The 1986 Immigration Bill Flipped California
RUSH: This is Bob in Merced, California. Great to have you with us, sir. What's shaking? What's happening? What's up?
CALLER: God bless you, Mr. Limbaugh. I wanted to say mega dittos from Merced, California, a steadfast and unmovable deplorable.
RUSH: Yes, there are a bunch of them there. I happen to know.
CALLER: Hey, I just wanted to thank you for the influence that you've had over our family. My dad turned me on to you back in the nineties. I was in my twenties, and I knew that I was a Reagan Republican, but my dad said, "No, son. We're conservatives. And if you want to understand what it means to be a conservative, you need to listen to this man Rush Limbaugh out of Sacramento." So I started listening, and it took me a little while to understand you, being in my twenties, because of my age and so forth. But I finally did, and then I was hooked, and so you have shaped my life. My dad, myself, my three children are all now very dedicated conservatives, and now they're having children of their own, and we're believing that a fourth generation will be shaped by the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. So I want to thank you for that.
RUSH: That's just a beautiful thing. That's wonderful. I can't thank you enough.
CALLER: Well, my granddaughter will be reading the Rush Revere books; I can assure you that. And I can't wait 'til she's old enough. She's only two. Got another one on the way. She's in the making. She'll be here in May. But anyway, I can't wait to read those books to them and shape them. But the reason I called was I was wondering if you, you know, having seen these states that have previously voted Democrat come on board with Trump, those of us in California who thought in 2012 that we had lost the country and that it was over and that there was no hope, having seen this turnaround now, even people like us here in California have some renewed hope and vigor, and I was wondering if you could offer a strategy, some advice to us here in California to maybe inspire some hope that maybe we can effect change here in California. You might even have to unfetter that other side of your brain to answer this one.
RUSH: California is a huge challenge. It's easier to explain what happened to California than it is to tell you what to do to fix it. When I lived in California, 1984 to '87, it was a Republican state. Sacramento where I lived was 73% Democrat voter registration, when I got there. It was in the sixties when I left. We had amazing success in converting Democrats in Sacramento. But Pete Wilson, Ronald Reagan, all people elected governors and so forth, it's only been with the advent of the 1986 immigration bill that we lost California, if I might say, and now it's just gone so far left they're seriously talking about seceding. Seriously.
RUSH: We just had a call from Merced, California, a guy wanted to know ultimately what he could do, what anybody could do, what we could do to flip California, because it was just in the 1980s and prior that the Republican Party literally owned that state. Well, that's a bit far. The Democrats had the state assembly a lot of those years. But, you know, Reagan was a two-term governor, George Deukmejian, there was Pete Wilson, and even Schwarzenegger was a Republican in name, as far as party identification.
You want to trace California's move to the far left, you go back to the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli bill. Simpson-Mazzoli was where we granted amnesty to, at the time, what was three and a half million illegal aliens. And that's it. We were told that would be it. We would start being strict about guarding the borders and making sure that there wasn't any more illegal immigration, but that didn't happen. That was the design. Ted Kennedy, Simpson-Mazzoli, it was their idea here and it's worked out magnificently for them to this extent.
This is a Breitbart story that just was published yesterday. You ready for this headline? "Mexican Presidential Candidate Holds Anti-Trump Rally in Los Angeles." What more needs to be said? A guy running for the presidency of Mexico, Wendy, is campaigning in Los Angeles. I'm sure he's also campaigning in Mexico City, he's campaigning in Guadalajara, he's campaigning at the night of the iguana, he's campaigning at Cabo, but he's also campaigning in Los Angeles. And I'm sure he'll stop in San Diego on the way back.
If that doesn't say it all. And we're talking here about illegal. You know what the left has succeeded in doing, they have succeeded, in terms of the vernacular, the lexicon, they've redefined the word "immigration" and to tell everyone we're anti-immigrant. That's one of the whole thrusts of the existence of the Democrat Party and the left, that people like you and me are anti-immigrant, as though that wall means nobody gets in, as though we don't want anybody that's not like us in here, and that's not at all the truth.
We're all big believers in immigration. They think they've got a monopoly on this silly idea that we are a nation of immigrants, America's greatness is traceable to its immigrants. I'm sorry. I don't buy that as a stand-alone idea anyway because really what they're trying to say with that is that America's greatness is due to America's diversity, and that has not a thing to do with it. American Greatness is because of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and our country.
