Divided We Won’t Stand

It’s a fragile time for Los Angeles. The last couple of years have been traumatic, exposing the city’s divisions. On top of social tensions, economic strains are stressing Los Angeles, where business failures jumped 73% over 1991. The situation is one that will inspire either extraordinary leadership or ordinary demagoguery. Which will it be? Will the candidates for mayor exploit group passions, or work to restore and heal the city?

No candidate is likely to admit that he or she seeks to exploit divisiveness in Los Angeles. Surely it is not exploitative to talk about the problems that face the city; the candidates indeed have an obligation not only to identify the problems but set forth solutions. It is how those problems are described and how a candidate proposes to deal with them that will separate the leaders from the less gifted.

Take, for example, illegal immigration and the condition of public education in Los Angeles. These are two issues that rightly deserve serious attention. Both are gut issues that speak to the quality of life available here. But is it constructive to make illegal immigrants the focus of a mayoral campaign? Is it constructive for a candidate to jump on a bandwagon to break off the San Fernando Valley from L.A. Unified School District when the mayor has no legal authority over the schools and when education reformers are working hard to straighten out the public schools?

Plumbing passions of the moment don’t make make for good policy, and it certainly doesn’t make for good governance of a diverse city.