lives and receive compliments about my teaching. I came away flattered and pumped. I have a request for all of you who had a favorite teacher during your education: Please take the steps to contact them in whatever way works best. Explain how they were important in your life. Thank them for being the right person at the right time. Praise from former students is the highest honor any teacher can achieve. Please repay your teacher(s)’ efforts by letting them know they are remembered and valued. It will make both of you feel great. Mark Lopez Arroyo Grande

Silence is acquiescence

Ray Weymann (letters, July 26) is right. The intentional blockade of food aid to Palestinians in Gaza is a war crime, of which the Netanyahu regime is guilty, and in which the U.S. government and we taxpayers are complicit.

Not only is it a violation of international law (Geneva Convention), it also violates the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, which outlaws shipment of military equipment to any entity that blocks U.S. humanitarian aid to those in need and violates human rights.

The Biden/Harris administration blocked funding for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), long the most effective organization at delivering aid, based on false claims that it’s infested with Hamas agents. The Trump/Vance regime has continued that denial of assistance.

Not only is the Netanyahu regime an outlaw, so are we outlaws, in supplying the machinery for genocide and denying food to its remaining survivors. Silence is acquiescence.

David Broadwater

Atascadero

This story was originally published August 3, 2025 at 10:00 AM.