May Be Largest Protest In City History

As an Angeleno, what is stunning to me about the photo above is the size of the crowd. We are not a protest-oriented town. The Times doesn’t say it explicitly but I suspect this was the largest protest ever in Los Angeles:

Attendance at the demonstration far surpassed the number of people who protested against the Vietnam War and Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that sought to deny public benefits to undocumented migrants but was struck down by the courts. Police said there were no arrests or injuries except for a few cases of exhaustion.

The national Republican Party has apparently learned nothing from the self-inflicted wound that hobbled the California GOP in the 1990s. Under Gov. Pete Wilson, Republicans used immigration as a wedge issue in the 1994 elections by putting Proposition 187 on the ballot.

It passed overwhelmingly, but the blowback was harsh. Prop 187 motivated thousands of Latinos whose families have lived here for generations to register as Democrats. Many of these new Democrats were culturally conservative Catholics, who would have been ripe for the picking by the GOP.

The immigration issue sent California Republicans into the political wilderness, where they will wander for 40 years, at least.

As a Democrat, I hope the GOP follows through on its plan to “nationalize” the immigration issue this year. Let them reap the whirlwind.