In 1994, California Republican Governor Pete Wilson promoted the passage of Proposition 187, to bar any services to undocumented or illegal immigrants, including education, health care and other social services in the Golden State.
It passed, but divided the state, and ultimately, was declared unconstitutional in 1998, and was never put into effect, but its long term effect was to destroy the Republican Party in California, with the only statewide office holder since then being Arnold Schwarzenegger, himself a celebrity and an immigrant as Governor.
The Republican Party has been decimated in the state legislature and in Congress, and the state has been steadily “Blue” in Presidential elections ever since, even though the state had had a long history of conservative Republicans in office, headed by Ronald Reagan, but including others before and after his time as Governor of the state.
So the Democrats have a great edge in national elections, with the automatic 55 electoral votes of California insuring a Democratic advantage for the Presidency.
But the Republican Party nationally has not learned from this, and instead has alienated both Hispanic and Latino Americans, and also Asian Americans, and in the last election, both groups have gone Democratic with more than 70 percent support, and probably higher in this next Presidential election.
There is a very good chance that North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana, Arizona, and even eventually, Texas, will go “Blue” either this year or certainly by 2020 or 2024, and when that happens, the Republican Party nationally is doomed in its efforts to win the White House for the long term.
So Donald Trump’s nativism is the disaster equivalent to what Pete Wilson did a generation ago to the largest state in the Union.
The old saying is: “As California goes, so goes the nation!” Nothing more true can be said!