In 1994, California Republicans thought they’d found the perfect wedge issue: Proposition 187. The ballot measure promised to strip undocumented immigrants of health care, education, and other basic services. It was Pete Wilson’s cynical ploy to save his career, and for a moment, it worked. But in the long run, Prop 187 backfired spectacularly—it radicalized a generation of Latino and immigrant voters, turned California deep blue, and buried the state GOP in a grave of its own making.
Enter Rep. Jay Obernolte, dusting off that same failed playbook and pretending it’s fresh. He wraps himself in MAGA’s flag and cheers on Trump’s war against immigrants: militarizing the border, cheering family separations, backing bans on asylum, and defending the grotesque spectacle of children in cages. He even backs Trump’s fantasy of mass deportations—a scheme so cruel and so costly it would make Prop 187 look like a bad dress rehearsal.
Let’s be clear: Obernolte isn’t standing up for taxpayers. He isn’t protecting “American jobs.” He’s playing culture-war cosplay, betting his career on scapegoating the very immigrant communities that built California’s economy. The farmworkers who pick our food, the nurses who staff our hospitals, the tech workers who keep our systems running—Obernolte treats them like enemies while bowing to a billionaire-backed movement that thrives on division.
The parallels to Prop 187 are too obvious to ignore. Back then, children were terrified of going to school for fear their families would be reported. Today, Trump and Obernolte’s immigration crackdowns spread the same climate of fear: ICE raids at workplaces, asylum seekers turned away to face violence, migrants treated as political pawns instead of human beings. It’s the same cruelty, just updated for the MAGA era.
And just like Pete Wilson, Obernolte is too shortsighted to see the backlash coming. Prop 187 didn’t save the GOP—it destroyed it in California. Now, Obernolte is helping Trump drag the entire Republican Party down the same path nationwide.
Jay Obernolte isn’t protecting America. He’s protecting a political career propped up by fear and hate. California has already rejected this garbage once, and if history is any guide, voters will do it again. Prop 187 turned the state against Republican extremism; Obernolte’s Trump-lite pandering may help turn the country against it, too.
Because here’s the truth: scapegoating immigrants is a cheap trick. And cheap tricks don’t last.
Comments
Post a Comment