Greatness has nothing to do with diversity, skin color, race, ethnicity, nothing to do with it. And that's not a cut. The people that say diversity is the reason for the greatness are purposely assaulting the United States as founded. They want you to believe that America was only great for a few people as founded, because, as founded, America was gigantically discriminating against the poor and against people of color and against transgenders. Yeah, I've read the Federalist Papers, you know. James Madison, he wasn't popular with the transgender group back then. Did you know that? You won't find the word. It was not a factor, the way they have attempted to modernize things here today. It's just lies.
There's a distinct American culture that evolved from the United States founding, and that is what made America great, is what allowed the human being to become. The United States of America was the first place on earth where average people had the opportunity to become the greatest among all people. It was the first time in human history where people were allowed to pursue the best of their abilities to whatever desire they wanted, because it was a nation founded under the concept of human beings being born free.
It wasn't anything to do with immigration. It wasn't anything to do with ethnicity. It wasn't anything to do with diversity. Diversity for diversity's sake is nothing more than affirmative action and can make no claim to being part of America's greatness. And no company can say our country is great because of our diversity. They can say it but has nothing to do with it, literally nothing to do with it, how diverse you are. "Well, it just means that we don't discriminate. It means that we value all people." Fine and dandy. But unless your company makes something or has a service and you have an atmosphere where people working for you can become the best they can be, it doesn't matter what your workforce looks like, dummkopf.
Well, this is all the distortions that we have to face now, the things that we're supposed to accept. And chief among them is that immigration means anybody who wants to come in, and we don't even have to make them a citizen. If they want to come here and live it's not for you to say they can't. You're being a bigot and a homophobe and a racist or whatever if you say that. So to them, immigration is anybody who gets in, anybody who wants to come gets in. And that's not what immigration is. That's illegal immigration. And that's what is opposed.
RUSH: Richard in Santa Cruz, California. Welcome to Open Line Friday. How are you?
CALLER: Hey, it's an honor to speak to you, Mr. Limbaugh.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: Titan of truth and technology you are. I was calling because here in Santa Cruz — liberal Santa Cruz — they did a sweep of the notorious Central American gang MS-13, and instead of the people in Watsonville being happy to get rid of gang members, they went to city council and protested that we cooperated with Homeland Security. And they also had a big protest where 7,600 students didn't go to school, I believe it was yesterday, which cost the city there $410,000 of loss because they weren't teaching anybody anything.
RUSH: Well, actually be benefit.
CALLER: (laughing) Yeah, probably. It's really quite ridiculous out here. I mean, we had the whole taking away pretty much of the Second Amendment, and even the police were totally against all the proposals that were on the ballot, people still voted for it, and they've pretty much cracked down on freedom in California. I'm a really big fan of yours. I don't think people understand how difficult it is to do your job, to take three hours and make it so entertaining, and I really appreciate all the hard work that you do.
RUSH: Thank you. I appreciate that. The situation… You live in Santa Cruz. That's just got to be frustrating as hell. I mean, here you have an effort to actually get rid of illegal immigrant gang members and even the cops protest it.
CALLER: Yeah. The police here are really, really good. I had a personal tragedy and got to know some of the detective sergeants in the sheriff department pretty well, and they are good people.
RUSH: California just is so deeply left, particularly coastal. It just is.
RUSH: So I went and looked at the Santa Cruz, the Mercury News, the newspaper out there, the article. "Chanting 'let us speak,' some 100 or more protesters drew a temporary halt to Tuesday's Santa Cruz City Council meeting. The group came together in an outcry at the previous day's U.S. Department of Homeland Security raids across the county. The federal operation, undertaken in collaboration with local law enforcement, resulted in a series of arrests at 12 sites and federal indictment of 10 men, ages 20 to 40, believed to be associated with Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, transnational gang. The men faced charges related to conspiracy to commit extortion and possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute, with some suspected of involvement in local homicides, according to police."
The caller's point, people are protesting the rounding up of these people. And he lives there. What are we gonna do? We got these bad actors in town, international gang members, and Homeland Security comes in to sweep 'em off and get 'em out of town and so forth and the town people, and even some police, protest the action. Now, I can explain it, except that I have so many times, and I want to move on.
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