A lot of legal immigrants to California beginning in the 1970s came from societies with an immensely wealthy elite, a tiny middle class, and a very large peasant class.
This is the Third World model. In societies like this there is little commitment to the “common good”. Loyalty is to the family group, and if you are outside the family group you don’t really count for much.
A variation of this model is being replicated here in California by driving out American natives and replacing them with illegal aliens from all over the world. Loyalty to the ‘family group’ is replaced by loyalty to the wealthy and successful, but the majority of Californians are regarded as no more than peasants.
The more successful of the third world immigrants have been involved in California politics for decades now. When I was hanging around some GOP fundraisers in the 1980s it looked like the recent imports greatly outnumbered American natives. They were purchasing influence with campaign donations.
This likely explains the California GOPe’s lurch to the left over the years- the current GOP nominee for governor is Neel Kashkari, of dot-Indian extraction, who says he voted for Obama, who supports amnesty, abortion, gun restriction, and gay marriage.
RINO hacks Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved enthusiastically support Neel Kashkari and blackly warned that Tea Party choice Tim Donnelly was dangerous and had to be defeated. That is now the “conservatism” of the GOP establishment.
The ruling classes have thru out almost all of history made war on the middle (merchant) classes once the middle had sufficient wealth to threaten the rulers. We middle class folks in the USA are not an exception. However we do have a Constitution and it is our job to elect representatives that will enforce our Constitution. Until we do that, (looking less likely all the time) we (as a people) will deserve our fate.