Predictably, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is cheerleading for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his demagoguery on immigration. Birds of a feather stick together, to put it as gently as possible.
Limbaugh’s blast today (from his transcript) includes a lot of fulminating against “the Beltway” and the media, of course, but it also includes a classic example of the Big Lie, as defined by Adolf Hitler in his classic “My Struggle,” meaning “a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” (Wikipedia)
In this case Limbaugh lies and tells his followers that:
Look at California. If you want to find the future of the Republican Party and the country, look at California. There isn’t a single Republican in statewide office. There never will be in the future. It’s not gonna happen. The Republican Party practically doesn’t exist statewide…And I’ll tell you when you can tie it to. You can tie the end of the Republican Party in California to 1986, and that was the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty immigration bill. We’re talking back then 3.9 million illegal aliens granted amnesty. Since then it’s been curtains for the Republican Party, which means constant victory for the Democrat Party.
[that’s from the transcript on Limbaugh’s site, folks]
Well, the truth is that California Republicans were doing just fine, despite the state’s well-known liberalism, throughout the 80’s and well into the 90’s — heck, the state elected Arnold Schwarzenneger governor for two terms, beginning in 2003. The collapse of the party had nothing to do with Simpson-Mazzoli and amnesty (passed by Ronald Reagan’s administration, of course).
The collapse of the California GOP followed the passage of a GOP-led anti-immigration act called Proposition 187 in l994. Before the passage of that law, Latinos in California were fairly supportive of the Republican party — among males, the GOP had about 50 percent backing.
This is a consensus analysis, as evidenced by this chart published a couple of months ago in the LA Times.
To accompany the chart, the paper writes:
1994, California voters approved Proposition 187, a controversial ballot measure to deny public services, such as public education and healthcare, to people in the country illegally.
Although most of its provisions were struck down in court, passage of the initiative was a seminal event in recent California political history.
It energized a growing Latino voter population and badly damaged the image of the Republican Party, which was most closely associated with the measure, helping turn California into one of the bluest states in the country.
An effort, led by Latino lawmakers, is now underway in Sacramento to wipe Proposition 187 from the books.
One measure of the political sea change in the 20 years since the initiative passed is the number of Latino lawmakers in the Legislature then and now; with larger numbers comes greater clout.
The Latino lawmakers of today succeeded: Prop 187 has now been completely wiped off the books. Even as Limbaugh and Trump champion even cruder measures to insult and deport the Latino population nationwide.
The nihilism of the extreme right is something to behold. Cheerleading the self-destruction of the GOP! Who would’ve thunk it?
Kit Stolz 