Trump's Legacy-Storm Troopers

IntroductionAmerican politics has taken a dramatic turn during the past twenty years, and not for the better.Recently, it seems the Republican Party has sold it's Soul to the Devil, leaving the 'Party of Lincoln and Reagan in the dimming past, now a puppet organization wrapped in admiration of the most destructive President and his administration in our history.The following article, written by my oldest Son, Kirk Effinger, a frequent Opinion writer, was recently featured In the...
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IntroductionAmerican politics has taken a dramatic turn during the past twenty years, and not for the better.Recently, it seems the Republican Party has sold it's Soul to the Devil, leaving the 'Party of Lincoln and Reagan in the dimming past, now a puppet organization wrapped in admiration of the most destructive President and his administration in our history.The following article, written by my oldest Son, Kirk Effinger, a frequent Opinion writer, was recently featured In the Michael Smerconish Newsletter and on his daily Series radio show:"As California goes, so goes the Nation." While this particular sentiment has been used as a pejorative in recent years, so far as the Republican Party goes, it may become a harbinger. Wails of indignation among conservative ranks about the dominion over California's politics held by the Democratic Party fails to acknowledge the GOP's complicity in the party's descent into electoral irrelevance. The conditions that led to this sorry state of affairs in its largest state is being writ large in the whole of the United States.To appreciate what happened in California, and how it applies nationally, we must go back to 1994. In that year, and following several years of illegal/undocumented immigration, as well as a damaging recession a few years earlier that many of the state's residents saw as threatening their state's economy, Proposition 187 (also known as the SOS "Save Our State" initiative) was placed on the ballot. The initiative sought to create a state-run citizenship screening system and deny access to a host of taxpayer-funded services, including non-emergency healthcare, public schools, public housing, etc. Seeing this as a winning message among its base constituency, the Republican Party and the state's unpopular Governor Pete Wilson enthusiastically flogged it to the electorate, where it won by a 59%-41% margin (and secured Wilson's reelection), with only counties around the Bay Area in opposition. They didn't realize it then, and few will admit to it now, but this was the beginning of the end of the California GOP.Whether or not the intent of the initiative was to address failure on the part of the federal government to adequately address immigration policy and its effects on the state economy, it cemented the party in the eyes of many as one that catered to a narrow (white) constituency, content to support mean-spirited policies affecting disadvantaged people of color. When federal district court rulings disallowed most provisions of the initiative, the net effect was a toothless law and a disenfranchised Latino community. Most politicians, faced with an erosion of their support, would pivot in order to garner enough votes to win election. That isn't what happened. Instead, the ensuing years have seen a parade of policy proposals and candidates that have refuse to recognize the changing demographics of the state. This has led to a diminishment of the party to such a level that not a single statewide office is held by a Republican. Republicans hold a mere 7 of the state's 53 congressional seats. In the legislature, Democrats outnumber Republicans 61-18 in the Assembly, and 29-11 in the State Senate. Democrats have had control of the Governorship, Assembly, and Senate for ten-straight years and the state legislature since 1997.The California GOP's doctrinaire policies forcing candidates to adhere to an ideological purity standard, has led to a steady erosion of the party's membership and influence. GOP registration in the state now ranks third, behind Democrat and NPP (No Party Preference). This "purity" standard in 2018, in one example, led the party machinery to not support a Hispanic, retired Marine Colonel for the party's nomination to the Congressional seat being left vacant by the retiring Darrell Issa.