Prop. 187 Is a Search for Scapegoats : When the economy starts to crumble, our tolerance for those who are different evaporates.

Why are we so mean?

Two years ago, this close to the election, a majority of voters, goaded by Gov. Pete Wilson, were determined to pass a proposition drastically cutting welfare payments. At the last moment, the voters came to their senses. Realizing that 70% of welfare recipients are children and that making them go hungry does not represent serious welfare reform, they voted the governor’s proposition down.

This time a majority, again fired up by a governor who apparently knows no limits of decency, tell pollsters that they intend to vote for Proposition 187, which purports to curtail illegal immigration but which does nothing of the sort. Maybe the tide will turn by Election Day as people come to recognize that immigration reform means closing the border and sanctioning employers rather than forcing children out of the schools and onto the streets.

But why must we go through this demeaning exercise in which a basically decent and generous people surrender to vituperation?

We know why the governor takes these stands; he is an intrinsically unpopular fellow bereft of warmth or conviction who connects with the voters only with appeals to base fear. But why do so many voters buy it?

The answer, sadly enough, can be found in a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. When Germany was prosperous, its society was highly civilized in the sense of being open to those who were different. But when the economy crumbled, civility evaporated, and the hunt was on for scapegoats.

Hopefully, we are very far from being in a comparable situation. But there are troubling signs of economic distress and failed expectations on the part of too many Americans raised to believe that constant material improvement is a birthright. And it is this discontent which fuels the bonfires of the demagogues.

Consider the stark findings of the recent census report on income and poverty: Median household income in the United States, in real dollars, has declined by more than 7% since 1989. For households in the central cities, real income is down an astounding 12%. What this documents is a reversal of the American dream that has been under way since the end of the ‘60s. It is a national, not a regional phenomenon, meaning it has nothing to do with illegal immigration, which seriously impacts only a few states.

At the same time, there has been a sharp increase, again nationally, in class differences. The latest census figures show that almost 40 million Americans live below the official government poverty level, almost 7 million more than five years ago. In California, one in five live in poverty.

We are increasingly a society of the working poor scratching an existence out of low-wage jobs. No wonder that many citizens who qualify for welfare reject such jobs, leaving them for the undocumented who, despite the lies of the pro-187 people, are not eligible for the dole. Want to stop illegal immigration? Then raise the minimum wage to a living wage and enforce it.

Our economic malaise has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with the end of U.S. predominance in the world market. The stark result: the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs and the end of trade unions as major players in setting wage rates. We are no longer a society where an ordinary, working person can live proud.

Gone are the clear tracks to a better life for one’s children. Now, colleges are expensive and offer no guarantee of a good-paying job. Gone also is the security that hard work guarantees a job until retirement. For many people, this is a frightening turn of events and they thrash about for explanation of how this could have happened. Who is to blame?

Historically, in this country as elsewhere, the easiest target is the stranger. Strange by color, religion, language, country of origin--the “other.” Two years ago, the target of opportunity was the welfare mother. Today, it’s the illegal immigrant.

The governor is thrilled that this hunt for scapegoats resonates: that Latinos who are legal might turn on those who are not, or that blacks could be induced to lash out at browns. He acts as if the ugly notion of divide and conquer is his own salvation.

As editorial writers for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and virtually every paper in this state have written, along with conservative commentators including Abe Rosenthal, William Safire and Jack Kemp, Wilson’s championing of Proposition 187 represents a profound moral failure. Whatever his and the proposition’s fortunes in this election, Wilson’s career now bears, indelibly, the mark of shame.